CURED FATBACK RECIPES

Steps:

• While keeping everything ice cold (see methods for fresh sausage), combine the game meat, pork fat, and all of the other ingredients except for the Fermento, water, and casings in a large bowl.
• Mix to combine with your hands. Work in small batches if you need to, and don’t be afraid to throw the meat back in the fridge or freezer, or into a cooler with ice, to get chilled again.
• Using the 1/4-inch plate on your grinder, grind the meat mixture into the bowl set over ice.
• Change out the grinder plate to the 3/16-inch plate and pass the mixture through the grinder again.
• Meanwhile, dissolve the Fermento in the water and stir with a spoon.
• Add to the ground meat mixture and again mix with your hands, or throw the meat mixture in the bowl of a standing mixer and mix on low, until it’s all incorporated.
• Press a piece of plastic wrap over the surface of the meat, making sure there are no air bubbles. Then wrap the bowl with a second layer of plastic wrap and set it in the fridge for 2 days to ferment.
• Make a little test patty and cook it up in a sauté pan to be sure you got the seasonings right. Adjust them if you didn’t. Then, using a sausage stuffer, stuff the sausage into the casings.
• Let the stuffed casings rest in the fridge to dry out for 1-2 hours.
• While the stuffed sausages are resting, soak a panful of applewood chips for 20 minutes.
• Preheat the smoker to 112°-130°.
• Set the pan of chips in the smoker. Lay or hang the sausages in the smoker.
• Smoke for about 60 minutes at this temperature, then raise the temperature to 180°.
• Smoke until the internal temperature reaches 150°, which will probably take 2-3 hours, depending on your particular smoker and the ambient temperature.
• Keep refilling the pan of apple wood chips as they get low.
• When the sausages are done, let them hang at room temperature for 1 hour to cool, then wrap well and refrigerate. They can be frozen for several months.