Thought I would share a picture of my final product for the year. This my 2nd year doing maple syrup, last year we made right around 2gallons. My hope last year was to double my output…well I finished just a touch over 9gallons. Took about 3weeks with a few very late late nights which made work really drag on the next day. Im in North Central Minnesota, and its pretty much the end for everyone. I pulled my taps on saturday during my final boil. Im guessing I collected around 280 gallons of sap this year.

I decided to try my hand at brats with some pork trim and a little venison I had left over from last year. I’ve made a few brats before but theyve never been good. (With the exception of some venison andouille)

I split a few seasoning with a buddy and had 4 - 12.5 lb amounts of seasoning.
Philly Cheese
Chicago
Blue Ribbon added high temp cheddar cheese
Onion & Garlic.

I did 4 - 10lb batches 70pork/30venison. I thawed all the pork and venison which had been coarse ground 1x. I think mixed the seasonings and meats lightly by hand and ground through the fine plate. Stuffed in 32mm hog casings. I need some practice in stuffing and linking but I’ll get there I hope. Vac sealed and froze. So far I’ve had the chicago and blue ribbon, I gotta say these are both amazing. I agree with John that brat casings are to big for most buns.

Wild Game Pastrami

Put all your ingredients into a pot on the stove, you do not need to add all the water (1/2 is fine). Warm the brine until sugar and salt are dissolved and pickling spice has stained the water. Then let cool.
Place meat + brine (including extra water you may not of had on the stove) in a plastic container and will hold meat plus 1gallon of brine. Place container into the fridge for 5-7days. Its not a bad idea to turn the meat 1-2x during the brining process.

Remove meat after 5-7days and rinse under cold water. Place into plastic container and run cold water until meat is submerged; you’re desalinating the meat. Change water every 2-4 hours at least 3x. I usually try to get a 6-8hour soak with 3 water changes minimum.

Remove from desalination container and pat dry with paper towel. Apply rub heavily. I usually try to apply the rub to the point I can barely see the meat; pat the rub in do not rub it. I want to make a seasoning crust with it.

I smoke the meat starting in the 180-190 smoker temp, after the 90min I increase the temp to 225 until a 155 internal temp. Remove from smoker and place into refrigerator until cool. Use a slicer or slicing knife and cut to desired thickness.

Brine
5lb raw weight whole muscle
1 gallon water
1 cup salt
2 teaspoons cure #1
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons pickling spice
2 tablespoons of garlic (3 cloves minced)

Rub
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons coriander powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
1 teaspoon mustard powder

Disclaimer + opinion: This recipe was originated from amazingribs.com Close to Katz article. I have made the recipe following exactly with beef and then when I switched to wild game I started to modify the recipe to my liking. My favorite cut to use is a venison top or bottom round muscle. I also have used whole Canadian goose breast always turns out good. If you reference back to the article I cant stress enough there is no need to steam the muscle or smoke to an IT of 202. With wild game there is very little intramuscle connective tissue to break down or fat to render.

Enjoy.

With hog prices being through the floor last spring (And still) I picked up a hog and butchered and processed myself. Almost the whole thing is gone over the summer. Except the hams. I deboned them and tied some of the muscles to keep them nice and round. I did the sirloin tip roast whole 17lbs and then separated top/bottom rounds. Dry EQ cured the small ones and wet EQ cured the big roasts. Hot smoked till I hit 140-145ish IT and pulled and put the fridge to hang out for a few days. Then ran them through the slicer. I did a 3% salt, 1.25% sugar and .25% cure. Turned out very good as any store bought smoked ham I’ve had.

Sliced it thin and vac sealed in 1/3lb packages for a single serve style package. Just a couple good sandwiches per package. If I do any more after vac sealing then I would put whats left in to a zip lock to store for a few days and then throw the zip lock away…seems like a waste of $$ when I can vac seal for 1/20 of what a zip lock costs.

.25% of the weight in cure #1. if your using a wet brine add the weight of your meat and water. I would take a look at amazingribs.com Close to Katz recipe. Its a spot on process. I’ve adapted the recipe for wild game and my version is in the User Recipe area.

You ever find that recipe and its just 100% the first time? Yeah, me neither. I found a 100% pork andouille recipe on FB a few years ago. I tried it with an 80/20 venison/pork mix the first time and it was great…but not perfect. IN the last few years I’ve tweaked it a few times. Im getting there…this is excellent and super simple recipe to follow. Tomorrow I’ll try to throw up the recipe when I get to work and have my PC handy.
60 venison, 10 pork fat, 30 ground pork trim. Course ground then fine ground. Mixed by hand until my hands couldnt take the cold any more…(didnt wanna dirty up the mixer for only 7lbs). stuffed in hog casing. Left 36 hours in the fridge then smoked 140-165-185-200 till an IT of 150 and then I killed the smoker and left them sit while I was attending to some other things outside before I could pull them.

processhead the best well known eq calculator I see shared on social media is http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

The eq calculator is adjustable and I from what I see on social media most people prefer 1.8% salt 1% sugar .25% cure. Personally I like 2.2%salt 1.2%sugar .25%cure. I’ve made somewhere between 600-700 lbs of bacon since April '20 when I bought my new pellet smoker.

The glass flask bottles came from amazon, last year they were the cheapest thing I could find. They are re-used from last years batch. All the syrup bottles are from a little shop in a town near me that has a syrup supply area in the back corner.
processhead as far as the cap colors, there is no difference. My dog got ahold of one of the bag and chewed on some so I bought replacements; they just happened to be a different color. Most of the white caps were my first and second batch. The flasks and bigger bottles to the left side were my 3rd/4th batch. Theres very minimal difference in syrup color but the larger containers make it look darker.

YooperDog How to compare venison liver to beef or pork?

I’ve never had fried pork or venison liver and Im not a huge fan of fried beef liver, but I LOVE pate and braunschweiger. Im going to be trying to make braunschweiger from some venison liver this fall and possibly some boudin.

Well, I tried the philly and onion garlic today…meh. They were good but I gotta say the blue ribbon brats with high temp cheddar… possibly the best brats I’ve ever eaten. I poached in beer on pellet grill with a onion cut up. Then grilled at 275 to just put a little color on them, and they were amazing. I’ve given away about 20 of the 40lbs of brats I made and will most likely pass out the rest of these just for an excuse to make more.

I’ve cured a number of hams over the past few years and Im always dissappointed with how dry they come out. I know reconstituted deli ham has other ingredients added but Id love to increase the juicyness of a smoked ham so its got a whole muscle look and the soft/moist texture of a deli ham.
Any advice.

Latest adventure was a loin for candian bacon…turned out 100% like ham. Not sure what I was expecting, itll eat but not quite as round or red as commercial candian bacon.

Bacon. Bacon. Bacon …it always bacon. And a couple small chunks of meat for ham this go around. I always have between. 50-75lbs of bacon in my fridge curing/smoking.

Wowza. Thats a big bunch of meat. Awesome job.

YooperDog I have a barrel stove and a 16x30 flat pan. I did purchase an RO this year so that cut down some major time. My last boil I started the RO at 7am and started the boiling at 8. I finished about 10 that night. That was about 140gallons in one day. I woulda been there about 3days if It wouldnt of been for the RO. I had 45 taps this year. Gonna upgrade my storage system, filtering/bottling, and probably go with a 2x4 divided pan and new arch.

JoeB Midwest_kc I sold all of my “extra” to my neighbors and friends already. I was a little blown away how quickly they jumped at the opportunity to buy it from me. I’ve got quite a few return customers that buy my bacon that wanna make a breakfast pack of our eggs/bacon/syrup.

The glass flask bottles came from amazon, last year they were the cheapest thing I could find. They are re-used from last years batch. All the syrup bottles are from a little shop in a town near me that has a syrup supply area in the back corner.
processhead as far as the cap colors, there is no difference. My dog got ahold of one of the bag and chewed on some so I bought replacements; they just happened to be a different color. Most of the white caps were my first and second batch. The flasks and bigger bottles to the left side were my 3rd/4th batch. Theres very minimal difference in syrup color but the larger containers make it look darker.

Thought I would share a picture of my final product for the year. This my 2nd year doing maple syrup, last year we made right around 2gallons. My hope last year was to double my output…well I finished just a touch over 9gallons. Took about 3weeks with a few very late late nights which made work really drag on the next day. Im in North Central Minnesota, and its pretty much the end for everyone. I pulled my taps on saturday during my final boil. Im guessing I collected around 280 gallons of sap this year.

I think those that tune into your livestream are 1 of 2 types of people. 1: Im just there for the free stuff, I may not even make meat. 2: The people that are in meatgistics that are actively making different things, trying different products/recipes. Personally I fall into #2, I want to try one of the less common seasoning products or experimental stuff. Although Im sure with your co-workers you have no lack of people to try your experiments.

1. Nacho
2. Sweet Chili
3. Smoking Jalapeno
4. Beer/Onion

craigrice If I could get away with NOT cleaning behind my slicer blade I would for sure. Scares the c**p out of me every time.

Mine is for sure my slicer. I have to remove the blade with 3 little screws and theres to way to hold the blade while you take it off the drive shaft. I always make sure I have my boots on that way if I was to drop the blade my toes wont fly all over the house…they’ll just be in the other half of the boot.