Is The Deer Summer Sausage Cooked?

One of the most unique summer sausages you could try is the deer summer sausage. It has a rich, rich taste that makes it stand out from other meat delicacies.

Deer summer sausage, also called venison summer sausage, deer sausage or wild boar summer sausage is a delicious, smoked sausage made with the hindquarters of venison and seasoned with herbs and spices.

The sausage may be served as an appetizer, entrée, side dish, or snack. These are already seasoned, cured, and ready to eat.

However, you might be asking yourself if deer sausage is cooked or not.

In this article, I will talk about everything related to cooking deer summer sausage so that you can enjoy it to the fullest.

Does Venison Sausage Need to Be Cooked?

There is a good chance that you will find the answer on the label or package. Sausages are seasoned, cured, dried, cooked and ready to eat in the summer.

This sausage type has a long shelf-life because of a combination of preservation techniques. The end-user does not have to do their cooking.

If you feel like it, you could give your venison sausages a quick smoke or fry them in a pan.

If you purchase raw meat intending to turn it into deer sausage, the story is completely different.

venison-deer-sausage

How to Cook Deer Summer Sausages?

Maybe you bought deer meat in the store and don’t know what to do with it, or maybe you are a hunter and have more deer meat than you know what to do with.

Making homemade deer summer sausage is a great way to preserve meat. Venison summer sausage needs to be cooked until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 F.

The process will take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours.

These are the things you will need to cook deer summer sausages:

  • Meat
  • Spices
  • Curing salt
  • Meat grinder
  • Casings
  • Wood chips
  • Smoker
  • Meat thermometer

Essential Tips for Making Deer Summer Sausage

Since deer meat is very lean, you might want to add some pork to juice it up. Pork shoulder, hind, or trimmings are the cuts with the biggest portion of fat, so you want to go with them.

You can choose the pork ratio according to your preferences. If you want to stick to the deer flavor, you should not add more than 30% pork.

The pork tends to overwhelm the deer, and you will end up with a sausage that tastes like pork sausage.

The deer and pork meat should be kept out of the cold. Before grinding, you should put both of them in the fridge.

The meat will be hard to shape if it is not cold. The cure should be combined with all the ingredients in the water.

The cure will be distributed nicely if this is allowed. It is recommended that you soak your casings. If you do this for 20 minutes, rinse them, and stuff sausages after that.

Steps for Making Deer Summer Sausage

These are the measurements you will need:

  • 5 tbsp meat cure
  • 1 pinch of each of your favorite spices
  • 1/8 cup of sugar
  • 1/3 cup of sea salt
  • 1 cup of water

I mentioned before that you should choose the meat ratio according to your liking. At least seven pounds of venison and at least five pounds of pork are recommended by me.

Here are detailed instructions on how to cook a delicious homemade deer summer sausage, once you have all the ingredients ready.

  • The casings should be soaked for twenty minutes to a half an hour.
  • The meat should be separate from the ground meat.
  • It should be combined and grind again, but this time together.
  • The cure should be put in the water with all the other ingredients.
  • Use a mixer to grind the ingredients together, or combine them with the meat by hand.
  • Take the sausages out of the water, rinse them, and put them in a container.
  • The meat should be left in the fridge for a couple of days so that it can be infused with all the flavors.
  • The sausages should be smoked by a smoker for at least three hours the next day.
  • The temperature at which fully cooked sausages should be 160F is the internal temperature.
  • The flavor of the sausages won’t be the same, but you can bake them in the oven at 185F.
  • The sausages should be kept in the fridge or freezer at room temperature.

If you are going to keep the sausages in the freezer, it is a good idea to vacuum-seal them. It will stop the meat from getting into the freezer-burned by preventing the air from infiltrating.

How Long Do I Need to Smoke Venison Summer Sausage?

If we are talking store-bought, ready-to-eat venison summer sausage, you can simply throw it on the smoker to warm it up for a few minutes along with any other meat you are smoking.

If you want to make your venison sausages, you need to smoke them on a smoker for at least three hours.

It is best to smoke at 140F the first hour, then increase the temperature to 160F the next hour.

When the internal temperature reaches 160- 165F, the smoker needs to be set to 180F.

If you want to read the internal temperature, you should use the summer sausage’s thickest part to check its temperature.

After smoking sausages, you want to cool them down by spraying them or putting them in ice-cold water.

The temperature inside should go down to around 100F. The meat will be stopped from overcooking.

venison-sausage

What is the Right Temperature to Cook Deer Summer Sausage?

You can either cook deer summer sausage in the oven or on a smoker, but the internal temperature needs to reach 160- 165F before it’s fully cooked.

If you want to cook sausages in the oven, preheat the oven to 185F and wait until the sausage reaches the desired temperature.

You can use a meat thermometer to make sure the sausages are cooked to the correct temperature.

If you want to cook the sausages on a smoker, preheat it to 140F and place the sausages on the smoker for an hour.

After increasing the temperature to 160F, add hickory wood chips and allow them to smoke for another hour.

If you want to check on the internal temperature more often, set the temperature to 180F at the start of the third hour.

It’s a good idea to brush some water on the meat in the meantime.

The inside of the crust can still cook, but it will be cooled down to prevent it from being burned.

Conclusion

Before reading the article, you might have wondered if deer sausage is cooked or not.

Now that you know that store-bought deer summer sausage is seasoned and cooked, all you have to do is enjoy it with some crackers, your favorite salad, or mashed potatoes.

It can take some time to cook raw sausages, so be sure to follow my tips.

Hopefully, this article made you more confident in making your deer sausage and sharing it with your friends and family.

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