# Antelope Sausage



## EricH (May 3, 2014)

I've gone through the sausage thread and I can't decide... I'm going to make my first attempt at sausage this weekend with the antelope I managed to get today. What do you guys recommend for a novice sausage maker and an antelope?


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## Slayer (Feb 3, 2013)

Lets see a pic of that goat! Congrats!


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

This is my choice for flavor and ease of preparation. If your antelope is a little gamey just add more garlic:

*Summer Sausage 1969
2 lbs - ground meat (fat 10% to 20%)
1 tbsp - Morton's Tender Quick cure
1 tsp - sugar
1/2 tsp - mustard seed
1/4 tsp - garlic powder
1 tsp - black pepper
1/2 tsp - liquid smoke
1 cup - water

Mix all ingredients with ground meat
Stuff into 3" casings or shape as desired
Refrigerate for 48 hours
Bake in oven 4 to 8 hours @ 225°F until internal temperature is 152°F*

Notes:
> No smoker needed with this basic, do-it-in-the-kitchen, recipe.
> To avoid sour spots it's best to cut up the meat in small chunks, mix in all the ingredients well, then make the final grind. 
> I grind my wild game in a kidney plate then freeze in 7 lb blocks. Why 7 lbs? It gives me room to add beef, pork and/or fat until I have 10 lbs total. I use base-10 as much as I can; it's easy on the arithmetic when adding cures and spices.


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

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## Idratherbehunting (Jul 17, 2013)

wyogoob said:


> This is my choice for flavor and ease of preparation. If your antelope is a little gamey just add more garlic:
> 
> *Summer Sausage 1969
> 2 lbs - ground meat (fat 10% to 20%)
> ...


I made summer sausage this weekend using a similar recipe as this. Turn out pretty good!


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

So I just made some and it tastes good. The only problem is it is kind of crumbly. I suspect there was too much water, I didn't pack the casing right enough or maybe too much fat. Any thoughts?









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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

Crumbly....not enough fat or meat got too warm. What did you mix the antelope meat with...pork..and how much?


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

gdog said:


> Crumbly....not enough fat or meat got too warm. What did you mix the antelope meat with...pork..and how much?


20% beef fat/80% antelope. I used a thermometer for the cooking stage so I stopped at 152.

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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

Some fat did leak out when I pulled the thermometer. I'll leave it in while cooling next time. I just wanted to check both rolls to ensure they both cooked.


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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

Goob our resident sausage king will chime in when he sees this...but my guesses are...

cooked too hot...looks to be a lot of open holes in the sausage. Either not packed well into case or it got too hot and the fat liquified..leaving the air pockets which could make it crumbly. Did you put the sausage in a cold water bath after reaching temp?

What size plate did you use for final grind?


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

No I did not cool it fast. That makes a lot of sense to me. The fat was definitely liquid.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

EricH said:


> So I just made some and it tastes good. The only problem is it is kind of crumbly. I suspect there was too much water, I didn't pack the casing right enough or maybe too much fat. Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


gdog and you have covered the other possible culprits like cooking too hot, too much water, not packed tight enough. Good job, let me add some comments.

I've made my share of crumbly summer sausage. Usually comes from not enough cure, not mixing the cure with meat thoroughly, and/or not enough cure time in the fridge before cooking.

It appears your sausage is coarsely ground. That's fine but the more coarse the texture of the meat is the longer it will take for the sausage to "set up" before it's ready to cook. The recipe I have calls for 1 cup of water. There's no plate size mentioned for the final grind. 1 cup of water would be too much for meat ground thru a large plate, say 3/8".

Looking at the picture the fat in the sausage is well defined, not over-cooked. There are some fat pieces lumped together that makes me wonder if the sausage didn't get mixed enough or it was too warm when the cure was mixed in. I try to minimize mixing my sausage by hand. Why you ask? Because everything is so cold it hurts my fingers. :|

Binding sausage, making sausage a consistent firm mass, is all about chemistry more than the cooking technique. It's a chemical reaction that binds the meat as much as anything. You could add a little wine to the recipe in this thread, grind the sausage 1/8" or 3/16", roll it out by hand, and just hang the sausage in the basement for a month and it would be OK.

About 10 years ago or so there was a big scare about meat cures (sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite) causing cancer. So all the cure companies, including Morton, lowered the amount of cure per pound of meat. The UWN Forum bears some liability for recipes posted here so I, as a Forum Moderator, felt compelled to lower the amount of cure in my recipes to the new "safe" level. Is that the level I use? No, I have lowered the amount of cure per pound I use for personal health reasons but not always down to the new "safe" level. In my opinion the new cure per pound limits are just enough to cure the sausage. Any less and it would be tough to make the sausage stick together without adding more fat or a binder like soy powder or non-fat dry milk.

Are you using perforated casings? They leak a lot, are made for dry curing more than cooked sausage.

Did you grind and stuff at the same time or stuff in a separate operation?

If I am making summer sausage or salami I stuff the casings very tight, tight to a point they are stretching. Then after 48 hrs in the fridge I may re-tire them if they have loosened up.

I can't stress enough that the meat needs to be frosty when it is ground, when it's mixed with the spices, and when it's stuffed. I always stuff the meat in the casings, or form into pans, or hand roll it before it goes into the 48 hr "set up" mode. It's just way too hard to stuff or work the sausage 48 hours after it's been mixed and formed. The chemical reaction of the cure with the ground meat (hopefully) turns the sausage into a Playdough-like mass.

Blah, blah, blah, just eat those and then try it again.

.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

The recipe in this thread calls for ground meat, like burger from the store. Store-bought ground meat is normally ground fine, thru a 3/16" plate. 

I grind some of my burger thru an 1/8" plate.

.


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

Thanks for the input! I realize there's going to be a lot of trial and error so luckily I still have another 12 pounds of antelope to work with. 


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

EricH said:


> Thanks for the input! I realize there's going to be a lot of trial and error so luckily I still have another 12 pounds of antelope to work with.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


You'll be fine. Good luck and keep us posted.

.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Hey EricH, here's some of my failures in the last two years:

25 lbs Sheboygan Summer Sausage - left out the cure, duh 

12.5 lbs Droerwors - not enough fat, didn't follow recipe

12.5 lbs Boerewors - not enough fat, wrong casings, didn't follow recipe

8 lbs bison biltong - too dry, forgot about it hanging in the basement

5 lbs antelope jerky - too dry, fell asleep while jerky was in dehydrator

10 lbs cure chicken legs - burnt, grease fire in smoker

Uh....good grief, I'll quit right there.

.


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

Haha that's some tough breaks. I don't feel like this is a failure since it still tastes pretty good. Just has an unusual texture.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

EricH said:


> Haha that's some tough breaks. I don't feel like this is a failure since it still tastes pretty good. Just has an unusual texture.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sorry, I didn't mean to imply yours was a failure.

.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

wyogoob said:


> too dry, fell asleep while jerky was in dehydrator


I'm sorry to report that you're not the only one who's made that mistake...


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

wyogoob said:


> Sorry, I didn't mean to imply yours was a failure.
> 
> .


And I didn't mean to imply that you implied that. Thanks again for the knowledge, I truly appreciate it.

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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

Giving it another shot tonight. I tweaked the amount of cure and ground it smaller. It isn't nearly as wet as the last batch in fact I added a little water to aid mixing. I plan to give it an extra day and a half hanging before cooking.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Eric, how about an update.

.


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

Much better. It is still cooling on the porch but I snuck a slice. Much firmer and the only gap is from my stuffing skills. I also added jalapeños to half of it. Not enough jalapeño so I'll work on that with my last batch.

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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Looks great!

Adding jalapenos is tricky. I'm using the diced pickled ones these days.

keep us posted


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