CHERRY WOOD SMOKED VENISON SAUSAGE!

Last fall I was able to pick up some fresh roadkill. Thanks to the Camillus PD officer who was kind enough to give me a call. And since then life went out and the meat was aging in the deep freezer for the right moment. Last weekend I became determined to get this meat processed and made into sausage. But this time around I wanted a bolder flavor in the sausage and after some research and combination of recipes I created something that I really enjoyed.

Now that the kids are older, everyone helped out in the process, even if it was just moral support. The process of making sausage is lengthy but at the end of the day, its something that I still enjoy doing. With each sausage making experience I learn something new.

NEW THINGS LEARNED: after cutting up the meat, set it back in the freezer for about one hour before grinding it. The chilled meat goes through the machine like butter/much easier. With a commercial grinder its hardly a chore.

After grinding down the venison, I added ground pork shoulder and grinded it together again. One can simply mix the two together by hand. I have alway used a ratio of 2 lbs venison to 1lb pork. The sausage is a little more gamier but it tastes more like venison and it still provides enough fat to the meat so its not as dry.

Another change in recipe that I did this time around was not immediately season the meat. I planned to smoke the sausages 2 days later. I added the ingredients the day before, a few hours before stuffing the casings. I usually buy my ground pork shoulder at Wegmans and because of convenience I bought the hog casing there as well. Later when stuffing, I had some terrible casing that had plenty of holes. 

I had 14.5 lbs of venison meat and I added 8 lbs of pork shoulder for total of 22.5 lbs venison/pork mix. 

Ingredients:

9             tbsp Kosher salt

9             tsp of ground black pepper

1 1/4 c    icy water

1 1/4 c    red wine

4.5 tbsp  celery seed

35           cloves of garlic freshly minced

45           bay leaves ground up

Mix all of the ingredients in and mix well. I then stuffed the sausage via the meat grinder with the sausage attachment. This is definitely a two-man job as its difficult to handle the sausage while adding more meat to the grinder. Thankfully my wife was able to help. This time around I didn't prepare the proper thread to tie off the sausage and later I payed the price as the sausage tore open. 

After stuffing the sausage, I kept the links in the fridge until the next day. 

On the following day, I placed the sausage on baking sheets on the table. This allowed them to be open to the air for a couple hours so that the casings would dry up and get a matte look. 

Meanwhile I prepped the cherry wood chips by soaking them in water for about 30 minutes. This was also the first time I was going to hang the sausage instead of laying it on the shelves. I purchased "s" shaped stainless steel hooks on Amazon. 

Once the smoker was prepped and the smoke began to wisp throughout the smoker, I began hanging the sausage in the smoker. I had couple strings fail on me and there was some restringing that was done to keep the sausage in the hooks. But it was nice to have the grate at the bottom to catch the rings.

And then the babying began! The weather was exceptionally nice but that didn't help my smoking process. The smoker temperature was rising a lot faster and there was a lot of adjusting by opening the vents and even the door.  

NEW TECHNIQUE: I titrated the temperature differently in the following method: 140 degrees for 1 hour, then 160 degree for 1 hour, then 180 degrees until the internal temperature reached a 152 degrees. 

The total smoking time was about 4.5 hrs. I always have a meat thermometer and an air thermometer in the smoker for more accurate temperature measurement. Once the meat temperature hit 152 degrees Fahrenheit, I turned off the burners. I had an ice bath prepped. I used the ice bath technique before it and it works really well. The idea is to bath the sausage in cold water in order to get the internal temperature down to 100 degrees or less as quickly as possible. This prevents the sausage from wrinkling.  

After a nice little bath, the sausage were spread out on some towels in the kitchen to allow them to cool off completely. The time frame is usually about 24 hours of cooling and curing. The turn out was 24 links/rings of sausage. 

A third of sausage we gave away to family and friends. A couple of rings we ate over the course of the next few days and then we vacuum sealed and froze the rest. 

Generally speaking, smoked sausage can hang out in the refrigerator for 3 weeks and months in a deep freezer.

THINGS TO IMPROVE ON NEXT TIME:
1. Smoke sausage in cooler outdoor temperature.
2. Use better string to tie off the sausage casing.
3. Add more salt, maybe right after grinding up the meat.
4. Maybe add more pork for a sausage with more moisture. 

BLACK BEARS & HUNTING!

Recently I came across an article in the ADIRONDACK EXPLORER March/April 2014 Issue titled DEC: too many bears. I personally have never hunted black bears but have considered it several times. This article captivated my attention because we have heard of friends encountering black bears in places they have never seen them before. One of our friends in Binghamton, NY while on the telephone recenrly said, "Oh just watching a black bear walking around in my backyard." Binghamton is 3.5 hour drive from the Adirondack Park. Six year ago the city of Syracuse experienced its own excitement of black bear activity. A black bear began to hang out around a Burger King in the Geddes /Camillus area. It would go through the trash containers, scavenging for food. Then it expanded its area of interest and it compassed a greater location that included a school and several housing developments. Eventually the bear was shot and killed when it was found hiding in a tree.
The article touched on the subject of expanding the hunting grounds where bears can be hunted as well as the methods used for luring the bears in. The DEC is considering in allowing hounds, bait, and traps for hunting bears in the Adirondack region.
One of the reasons that very few hunters are interested in black bear hunting is the strict limitation of how to hunt them. If these other methods are allowed, there will be more interest and therefore more bears will be taken during the hunting season.

The DEC posted these harvest results.

2013 Black Bear Harvest Comparison

	2013 Total	2012 Total	Recent 5-year Average (2008-2012)	Historical Average (1991-2000)
Statewide	1,358	1,337	1,288	722
Adirondack	380	606	560	515
Central-Western	342	289	231	38
Southeastern	636	442	497	169

DEER HUNTER 2014--THE GAME!

Since I haven't been hunting for three seasons, my brother David, introduced me to the game, Deer Hunter 2014 by Glu Inc. I downloaded the game but didn't get into playing it at all because I simply didn't understand the game itself. So Thanksgiving Day after eating a nice turkey dinner, my brother and I discussed hunting. I mentioned that I had downloaded the game but didn't quite get how it all worked. Well I was talking to the right person. David had apparently made it to Level 7 or 8 and had earned enough money from Contract Hunts to buy some nice guns. After a little explanation and some demonstration, the game came to a new life for me.

Before I knew it I was playing a couple times a day as soon as I was reenergized on the game. I began to make some serious progress and Savage 46 was getting good at hunting. It actually felt good to be "successful in hunting" after several years of not actually hunting. Soon I finished up Region 1--Pacific Northwest, then Region 2--North Africa, Region 3--British Colombia, Region 4--South Africa, and onto Region 5--Alaska. Being on vacation for a week helped keep things moving. When I got to Region 5 the app started to act up and not work well. The only feature that worked in the region was Rare Hunts and the Holiday Series. So I was stuck. Apparently there were a few hundred other people stuck and weren't able to play a favorite game.

I really like the game because its FREE! But Glu Inc. is also really good at making the game seem as realistic as possible. It also has a complexity to it as well but its a nice challenge and not ridiculous as other games. The paid hunts also see fair and its not unbelievably challenging to move from one region to the next if you continue to hunt, update your guns, and have good aim. Overall the game was updating well from one region to the next until Region 5. Its disappointing because I lost all interest in playing the same hunts over and over again. I hope to restart playing if Glu Inc. fixes the problems in a good update soon. I have been tempted to delete the app and start over but I would hate to lose everything that i worked up to this point. So hurry up Glu Inc!! My patience won't last forever as "deer don't hang around forever."

BROTHER'S HUNT DEER #3

So it has been a very successful hunting season for my brother. He had 5 tags and he filled 3 of them. He got two does and one buck. The third deer came a little later in the season after one of the first snows. The very factor that increases the quantity of deer hunters on the first days of snow is the visibility. The forest and all of the surrounding nature comes alive in a very new and different sense. It usually is a lot colder but the hunt is that much more exciting. Walking to the tree stand is really nice because everything stands out so much more. If you have good boots and learn how to walk quietly then its a nice and silent entry into the woods. Up in the tree stand its so much better to see anything that moves against the white background.

And so the day of the third kill, my brother decided to do something different, stand on the ground and maybe sneak up on some deer. It wasn't long after standing in a hedgerow for a few minutes that a fawn came into view. Shortly a nice size doe came along following the fawn. It was a nice and close 40 yards as per range finder. That was a too good of a range for a shotgun. The deer all of the sudden sensed danger and started to move but it was too late! Trigger squeezed and down came the doe! Dropped in mid-step with the bullet traveling cleanly through the lungs.

Congrats David on another great kill of the season! Bagging and tagging would be an appropriate thing to say!!

BROTHERS HUNT: DEER # 2

It's always more exciting to get a buck then a doe! Maybe it's a male thing--male vs. male! Or it's just a hunters phenomena! But once again my brother got a nice buck. It want a trophy buck and definely not wall mountable but the rack still looked nice: a 5 pointer!

The hunt: bow hunting in aluminum tree stand. Shot at 25 yards. It was a nice clean shot to the vitals. My brother said he actually saw where he fell before heading to get the truck and camera. I was home that Saturday so it was my pleasure helping my brother get the deer. It was also an opportunity to try out my F & S 1000 Thinsulate boots. The buck ended up running into the swamy area on the boarder of my parents property. He was laying in about a foot of water. It actually made good picture. 

After some nice pictures we knew we would have to haul him out of the water before we could gut it. Straneous but a quick haul to the truck. Once on the truck it was a straight shot up the hill to the barn. But it didn't turn out to be as straight forward as anticipated. Lots of rain the night before and bald tires didn't make a good combination. We got stuck in the field. So we just hauled the deer on foot. That wasn't the fun part. After gutting it, hanging it, and skinning it we were ready for a break. 

The lungs revealed a double lung shot. 

The next day after nicely cooling the meat, my brother and I butchered the meat and bagged it in about 1.5 hrs. We had a rough estimate of about 60 lbs of meat for jerky and sausage. 

Congratulations little brother on another big one! 

MY BROTHERS HUNT

This year I feel like my brother and I established some outdoor hobby roles. For the past 3 years in a row I decided not to hunt due to lack of time and proper practice. On the other hand it's been my third year successfully fishing salmon in the fall. For the my brother it's his third successful year of hunting. First year it was a nice trophy 8-point buck, second year a large doe, and this year a nice size doe. Not so much fishing, with the exception of their private pond.

So now my freezer is slowly filling up with chicken (butchered 12 in July), venison, and now salmon. This also means there will be a lot of mean smoking as the fishing and hunting seasons come to a close in the near future. Although we don't solely depend on this food as a means of survival, it does remind me of one of my favorite shows, ALASKA: The Last Frontier or Yukon Men. It's been an exciting  fall so far. 

Some great recipes and photos coming in the near future. 

THE QUESTION: TO HUNT OR NOT TO HUNT 2013?

Over the past 2 years I have not gone hunting in the fall for whitetail deer. Although I didn't hunt, my younger brother did and successfully harvested deer every season, thus providing the tasty delicacy of venison.

Reasons for not hunting previous years:

1. Too busy with house projects

2. The kids are really young

3. Started salmon fishing when it runs in the river

4. Didn't have enough time to practice with the now or shotgun

5. Super busy with church projects and church ministry

6. There may have been other reasons that I can't think of right now

Looking at the above reasons, truthfully this year leading up to this hunting season has not been any different and those very same reasons stand strong. 

The additional reasons may be the following:

1. My son is the new addition to the family.

2. Picked up a new hobby and form of exercise--road biking.

I suppose the gun and bow will have to stand in storage another year and hopefully I will use them next year.