A sausage kind of day.

[Kingcreek]

I got out deer hunting for the first time this season and arrowed a nice doe 40 minutes later.
We have a 1/2 beef coming soon so other than backstraps, the venison is going into sausage.
Home alone yesterday so I made 5 pounds of jerky (in the smoker) 20 pounds of summer sausage (going in the smoker when the jerky is done) and 20 pounds of breakfast sausage in 1 pound tubes.
I will probably make another 5 pounds of jerky marinade while the summer sausage is smoking.
Today would be a good day to hunt again but I’ll be tending the smoker off and on and I don’t feel like butchering again yet.
I like the LEM brand seasonings. No MSG. I have an electric grinder and I grind once through a course plate then mix with spices and run through a fine grind with a stuffing tube and directly into the casings or tubes.
The sealing tape gadget for the ground meat tubes is a worthwhile investment. A meat mixer would be nice to have. A vertical sausage stuffer would be nice too if I was doing brats or polish but I’ve managed ok with just the grinder and cones for many years.
I mix 7 pounds venison with 3 pounds of pork butt for every 10 pounds of sausage. I call the local meat cutter to have them set aside the pork butts as they come in (untrimmed) for me. The ones they put in the case get the fat trimmed.
Some of it goes out at Christmas. I think our mail carrier would cry if he didn’t get his roll of summer sausage. I’ll take some to my brothers in law at thanksgiving and my granddaughters hit it hard when they come for Christmas.
Funny but as I type this, it sounds like the coyotes just found the deer parts I tossed up in the old pasture.

[Kingcreek]

If any of you are doing the math and wondering, this is Illinois and this whitetail doe weighed 130 pounds field dressed on the scale. We grow our deer pretty big here.

[French G.]

It's all that Monsanto GMO corn y'all are feeding them. :D

I've got no such lofty goals, I would like to shoot a couple this year, no bow, so patiently waiting for muzzleloader. Maybe by then the bugs and copperheads go back to hell where they belong.

Only thing I really want to make is dehydrated liver slices, the dogs love those things.

[Kingcreek]

I’ve made liver snacks for the dog before but didn’t save the liver this time. I’m not sure why. I wasn’t in a hurry and there was plenty of daylight left.
My wife really likes the bulk sausage. She uses it in a lot of things. We used to eat a lot of venison but since we started buying really good beef from my cousin, she cares not for the venison stew meat or roasts. She makes a nice dish from marinated pan seared medallions from the backstraps though with a ginger glaze.
I’ve done all my own butchering and sausage for 25 years. Last time I took a deer to the locker and saw some of the other deer there I didn’t even want mine hanging next to them.
Fortunately I have a finished garage with radiant floor heat, abundant overhead lighting, and a double laundry sink, and floor drains. Also have a hoist in the barn and an extra old freezer if temperatures demand it.