Summer sausage

There is no exact recipe here, but here are some basic guidelines we learned in class with a bit of a recipe. My boyfriend and I love summer sausage and after taking the bratwurst making class we naturally decided we can do this! So we took the summer sausage making class and we came straight home and made summer sausage!
For each stick of sausage you will need the following...
 2 lbs of meat- options 50/50 venison and pork butt (this is what we use), 50/50 beef chick roast and pork butt, or any other combination of meat you would like. Just make sure it’s not to fatty.

 About 1/3 cup of some type of liquid- options are beer, wine, water, apple juice, whiskey etc.

Summer sausage seasoning packet, you can mix up your own we didn’t this time.

Now here you can stop adding things in and just make the sausage or you can add in more stuff such as...high temp cheeses, dried fruits or jalapeños etc.

 Here are the combos we decided to try this go around:
 Red wine and cheddar
Cranberry cheddar jalapeño
Cheddar and Swiss
 Bleu cheese onion and hazelnut stout beer
Beer and cheddar.
 Key points- do not add fresh fruit! It must be dried. You can add fresh jalapeño if you remove seeds but no jar jalapeños. The vinegar will eat through the casing as they cure. If you make your own seasoning make sure to use a cure, we buy premade seasoning and it has it inside of the mix. Grind your meats unless you have had the butcher grind them for you. Mix meat and all other ingredients until very sticky!!! This is important. If you have ever unrolled a package of jimmy dean sausage you know what I mean by sticky meat! This is what you are looking for. Then stuff your casing. I bought the grinder/stuffer kit for my kirchenade mixer. Now hang in your basement for 3-5 days. Now you have a choice hot smoked or cold. Hot smoke you place sausage into your smoker at 225 until it gets to 252 degrees and mahagony in color. cold smoke you place in your smoker at 110 degrees until it turns managing in color. We prefer cold smoking to hot. Better texture. After cold smoking you hang in your basement in a humid dark cool place. We actually use our basement shower and every few days run super hot water to produce the humidity. After 30 days slice and eat. Never needs refrigeration. We have not smoked these yet! I’ll update when we do.