Venison Bologna

FISMA.

A while back I attended a class at Penn State called Venison 101 and was given a Bologna Meat Processing Kit made by Con Yeagar and decided to give it a try.

Bought a cheap and cheerful grinder/stuffer from Midway. Not too bad to grind the meat, but worked a bit much trying to stuff. Worried a bit about warming the mix.

So here's what you get in the kit to make 10lbs of bologna: 4 casings, seasoning, curing salt, ties, and recipes.

The venison was lean. Some silver skin throughout, but not much. Was going to throw in some bacon fat, but decided to portion out the lot with 50/50 venison and pork butt.

There was a bit of venison fat. Not sure how that goes with sausage. I've heard good and bad. If anyone has ever made bologna, salami, kielbasa, pepperoni, or the like, please advise how venison fat goes with the mix.

Chopped up the pork into more manageable pieces and fed it to the grinder.

Ground both the venison and pork through the 3/8" plate.

Just over ten pounds of beautiful meat.

Put both meats again through the grinder using the 1/8" plate. Venison on the right.

With half the meat in the bowl, began mixing in seasonings, cure, and the other half of the meat.

Next, 1.5 cups of cold water and mix some more. At this point, the meat is very cold and almost uncomfortable to mix by hand for a few minutes. Exactly the conditions you want.

With the mix complete, put the meat through the stuffer, and came out with 4 nice sized bolognas. The knife in the image has a 7" blade. If I hadn't stuffed the first three so much, all four would have been closer in length.

For cooking, I opted for oven & water, as per Con Yeagar Spice's Instructions, in order to minimize crust thickness.

Directions call to bake at 150F for two hours. My range doesn't go that low so...

(1) 170F for 2 hours
(2) 200F for 45 minutes
(3) Into 170F water until internal temp is 156F (20 minutes they were at 160)
(4) Into cold water until internal temp is 100F (another 20minutes)
(5) Drip dry for 30minutes to settle at room temp, about 70F.

All product will be refrigerated tonight. I plan to smoke one tomorrow with some cherry wood for an hour.

Any product that is not to be consumed within 10 days should be frozen.

Cannot wait until tomorrow. Maybe some: bread, Manchego cheese, and, of course, a weissbier. Franziskaner?

cookimonster

Brilliant post, very tempted to do this. I get my picking stuff off a English site, so I think I'll be ordering one of their similar kits.

May I dare to suggest, to reduce the amount of passes through the grinder, mix all the ingredients together - finely diced meat, seasoning and water, chill thoroughly before passing and then onto the stuffing stage.
As you know over working meats or farces can toughen the final product and as you pointed out keeping the meat well chilled is a key quality point.

Enjoy, I have visions of a standing around after a mornings drive with plenty of good red sherry or floc, crusty sour doughs and beautiful charcuterie.

FISMA.

cookimonster wrote: »

Brilliant post, very tempted to do this.

Thanks, and you definitely should give it a go.

cookimonster wrote: »

so I think I'll be ordering one of their similar kits.

I may have another, PM me if you're interested.

cookimonster wrote: »

May I dare to suggest, to reduce the amount of passes through the grinder, mix all the ingredients together - finely diced meat, seasoning and water, chill thoroughly before passing and then onto the stuffing stage.

Will do. A bigger/better stuffer would be ideal. Do you use an electric stuffer or hand?

cookimonster wrote: »

Enjoy, I have visions of a standing around after a mornings drive with plenty of good red sherry or floc, crusty sour doughs and beautiful charcuterie.

Sour dough! Sounds even better!

cookimonster

I mainly make venison sausages using 100% venison meat so I only pass the meat once through the mincer to which I have a cheep EBay nozzle attached loaded with synthetic caseings . This produces a rougher texture that family and friends prefer over a smoother farce.
In the beginning I used to pass the meat twice, the secound time into the casings but this was difficult and messy trying to pass minced meat back through my electric mincer. I don't have a dedicated stuffer, horrendous price this side of the world.

Thanks for the offer of the kit, I'll investigate the ones from the UK, before we set out trans Atlantic trade deal.....

By the way do you make your own 'corned venison or pastrami' I'm knocking this out on a regular basis, if your not its a nice one to add to your meat selection - cabbage and spuds or on good old rye with mustard.

Kat1170

Get one of these or similar to sharpen the blade of your mincer. Having a sharp blade in it is as important as having your knives sharp, but is something a lot of people overlook. I couldn't believe the difference it made in my , admittedly, cheap mincer.



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FISMA.

cookimonster wrote: »

I mainly make venison sausages using 100% venison meat so I only pass the meat once through the mincer to which

Trying Salami this weekend. Don't know if I'll go 100%, or if I have enough venison, maybe 75/25, in favour of venison?

cookimonster wrote: »

I only pass the meat once through the mincer to which I have a cheep EBay nozzle attached loaded with synthetic caseings . This produces a rougher texture that family and friends prefer over a smoother farce.

What size is the grating? I thought the meat was a bit mushy looking after the second pass. Would you recommend one pass through the larger or smaller grating?

cookimonster wrote: »

Thanks for the offer of the kit, I'll investigate the ones from the UK, before we set out trans Atlantic trade deal.....

Already here.

cookimonster wrote: »

By the way do you make your own 'corned venison or pastrami' I'm knocking this out on a regular basis, if your not its a nice one to add to your meat selection - cabbage and spuds or on good old rye with mustard.

Haven't tried but would appreciate a recipe.

Also, if you, or anyone else has a recipe for black pudding, I would greatly appreciate it. Doubtful that I will be able to source blood in liquid form. More likely, powdered. Either/both recipes would be appreciated.

Kat1170 wrote: »

Having a sharp blade in it is as important as having your knives sharp, but is something a lot of people overlook.

... like me! Thanks for the advice. Now that you mentioned it, I am sure that my grinder is, as we say, "lawyer-proof." I'll try sharpening and see what happens.

Thanks again for all of the help!

clivej

Why smoke the finished product???

Would you not smoke the meat before any grinding and casing??

cookimonster

FISMA. wrote: »

.... What size is the grating? I thought the meat was a bit mushy looking after the second pass. .....

I'm using a size 6. A stalking buddy of mine is a butcher and it was him who advised me NOT to pass venison twice, it does not have the density of other meat and will easily turn to puree.

FISMA. wrote: »

..... Already here...

For some reason I thought you where over the ocean

FISMA. wrote: »

..... Haven't tried but would appreciate a recipe.......

There are spices involved, which I dropped after the first attempt, now I just pickle a bit of TTS (topside; thick flank; silverside) for 5 - 10 days. I get the salt from this crowd http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/bacon-curing-salt-beef/salt-beef-cure.html. I'm going to dry cure in crushed pepper corns for the next joint and try that.


Black Pudding: Here you go http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/scots-black-pudding-mix.html - Scots Black Pudding -


'Complete Black Pudding Mix. This is a complete mix containing Dried Pigs Blood, salt ,pepper and a blend of herbs and spices to a traditional Scottish recipe. All you need in addition is some Back Fat, Pearl Barley and a good Ox-Runner casing..'


Re the mincer : careful how you sharpen it make sure you keep the edge true to the plate.
Cut the meats up into nice short pieces with any excess / heavy sinew removed. I leave the fat for flavour, texture, juiciness and general all over good mouth feel. Have the meat close to freezing point to give a better cut in the mincer. If the mince begins to loses its grain or shape, stop and clear the plate of any connective tissue other wise your plate becomes a sieve.


Happy Days