These pictures were taken by my in-laws during deer butchering. Everybody pitches in when they can. Processing usually takes about 2 1/2 days, as it includes doing all of the deer, and at least 1 hog, some years, it takes two hogs in order to provide enough pork for mixing with the venison.

The pictures which follow were taken during the sausage making phase of the processing.

L to R -- Brian (lf), Louise (lr), Lucy(rr) and Jerry (rf) mix the spices, meat (pork and venison) and other secret ingrediants. Once the meat is throughly mixed, it delivered to the stuffer for stuffing into casings, or is made in to patties. Our sausage recipie is a family one to the best of my knowledge. I have never seen a cook book used for it, always the handwritten notes of Louise. She tinkers with it a bit from time to time - looking for the perfect blend of spices.

Some ground venison is held back (un-mixed) and kept as venison burger. It is great for chili, spaghetti sauce, sloppie joe mix, etc.

Loren and Mary at the sausage stuffer. Loren has a pan of mixed meat to his right. Directly in front of him is the stuffer. Near the bottom front of the stuffer you may notice a brass colored tube with some white on it. This is feed cone, covered with sausage casings. Mary is loading rings of stuffed sausage on to a stick, which is held by Bernie (thats his arm on the edge of the picture). Bernie is the smoke-master - he tends the fire in the smoker (a 55 gallon drum used only for smoking meat) and tends the meat. His smoking process is only for flavor - the meat is not cooked so that it can be eaten out of the smoker - such as the summer sausage you find in grocery stores - all of our sausage must be cooked first. The wood used for the fire in the smoker is some sort of fruit wood, such as apple, plum, or other variety. When one of the family trims or takes down a fruit tree, the wood is always saved for this purpose (smoking venison).

This is a close up of the ring of sausage in the foreground of the previous picture. This is one continuous link, 32 feet long. The casings used are natural hog casings (hog intestine), which are salted at the pork processing plant. The casings are soaked and washed prior to stuffing to remove the excess salt. It is luck of the draw, as to how long a given section or ring will be. Some are as short as a foot, some as long as 10. It depends on the strength of the casing and the pressure used on the stuffing machine. The longest ring of sausage that has ever been made during deer processing is 34 feet. This ring was cut up for smoking and subsequent packaging.

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Copyright 2001© Jim Laumann.