Wow, it's been a long time coming, but I'm finally done with my summer sausage project. 3 days ago I needed some room in the freezer for some stuff my wife bought at Costco, so I started to dig to the bottom. I ended up with 53# of mule deer meat that got missed in the shuffling of the freezer. There was 2 packages from 08, so I'm quite a bit embarrased to admit that online..........
I bought 34# of pork shoulder to mix in with it. As it turns out, pork shoulder roasts have a bone in them........(4 roasts equal 6 pounds of bone and scrap, I now know). Also, I didn't know but it turns out that pork shoulder is the same as pork butt, and they both cost $2.28 a pound at the local store.
Well, I ground the muley meat that wasn't already ground and added it to the bin. I cut all the pork I could off the bones and ground it. I bought some High Country Summer Sausage Mix, and I put the in the bin somewhere like the directions said to do.
I stuffed the mix into the casings through my cheap little grinder. That's a workout: I can attest to this. As the meat was starting to bind I had to get my wife to hold the stuffer part of the grinder so I could use both hands to get it pushed into the machine. My hands cramped in ways they aren't supposed to do......
Two days later...last night at 4pm, after 2 full days of flippin' work.....I finally had 19- 4# bags of summer sausage. I smoked it pretty cold for 20-22 hours with apple, maple, and cherry. I took it out of the smoker tonight at about 2pm at about 120 degrees on the meat thermometer, and then I put it in the oven at 170 for about a 4 hour average to get the temp to 148 as recommended online.
Now, I'm done with the whole project, as I have 38 vacuum sealed bags in the freezer just waaiting for a good time to be called out into service!
