Brats & Snack Sticks

[derekp1999]

After the deer hunt this year, my brother and I had a good discussion about the best way we could utilize all the meat from the bucks that’d been harvested. I had heard of the brat/sausage/pepperoni kits and reviews were good so we considered this a viable option. I purchased two kits from Cabela’s, one a Hi Mountain German Brat kit and the other a Cabela’s Pepperoni Snack Sticks kit. Both are all inclusive… seasonings, cures, casings all in the box/bag. I picked up a grinder on the cheap from Harbor Freight (of all places right?), it came with 3 grinding plates and 3 stuffing tubes so I had everything I needed for $40.
I studied the internet a bit to get some tips before potentially ruining all my meat. I got some good tips and headed to Don’s Meat (my local butcher) and purchased 2 pounds of pork trimmings to mix in with the deer meat to add a little fat and flavor.

I had a couple roasts left over from 2011, so I set those out to thaw. Once the meat was in that bizarre state halfway between thawed and frozen I cut and trimmed the roasts into 1-2” cubes.

I ran it all thru the grinder using the coarsest plate and mixed it well to evenly distribute the pork throughout.

One of the tips that I read was to slightly over-season, so I used enough seasoning for approximately 12 pounds of meat. I decided to omit the cure for these brats because the instructions indicated that if I was doing a “fresh” sausage to be frozen or cooked immediately to not use the cure. Once that was all incorporated into the meat evenly I ran it through the grinder (coarsest plate again) and thru the stuffer tube into the casing. This went surprisingly smoothly and quickly, the most difficult part was figuring out how to get the casing open and started onto the stuffer tube.

Nine pounds of meat made approximately 30 brat “links,” so I passed on a 4 pack to my brother for the initial taste test. I cooked two up in a pan last night just for kicks.

A couple issues with the final product that I would like to remedy for the second batch:
1: The consistency of the meat within the casing is like finely ground beef… so the “mouth feel” is not great. I’d like to have larger chunks of meat in there so I need to figure out a way to only run the meat thru the grinder once… whether that is purchase a dedicated stuffer or cube the roasts much smaller and season so that grinding and stuffing occurs all at once is yet to be determined.
2: They are pretty dry… I’d increase the ratio of pork trimmings from 4:1 deer to pork to 2:1 or maybe even 1:1. The trimmings weren’t very expensive so that would be totally doable.
3: I really didn’t taste much in the way of seasoning… a German brat is generally mild, but I was expecting a little bit more. Perhaps that could have been due to omitting the cure, which I would like to include and try out next time. The instructions indicate that additional ingredients can be added (jalapenos, pepper, garlic, cheese, etc.) and perhaps I’ll give that a try next time as we have some of those items around the house (the grilled jalapenos in the freezer especially intrigue me). Additionally, there are many other flavors available that seem to have a more robust flavor profile just from reading their descriptions and just may be worth a try.

My next experiment was in making the pepperoni snack sticks. Again, the trimming and grinding occurred on half thawed, half frozen roasts from bucks taken this year. I ended up with just a shade under 17 pounds of lean ground meat. I didn’t have any pork trimmings for this batch so I made these snack sticks with 100% venison. I again followed the tip to over-season and included all the cure and seasoning for 25 lbs into the 17 pounds of meat that I had. I mixed it thoroughly in a large tub and allowed it to sit for several hours (this was not recommended in the instructions, but I figured it couldn’t hurt). The instructions did call for re-grinding the meat through the fine plate, so I set up the grinder with the stuffing tube. This grinding went considerably slower, but still wasn’t too bad. I made 4” to 6” links for the snack sticks and threw them into a 180 degree oven since I don’t have a smoker. After the first hour I propped the oven door open with a wooden spoon and went to bed. Seven hours later, the pepperoni sticks looked just like the ones I’d received from the professional butcher.

A couple of issues that I’d like to try and remedy for the remaining 16-ish pounds of meat that I have left:
1: Since I used all the cure included in the kit, there is a very strong cure flavor (17 lbs of meat and used 25 lbs worth of cure). I don’t mind it but it’s but too much for the wife and kids. I’d like to add additional flavors to the pepperoni… maybe some fresh ground peppercorn, fresh garlic, or half a jalapeno. Next time I purchase one of these kits I'd do the same amount of ground meat, measure out the cure carefully according to the instructions, and overseason with the seasoning packet.
2: The cured meat is very “sticky” and is quite a bit more difficult to persuade down the neck of the grinder. The rest of the meat is currently is the freezer, and perhaps if I can grind it when it’s in that half frozen/half thawed state it won’t be as difficult to manage.
All in all, I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to transform all these deer roasts that would have otherwise likely gone unused in their unprocessed state into something that will be readily used by my family. The kits produced by Hi Mountain and Cabela's are both high quality and easy to use, they both also seem to lend themselves to improvisation in adding ingredients for the creative and adventurous home butcher. I look forward to using these products for a long time to come.

[sheephunter]

Thanks for sharing this, it's something I've been thinking about doing, and now that you've described the process it doesn't sound too difficult at all.

[MuleyMadness]

Awesome post, we could make this into a HOW TO article if your interested Derek?

Never tried it, but might have to now.

[killerbee]

I've never done brats or pepper sticks, but I do alot of breakfast sausage. I cut it 50-50 pork trim ( or pork butt or even pork shoulder roast). My family loves it! I know what you mean about that second grind, it's slow as can be! for the sausage I just run it 1 time, mix and add seasoning( but I'm not doing links either).

anyway- cool post, thanks for sharing. I wouldn't mind trying the pepper sticks out once.

most years, if I kill my elk in bow season or if we get 2 deer, I will dedicate 1 whole deer to nothing but sausage and jerkey( yep- even those backstraps and tenders-) This year , with 2 mature bulls, and 2 deer, I HAD to make one into breakfast sausage- Thats A LOT of meat for a family of 4- Good think we also have a bunch of family that enjoy a box of meat here and there:)

[derekp1999]

Awesome post, we could make this into a HOW TO article if your interested Derek?

Definitely. I have some experimenting that I want to do very soon with the rest of the pepperoni sticks, but after that I'll write up something a bit more detaitled and upload it to the HOW TO (unless this is good enough & you just want to take it straight over).

[derekp1999]

So, I finished off the remaining ~16 pounds of meat that I had seasoned for pepperoni sticks. I worked with frozen (or at least partially frozen) ground meat and it worked great. Persuading the meat down the neck of the grinder was much easier and went far more quickly.
Additionally, I divided the meat into three parts. The first part I chopped a frozen grilled jalapeno and mixed it in with the meat. The second part I just did reguular, no additional ingredients. The third part I found a fresh clove of garlic and chopped that with another grilled jalapeno in the food processor and mixed it in with the meat.
I'd have to say that this batch is far better than my first attempt. I don't know if the time in the freezer (about a week) gave the cure some time to mellow or if the addition of the jalapeno/garlic masks the salty flavor so that it's not overwhelming. The jalapeno is just right, you know it's in there but it's not burning your tongue and the garlic is just enough to really give you bad breath... perfect, now to just work on using the correct proportion of cure to meat next time.
The problem that I had with this batch was that I made so much at one time that I overloaded my oven and did not get good even cooking. Plus, since the meat was frozen as soon as I put the stick into the oven it started to steam and the excess water fell onto the oven floor (despite putting a layer of foil down). Additionally, with the meat being so cold it made the casings a bit more brittle and as I twisted the first few into links the casings would split. I decided to just do long sticks and cut them into pieces after the cooking was complete. This gives you the opportunity to remove the casing if necessary, which does slightly increase the saltiness.
The smell that is given off by the meat as it's cooking is pretty powerful and undesireable for other occupants in the house... and my wife fired up the oven a couple days later to make dinner and the smell was still quite potent. I think if I try these again I'll need to have a smoker and cook them outside for the sake of my family and their appetites.

[Hiker]

Looks like some good grub.

[Jazz555]

Well done, you have done great job.