Looking for Pepper Stick recipe

[Kip]

Hello all, I am looking for a recipe for Venison Pepper Sticks.
I love the ones you get at the butcher shop, and was wondering if anyone knew what spices and goodies are added to them. Is it a commercial season pack used at the butcher shop, or is it their own secret recipes? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[Salmonsmoker]

Kip,

The Venison Pepper Sticks are going to be some variation on the following recipe (certainly each sausage maker has their own list of spices.) The nice thing about making your own is that - after some experimenting, you can have your own unique recipe that you can share with your friends.

This kind of dried sausage needs about 20% fat to help hold the flavor and consistancy, so you will need to add 2 lbs of pork fat to 8 lbs of Venison to get a good final product.

For the meat cure, I use a product called "Insticure #1" that is purchased from "The Sausage Maker, Inc." in Buffalo N.Y. Morton salt co. makes the same thing and it is available locally. The function that a cure serves is to prevent mold and botualism from growing in your sausage during making and storage so be sure to include it.

Each of the ingredients except the cure are to your taste - however, I would start with a basic recipe like this one for the first batch, then experiment with modifications - that way you have a baseline against which to measure the success of your changes.

For this recipe you will need the following:

10 lbs ground Venison (20% fat)
2 tsp meat cure( or follow package amount.)
4 Tbsp Paprika
6 Tbsp ground mustard
1 tsp (or more) black pepper
1 tsp (or more) white pepper
1 tsp ground celery seeds
1 Tbsp mace
1 tsp granulated garlic
3 1/2 oz. salt
1 1/2 oz. powdered dextrose.

Procedures:

Chill the meat to 30 degrees (so that it has just started to freeze. This will make a much cleaner next step.)

Grind the meat through a 1/8" grinding plate.

Thoroughly mix all ingredients

Stuff into 22mm sausage casings. (all sausage making supplies can be mail ordered. Also, at the upcoming Lansing Deer and Turkey show, there will be many vendors who have these items for sale.) (Another way that I have made these sausages is with my Jerkey Shooter (purchased several years ago at the above mentioned show) - it has a special sausage stick head and works well without a casing.)

Place sausages in the smoke house and cold smoke (95 to 110 degrees) for about 8 hours. If you prefer a stronger smoke falvor it can go for up to an additional 12 hours at this temperature.

Raise the smokehouse temperature to 180 degrees and continue the process for another hour - this step is also very important to cook the final product.

This is a basic stick-sausage recipe that makes a good product. I prefer more dextrose, more garlic, and less mustard - that's a matter of personal preference. I also use about 12 hours of smoke with cherry wood.

Give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

ss

[Kip]

Thanks Salmonsmoker, I'll give it a try. Sounds like it should be easy enough. Once again, Thanks.

[Salmonsmoker]

Kip,

Let us know how it turns out.

ss

[Hunter333]

Better yet, I will email you my address so that you can send me a sample :)

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ONE shot, ONE kill..No excuses, no exceptions EVER!!