Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Best way to store sausage

I process my own deer meat. I usually grind up about 60 lbs and place them in thr 1 lb cylinder packs from cabelas. Been doing that for many years now. I usually cut up and trim my roasts, backstrap, loins and such as well. I take these, wrap in reynolds plastic wrap the. Wrap with butcher papar. This too hase worked well for as long as I can remember. The plastic wrap keeps the moisture off of it so it doesn't freezer burn.

My question is sausage. I have had the local shop make my sausage for many years but this year made me rethink it. I got hit with a $656 sausage bill this year and I said enough is enough. He makes a sweet / heat type sausage that is fantastic but for that price, I'll try and start making my own. I already have the grinder and foot pedal. I'll just pick up a sausage stuffer and do it myself.

My question is when he does it, he vacuum packs it in 4 link packs. Stays fresh for a year or 2. But we usually eat it all during the year so there is very little carry over of sausage. Other cuts of meat will carry over but not long.

Can the sausage be wrapped the same way with plastic wrap and butcher paper or should it be vacuum packed? Or how do you guys that make your own do it? Thanks.

We vacuum seal ours SD. Just like you, it'll be gone before it hits the year mark.

We did 175lbs this year and it is great. Breakfast, pasta, etc.. I used a whole deer minus the backstraps for the mixture along with the sausage trimmings I saved from a pig we butchered this fall.





Don't forget to taste test your batches before you make a ton...

Yeah we actually made some and cooked it. Came out pretty damn close to his thus me considering it. I was looking at a 15lb stuffer. Do you recommend anything? Because with a $656 bill, it will pay for itself in one year.

I can't remember the brand of our stuffer, but I'd think any of the good places like Cabelas, LEM, or whoever would be fine.

You aren't kidding about the meat maker bill though. I dropped off 150lbs of elk/deer a few years ago for snack sticks and hot dogs and I almost passed out when I got the bill. They were great, but man, I'd rather do it myself nowadays.

I literally grabbed the side of my neck to check my pulse. The lady behind the counter laughed. I said I'm not. This is insane. Told her, it won't happen again.

I let them sit for 24 hrs in the refrigerator before vacuum sealing mine. It helps them bind up, and they seem to keep their shape better. If wrapping, it may not be as big a deal? I don't know.

Vac seal it and freeze

We had some pretty long electrical outages during the fires a couple years ago, got nervous about running the freezers once a day on the old genset. Canned most of the stuff, but we had about 8 pounds of hot Italian sausage in natural casing, wife said, deal with it...I guess she was sick of canning in near 100 deg temps. So I thought, what the hell, my folks lived until they died of something else...gently parboiled it to a high internal temp, packed them in hot jars, and poured hot lard to the rim. Allowed them to cool overnite and put them in the root cellar. I got into them the following Thanksgiving, pretty darn good, I'd give it a solid C+ or a B. Flavor was great, color was grey but they browned nicely in a skillet, but a little chewy.
Overall, it's a lot of work, but for real SHTF it's a 100% better than freeze dried 'food'.

I vac pack mine.

I'm also considering a hand turn mixer. I have about 6 of the big gray meat totes which I didn't know they make liners for, which could help with cleanup. But yeah I'm considering everything.

Before vacation sealing, when we butcherd 3 big hogs per year, mom would save big plastic containers and we would freeze stuffed sausage submerged in water.
The ice was similar to vac sealing and preserved the sausage.

That method wasted freezer room, we also had a cow, so we freezer wrapped and put it in ziplocks too. The wrapped stuff was eaten first, the submerged kept better.

I don't have a stuffer, and don't do over about 20# at a time.

I grind once, mix it, then grind the second time.
Through a stuffer tube.
Gotta have a helper to stuff with a grinder, the foot pedal is essential.