# Venison Bacon



## Bears Butt

One of my cousins gave me a pound of sliced venison bacon to try...it was YUMMY! Now I want to make my own. The recipes all call for a commercially bought mix kit, but I don't want to buy a kit. I know it uses the pink colored Sodium Nitrite and some other spices. I want to know how much of the nitrite mix to use in approximately a 3 pound mix of venison/pork combo and what other spices and amounts to use.

I'm certain WyoGoob has made venison bacon before. I'll tell you the flavor of that bacon my cousin gave me was out of this world!

He said the butcher made it for him and he used a 50/50 blend of venison and 80/20 pork. I'm ok with that, but need the help with the spices.

Thanks guys!


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## Gumbo

Google buckboard bacon. I've tried it a few times with all-from-scratch recipes and it turns out well.


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## gdog

So it was slices of ground meat? Smoked or dehydrated?


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## Gumbo

Buckboard bacon is traditionally pork butt cured in bacon spices, then smoked. There's a lot of recipes for the cure mix on the Internet. Some use pink salt, others TenderQuick. I use TQ since it's easy to find in any supermarket.

Here's a few links from reputable sites:

http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/making_bacon_from_scratch.html
http://www.rbjb.com/rbjb/archives/759570/messages/758531.html​


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## Bears Butt

gdog, I'm assuming you are asking me that question...
Ground venison, mixed with ground pork, the pork is 80% meat, 20% pork fat. Then the salt/spices mixed in with that to a very gooey mess. The mess is then placed in a wax paper lined tin to form about a 2 inch thick X about 9 inch X 9 inch "cake" and let sit in the refer for over night. Then the cake is dumped out onto a smoker rack and smoked and brought to an internal temp of 155 degrees. Let that cool and then slice into bacon thick slices and fry those.....yummy!

I just need to know the amount of salt and spices to mix with the 3 pounds of meat mix.


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## Bears Butt

Well, I finally broke down and tried to figure out a recipe for venison bacon. Here is what I did:
3 lb. ground vension
3 lb. ground pork (88/12)
4 TBL Morton Tender Quick
4 TBL Liquid Smoke
2 TBL Mapeleine Flavoring
1 1/2 cups water

Mixed very well and it became sticky as all heck and hard to get off the hands. But that was fun anyway.

Put the entire batch into a pam coated glass baking dish 13" X 9" X 2", pressed it down hard and smoothed the top. Then covered it with Saran Wrap and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours.

Turned the dish over onto a smoker screen and dumped out the mixture.

Cranked the smoker temp up to 135 for 3 hours then added 1/2 cup of apple chips and turned up the smoker temp to 155, let it go for 2 hours, no more chips were added. After the 2 hours, I increased the smoker temp to 175 for 3 hours. By then the internal temp of the meat was 150. I turned off the smoker and put the meat on a plate and into the fridge it went until the next morning.

I sliced it thin and the wife and I had two slices each with our eggs and spuds....Our decision....A little salty for our taste buds.

So, my next batch will have one less TBL of Mortons, One TBL less Liquid Smoke and I'll increase the Mapeleine to 3 TBL.

One of my buddies tried some I gave him and he said he didn't think it was too salty. I'll keep you in formed as to how the next batch comes out.


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## wyogoob

Very cool, interesting. I've made my share of ground meat sausage in a pan but never "ground bacon". I wonder how it would be stuffed tight in like a 3" casing and then cured, smoked and sliced.

3 level Tbs for 6 pounds of meat would be the maximum amount according to the latest Morton recommendations.

My math says you ended up with 6% fat. Did it bond together OK? Anything under 8% starts to get crumbly.

What's mapeleine? Is it sugar? Bacon has sugar.

You oughta try cutting the pork and the game into 1" chunks, adding the ingredients, mixing all (while keeping the meat frosty) and then grinding. The ingredients will get distributed OK this way. That ground meat is hard to work with. 

I would cure it in the fridge for 48 hours minimum to avoid sour spots, spots that didn't get enough of the ingredients mixed in - especially if using ground meat.

Keep us posted. How 'bout some pics? How 'bout a sample? :grin:

.


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## Bears Butt

The meat mix was as sticky as old flour paste, so the 6% must have done it's thing. It held together very well, but then I wasn't making hamburgers.

Mapeline is an artificial maple flavoring...hell, they might not even make it anymore. If I can't find any for the next batch, I'll put in sugar. I was trying for a maple flavor.

As for a sample, wait until I get what I consider a good batch and then I'll share it! It's the least I can do for you Goob, after you let me win that bunch of different taste treats a few years back.


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## wyogoob

OK, sounds good.

Butcher Packer makes a maple-flavored cure. You could kill two birds with one stone with it. I'll give ya some if ya want.

I may try this thing, one of my new recipes for 2014. I do 1 or 2 sausage experiments every year.

Keep us posted Mr Z.


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## Bears Butt

OK, batch number 2 is in the freezer. I finished it up last night and fried up a few pieces for breakfast this morning.

My recipe worked pretty good and if you would like to try it here it is:

3 pounds ground venison (I'm sure elk or any ground meat would work)
3 pounds 88/12 ground pork
2 TBL Mortons Tender quick
3 TBL Liquid Smoke
1/2 cup of maple flavored pancake syrup
1 1/2 cups water

Mix it very well, I mixed mine by hand for almost 15 minutes turning the bowl it was in as I went. 

Put the mix into a wax paper lined dish 13X9X2 inches, press the mixture down to get out the air.

Place in the fridge for 24 hours.

Turn the dish upside down on a smoker rack and take off the wax paper.

Turn the smoker on at 135 degrees for 3 hours, increase temp to 155 and add a hand full of smoke chips, I used apple wood, leave in smoker for 2 hours. Increase temp to 180 for 2 more hours or until meat reaches an internal temp of 155 degrees.

I was smoking outside when the air temperature was only 41, this could have had something to do with why I had to have the temp of the smoker so hot. Play around with that when you make yours, but the two keys to this is 1) make sure the mix is pretty dry before you add the smoking chips and don't get carried away with those either as a little smoke goes a long way. 2) make sure the internal temp reaches at least 155 before you stop the process.

Once it's done, let it cool and then slice it up. 

My first batch was very salty and with your suggestions I backed it off by 1/2 of what I had used. Then when I read Goobs suggestion about bacon has sugar in it, I went with the maple flavored syrup instead of the Mapeleine. 

My wife says the bacon is "perfect"....I think it could use a bit more sweetness and will probably increase the syrup to 1 full cup on the next go round.

If you try this post up on here how yours turned out!

Goob, I sent you a pm.


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## wyogoob

Bears Butt gave me some of his ground venison bacon to try out. 

Man, its fantastic, Great bacon flavor and it even sounds like bacon when its frying. 

I'm making some of this stuff.


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