Preserving Floyd: Processing Venison

In preparation for this year's deer another project this past month involved grinding what was left of last year's venison into burger to make way for this year's deer.  I do a mix of 4 lbs of ground venison and 1 pound of ground pork for a nice lean to fat ratio that makes for juicy burgers, sausages, and loaves.  This year I made venison bologna using LEM's prepackaged spice mix a friend gave me to try.  This stuff tastes just like I remember my grandfather's venison bologna tasting.  I have no idea if this is what he was using way back then but I really like it.  Could be the nostalgia thing.  I also made a bunch of spicy teriyaki jerky for Michael to carry on his bicycle journeys.

I ended up with 5 lbs worth of the bologna in one pound sticks, 3 pounds of jerky and 15 pounds of ground burger in one pound packages.  Michael got his deer so in addition to the above we now have a new supply of roasts and steaks and enough trimmings to make a batch of link sausage.  Santa's bringing me a smoker for Christmas so I think I'm going to wait until it arrives to make my first batch of smoked venison sausage!