Venison Bologna Food Safety Question
Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2021 04:25
My family and the rest of our hunting party have been making the same cold-smoked “deer bologna” as we call it for several generations; often making 150-200 lbs each year. The recipe is as follows:
30 lbs of meat/fat (90% venison and 10% beef fat)
8 oz salt
2-3/4 oz. garlic salt
3 oz. pepper
3 oz. mustard seed
The mixture is then stuffed into hog casings and cold smoked for 3-4 days. Its then frozen after smoking. The sausage is eaten raw while still moist, or allowed to dry by hanging out at room temperature for several days. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever become sick after eating this sausage, but I am concerned that we are at risk since there is no cure and the meat is never cooked. I’m even more surprised that there haven’t been any known cases of food poisoning from this sausage as it has often been prepared in a partitioned end of our turkey barns, thus hygiene definitely could have been better.
I’ve researched in books by the Marianski’s, AD Livingston, and Rytek Kutas to find similar recipes. The closest recipes I’ve found are for Landjager and Polska kielbasa wedzona from books by the Marianski’s, and “Old-timey Smoked Sausage” in a book by Livingston. Most of these recipes however also include Cure #1, say that the salt that was used in the past was likely “contaminated” by saltpeter, and/or call for a starter culture.
I’m concerned about the risk with no cure or other method for killing bacteria. My initial thought is to swap out some of the salt for Cure #1 to get to the target of 156 ppm nitrite. I don’t want to considerably change the taste or texture of this sausage that is already well liked by our hunting party, but I would like to decrease the risk of food poisoning. Besides adding the Cure #1, are there any other suggestions on how I might improve the safety of this sausage?
30 lbs of meat/fat (90% venison and 10% beef fat)
8 oz salt
2-3/4 oz. garlic salt
3 oz. pepper
3 oz. mustard seed
The mixture is then stuffed into hog casings and cold smoked for 3-4 days. Its then frozen after smoking. The sausage is eaten raw while still moist, or allowed to dry by hanging out at room temperature for several days. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever become sick after eating this sausage, but I am concerned that we are at risk since there is no cure and the meat is never cooked. I’m even more surprised that there haven’t been any known cases of food poisoning from this sausage as it has often been prepared in a partitioned end of our turkey barns, thus hygiene definitely could have been better.
I’ve researched in books by the Marianski’s, AD Livingston, and Rytek Kutas to find similar recipes. The closest recipes I’ve found are for Landjager and Polska kielbasa wedzona from books by the Marianski’s, and “Old-timey Smoked Sausage” in a book by Livingston. Most of these recipes however also include Cure #1, say that the salt that was used in the past was likely “contaminated” by saltpeter, and/or call for a starter culture.
I’m concerned about the risk with no cure or other method for killing bacteria. My initial thought is to swap out some of the salt for Cure #1 to get to the target of 156 ppm nitrite. I don’t want to considerably change the taste or texture of this sausage that is already well liked by our hunting party, but I would like to decrease the risk of food poisoning. Besides adding the Cure #1, are there any other suggestions on how I might improve the safety of this sausage?