Corned beef/venison brats (in Reuben)

[Dave in AZ]

I had some beef crossrib pieces frozen, along with brisket fat, pork fat, and venison. Decided to make some Corned Beef Brats. Mostly because of all the great food posts here on corned beef and reubens Here they are on a reuben for lunch today, on some sourdough rye bread I made yesterday.

Corned beef /venison brats
1000 g ground venison
1000 g ground lean beef, 4.5mm
250g ground pork fat 3mm
250g ground brisket fat 3mm
2.2% salt <<wanted a bit salty
0.25% cure#1
0.5 % nonfat dry milk <<binder, (normal stuff from Safeway, Walton’s was out of the better High Heat stuff on my last order. This works well, the HH stuff apparently works better)
8% water
0.1% ascorbic acid (vitamin c, 1x 1000mg tablet per kg meat, cure accelerator for strong color and no cure rest, stuff then smoke 2 hrs later)
0.1% each coriander seed, mustard seed

1. Grind beef and fat separately, beef 4.5mm fat 3mm. Venison pre ground.
2. Mix spices, cure1, with most of the water. Add to meat with salt, mix in Kitchenaid 1 min. Add ascorbic acid mixed with remainder of water and binder (NFDM), mix 3 min. Add fats, mix 1 to 2 min to blend evenly. Ensure good protein extraction, blend more if needed… Kitchenaid mixer extracts super fast with paddle compared to my 25lbs hand mixer.
3. Stuff into 32mm hog casings. Link at 6".
4. Dry in fridge on racks 2 hrs, accelerated cure working.
5. Into preheated 120f smoker 30 min to dry more, increase to 130f add smoke 1 hr.
6. I didn’t want a lot of smoke, so I pulled them off, bagged them in 1gal bags 1 layer with air removed, and then Sous Vide finished them.
7. SV cooked to 160f for 1 hr. Supposedly the max color from nitrite cure happens at 160f, as well as instant lethality at 161f per USFDA chart I have, so went to there. Probably only needed 15 or 20 min, but I didnt check internal temp til 1 hr, got busy.
8. Dumped in ice bath 15 min, air dried, into freezer for later bagging.

I posted the sourdough rye recipe in the Sourdough thread.

Taste:
Tasted exactly like corned beef. I had debated using allspice and juniper, which is sometimes in the commercial boil spice packs, but decided to play it safe and skip. Nice good pink corned beef color. I used a bit of the brisket fat to ensure it had that CB fat flavor, I liked it. Saltiness-- good, bit salty like corned beef usually is. I probably wouldn’t use more than 2.2 or 2.3%, but did want a strong salt/corned flavor.
Next time changes: I might let cure in fridge 1 day do I for sure get full salt/protein cure throughout. I’d skip the vitamin c if I did. I think I got the full cured flavor and color, but just want to try a longer sit to be sure. I might add 1 bay leaf and 1 or 2 berries of allspice and juniper to the roughly 6lb block.

[gus4416]

Dave in AZ looks really good hope the taste was there

[Dave in AZ]

gus4416 thx gus, I think they were pretty close. On the reuben with all that other stuff and flavors they definitely were “corned beef” tasting. I know I read some posts of folks making these with pork, which made me think the venison should be able to carry the flavor if I also use some beef.
Honestly being able to see past the sausage texture was the hardest part to think “corned beef”.
I guess the proof will be if my wife and kids eat the rest up though!

[markan120]

Dave in AZ , sounds fantastic, though I’m a bit confused by several ingredient amounts listed as “%”. Is this a typo, or do I just not understand? Please help, I’d love to try it. Thanks

[Dave in AZ]

markan120
Thx much! I think the best way to write recipes is with all ingredients listed as a percentage of the total meat block. That way it isn’t just for 5 lbs, 10 lbs, 3kg; it now works with whatever recipe size you want to make. All ingredients should be weighed for accuracy anyways since 1t might be 2g or 4g depending on your spice grind or dryness etc.
It is extremely simple if you just use metric. For example: if you are making 1kg of sausage, that is 1000g of meat or about 2.2 lbs, then:
0.1% is the same as 1/1000, since 1 percent is 1/100th. So 0.5% pepper would be 5/1000 th of 1000g meat block, or 5 grams of pepper. If you want to make 3kg of sausage, roughly 6.6 lbs, and the recipe calls for 0.25% cure#1 (the correct USFDA amount), then that is just 2.5g x 3, or 7.5g. If it calls for 1.8% salt, that is 18 grams. Easy peasy.

Its nice to not have to be super exact with the meat. If you grind it all up and weigh it and you have say 5200g of meat, and recipe says 2% salt, well then 0.02 is 2%, x 5200g, 104g salt. Etc.

I just use a reloading scale to measure spices, they all can be changed in units from grains to grams if desired.
Marianski says in his book that all recipes should be written that way, as a more professional method, so I just decided to take his advice and do it that way. Or at least written for 1000g meat block, making conversions super simple.
Hope that helps!

[markan120]

Very helpful! Thanks for the clarification. Can’t wait to try it

[mrobisr]

This post is deleted!

[mrobisr]

Dave in AZ Looks very good.

[Dave in AZ]

mrobisr thx, you almost can’t go wrong with anything reuben

[mrobisr]

Dave in AZ I cannot argue with that.