Late Archery Elk is over for me, without an elk this year, and I decided that I’d better fix up some the meat that has been collected so far this hunting season. I got a bear, sharptails and pheasant in Montana, and between my son and me, quite a few ducks. My buddy also had a deer that he wanted ground for burger and sausage. I had a grand list of sausages to mix and smoke. Took all of my three day weekend to cut, grind, and smoke all the sausage. Got the meat out of the freezer partially thawed and cut into chucks to feed the grinder and bought about 100 lbs. of port shoulder to grind and mix with the game.
Cutting up the meat for the grinder, as you can see, I had to set aside some pork steaks for the BQQ.
Each tub had meat weighed, ready for the grind, and labeled with the type of sausage mix.
• 40 lbs. Duck/Sharptail Chorizo
• 30 lbs. Bear Cheddar Polish Links
• 30 lbs. Bear Italian Links
• 30 lbs. Bear Spicy Blend Snack Sticks
• 30 lbs. Bear Pepperoni
• 20 lbs. Pheasant Sweet-n-Spicy Teriyaki Snack Sticks
• 20 lbs. Bear/Pork grind set aside for a later mix
Grinding and mixing. This is my buddy’s deer; we’re running it through the grinder a second time for venison burger.
5 lbs. Venison Pepperoni being mixed.
Kids are cutting up red/yellow/green peppers and green onions for the chorizo sausage mix.
Stuffing Venison Pepperoni snack sticks.
The crew mixing and stuffing Sausage
Stuffing Bear Cheddar Polish Links
Stuffing Crew after a bear steak lunch, we also threw a Chorizo Sausage on the grill, should have cooked a few more on the grill. It was good!
I found that using the grinder as a stuffer was easier than using the big stuffer.
Pheasant Snack Sticks in process.
It took two loads in the smoker to do all the sausage. Here’s the first round ready for smoke; Bear Pepperoni in the back, Bear Italian links, and Bear Cheddar Polish Links in front. Of course I had to hang a snack stick in the first batch for a sampler.
Here’s the second round ready to be pulled 16 ˝ hours after the first batch got smoke. Pepperoni is still in the back and two varieties of snack sticks.
Bear Pepperoni, peeled and ready for slicing.
Slicing Pepperoni, Zeus my supervisor in the background never moved from that spot. While we were cutting and bagging snack sticks, and while slicing and bagging the pepperoni.
Sliced Pepperoni, ready for a sandwich, Good Stuff!
