Pepperoni

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MrTom

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Not venison, these sticks of pepperoni are about 19" long and done using a commercial seasoning mix/cure with pork/beef. They were stuffed yesterday into 1 7/8" casings and now will rest until tomorrow. Then the get heated very slowly to 160 degrees on a raised grill so any rendered fat can drip to a pan under the sticks. The heating will take about 5 hours. After cooling down naturally they'll get hung for up to two weeks in a cold garage to help dry the sausage. Some people smoke their pepperoni, I just stuff and heat. Some of this will be used with pizza, most will be snack food.

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I do my pepperoni in the oven where I can control the heating. I bring it to temperature very slow. When it hits an internal temperature of 160 degrees I just shut the heat off and let things cool down on their own accord. I don't care for pepperoni that's been smoked. The 1 7/8" sticks are just a little larger than the usual sliced pepperoni used for pizza. I'm going to do a couple 3 3/4" casings with sandwich pepperoni later on and try my hand at dry curing it, then drying it in a controlled temperature area.
 
My in-laws are Italian immigrants and they make a dried sausage, maybe sopressata? Something like that. It's very good in any event, but I don't know how they make it.
 
Looks good so far. We can find pepperoni here that size too. I've tried making some pepperoni and bologna in the past from the packaged mixes but never found one I liked, so sort of gave up. :( Which packaged spice blends do you like?

There is an Amish Family near my home in Ohio and they have a grind house, and make lots of sausages year round. My Uncle brought me a small roll of Trail Bologna from them and I had never tasted any that was as good as this and demanded to know who made it. :D During Deer season they are REAL busy making just Trail Bologna. Some guys drop the whole deer off just for that. I am hoping to get one extra doe this year to have some made for me and my brother. This guy really has a Great recipe. The seasoning is perfect and they grind it 3 times, smaller plates each time, adding just enough pork fat to it, and it is not much. They cook in a low temp water bath for 1 1/2 hr and then it hangs in a smoker for 3 hours. :drool: :drool: First time I took a tub of meat over the "Lady of the House" was about to take it away from me and I told her I would carry it for her. Just my excuse to see inside the grind house to see how clean they were. It was spotless, so I felt good about it. They are crazy consistent too on taste from year to year. It is mind boggling how many hunters drop off deer. I forget what they charged but it was extremely reasonable and they supply the pork, and it is ready in 3 days. While it would be very satisfying to make it myself it is kind of hard form me to do it with limited time at home since I live in NY and hunt in Ohio and for what they charge, I am not going to bother. My dad really don't eat Venison but he will pig out on this trail bologna. I gave a friend here in NY a roll and his Father in-law is German, he said it taste "just like from the old country"! :D
 
Shawn.....For this I used a blend from sausagemaker.com. I haven't used this before but am always willing to try new stuff. I did fry up the plugs of meat left in the grinder and stuffing funnel and that was some sort of good eating but its darned hard to telling how a finished product will taste based on a fried meat that hasn't allowed spices to go to work yet. Time will tell. If I like how this turns out, more will be the order. If not, then I'll go to another source. I don't buy much from places that stock seasonings at deer hunting time, but rather, from sources that cater to lockers and professional meat packers. The seasonings are bought in bulk, usually in quantities for 50 to 100 pound batches and I adjust the amounts based on weight.
 

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