August 2023 - 15

WILD KITCHEN
Venison bratwurst
Typical bratwurst recipes
make a light-colored sausage,
but for venison bratwurst I
want a darker, smokier link.
That means red brats.
Red brats are always smoked.
I prefer to smoke these over
oak or fruit woods, with cherry
being my favorite, but you can
smoke your brats over any
wood that makes you happy.
However, I have skipped the
smoking step with these and
just grilled them or poached
them in beer with sauerkraut
and onions.
The sausages will keep in
the fridge for a week or so and
freeze well. I get asked a lot
whether you can thaw frozen
venison, make these brats and
refreeze. If you smoke them or
otherwise cook them through,
the answer is yes. Just remember
they will be heat-and-eat
when you thaw them again.
(Photo by Hank Shaw)
Ingredients
3 pounds venison
2 pounds fatty pork shoulder or pork belly
34 grams kosher salt
4 grams Instacure No. 1 (curing salt)
1 tablespoon sugar
25 grams powdered milk
3 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons coarsely ground mustard seed
1½ teaspoons ground mace or nutmeg
1½ teaspoons dried sage
½ cup cold lager beer
Hog casings
Preparation
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Serves 8 people
1. Get 10-15 feet of hog casings and soak in
warm water.
2. Cut venison and pork into chunks that fit
into your grinder. Mix with salt, sugar and
curing salt and refrigerate overnight. This
helps the sausage bind to itself later.
3. When ready to make the sausage, freeze your
grinder's grinding plate, blades and bowl you
will put the meat into for 30 minutes to an
hour. Do the same with the meat and fat.
When everything is cold - no warmer than
38 degrees - mix the meat and fat with the
powdered milk and all the spices.
4. Grind it all through a coarse plate. I use a 7
mm plate. Test the temperature of the mixture.
If it's 35 degrees or colder, grind half the
mixture again through a fine die, like 4.5 mm.
Set it back with the rest of the ground meat
mixture. If it's warmer than 35 degrees, put it
back in the freezer to chill. This might take an
hour or so, but use that time to clean up.
Hank Shaw hunts and fishes
across the country, has penned
multiple wild game cookbooks
and keeps an award-winning
food blog at honest-food.net.
His cookbooks are available at
the Game and Fish Store.
5. Once the sausage has been ground twice, test
the temperature again to make sure it's 35
degrees or colder. Chill the mix and when it's
cold enough take it out and add the beer. Mix
and knead in a big bin or bowl for at least two
minutes.
6. Stuff sausage into the hog casings rather
loosely. Do this in a coil before you make the
links. Links can be 6-8 inches long. Links will
probably have air pockets, but use a sterile
needle or sausage pricker to puncture the
casing over the air pockets. Gently compress
the links together to squeeze out air pockets
and rotate the links a bit more
to tighten.
7. Dry links in a cool place for at least 24 hours
and up to three days. I hang mine in a curing
fridge at 55 degrees with about 75 percent
humidity.
8. To smoke the links, hang in a cool smoker
and let heat come up slowly until it is about
200 degrees. Smoke the links until their
internal temperature hits 150 degrees. As soon
as the sausages are cooked, submerge them in
an ice-water bath until cool. Pat dry and store
in the fridge.
Wyoming Wildlife | 15
http://www.honest-food.net
August 2023

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