The Holidays Were a Blur

Duck hunting during the holidays consisted of a variety of not so noteworthy hunts.

A trip to the China Island and Kesterson Units of the North Grasslands ended up being mostly a scouting trip. I’ve been to China Island twice now and I’m not impressed.

The afternoon hunt at Kesterson produced a little action. My friend Roger Matuska and I walked out to blind 3A, which consists of two barrels and a dog box on an island. Spoonies, wigeon, gadwall and teal passed by and I managed to knock down a greenwing teal and a gadwall. The spoonies came in like lasers and I missed three opportunities while muffing a couple other opportunities.

The barrel blinds at Kesterson were dry and very functional. The dog blind was adequate.

At least we didn’t get up at 2 AM for the hunt. Leaving home at 9 AM instead and hunting the afternoon was painless. We only carried three decoys and used a jerk string. The ducks passed within range, but didn’t slow down.

Trips to our Webb Tract club produced a few quality birds. On the Friday before Christmas, I bagged two sprig, an Aleutian goose and a spec. Boy did they give me and Lola a workout. I only killed one bird dead. The others all provided lengthy chases, but Lola came through. It rained so hard Saturday morning that I didn’t hunt. I was soaked before I left camp.

Another trip to Webb on the day after Christmas produced a couple spring and chances at geese. The island was holding plenty of birds, but they didn’t fly much.

The delta is holding plenty of geese.

I smoked a bunch of ducks and geese from last year. They were well received at our Christmas party and as gifts. Venison was also popular, both as summer sausage and smoked. I served smoked goose breast, smoked steel head and summer sausage with cream cheese and crackers. There wasn’t any left over.

I’ll be out again later this week. Still looking for a day with major action.

 

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When the Freezer’s Full

You can tell when people like meat. Their eyes light up at the mention of mallard and they smile and ask, “What’s this?” as they reach out for a mytery offering.

I appreciate people who have an adventurous appetite.

My wife will not eat game meat, except pheasant. She likes fish, but even fish often take a back seat to anything Safeway.

When I hunt, I prefer to shoot stuff. Bringing home a prize is part of the fun. I enjoy preparing game to eat, but without eaters I’m at a disadvantage.

That’s why my freezer fills up.

When that happens, it’s time to get to work.

On my Idaho trip I came home with 50 pounds of pure meat and also found a great Jerky and Sausage Supply store in the small Idaho town of Kooskia. I went a little overboard purchasing seasonings and cures, but I’m having fun with them. The company has an online store:  www.eldonsausage.com.

Over the past week, I’ve made three batches of jerky. The first two were with venison and I tried Eldon’s Original and AC Legg’s Maple Style. I prefered the Eldon’s original. While brining meat in Eldon’s Premium Ham Brine in preparation for smoking, I threw in some duck breasts from non-mallards. I often make jerky from the likes of spoonies, cinnamon teal, wigeon and gadwall.

Another good brine for jerky is a 50/50 mix of soy sauce and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. With these, overnight brining is enough.

On the other hand, the ham brine recipe calls for several days of soaking. After 5 days I decided to check out the meat. It was ready for smoking while the breasts were ready for the jerky maker. Yesterday I fired up my water smoker  and sliced the breasts in preparation for the dehydrator. (I use a NESCO, American Harvest Food Dehydrator and Jerky Maker. It works well.)

After a day of smoking, the meat (ducks, geese and venison) came out of the smoker looking quite good and tasting great. I have to watch myself while I’m doing all this because if I eat too much of the product I swell up like a balloon. You don’t want to take in too much salt! That’s why you need eaters!

The “ham-brine”  duck jerky also came out excellent, but the Eldon’s Original is still my favorite.

Last weekend I made a big dent in the venison by producing 15 pounds of summer sausage with  High Mountain Seasoning’s summer sausage kit. It came out perfect. I highly recommend their product – just follow the directions.

My grinder is a Cabela’s Heavy Duty Grinder that I purchased for about $70. It will produce two pounds per minute and that’s fast enough for me. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’ve already got my money’s worth.

Now my freezer has some room, but (hopefully) not for long.

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Summer Sausage for Christmas

Made summer sausage the week before Christmas and gave almost all of it away. In fact I just opened the final hunk we have left for New Years.

The sausage kit recipe is excellent and it cuts down on the prep work. I mixed ten pounds of ground venison (from Jeff’s BC whitetail) with four pounds of ground pork shoulder. Then I added the seasoning and cure per the instructions which are very explicit and easy to read.

After stuffing the sausage into the casings, I let them sit in the refrigerator over night and smoked them the next day. I heated them for one hour in the oven, then smoked them for two hours and finished them off by putting them back in the oven for an hour until they reached 156 degrees F.

Here are a few photos of the process.

I purchased the kit at Bass Pro. It save a lot of time by eliminating the need to shop for seasonings and mixing them.

Smoking the sausage adds a lot of flavor. I prefer the apple wood. The water smoker is heated by bricketts.

It takes too long to heat the meat to 156 degrees in the smoker, so I finished the sauage off with the oven set at 200 degrees.

Wrapping the sausage using the foodsaver keeps it moist. If you leave it unwrapped it begins to dry out, something you won't like.

I served the sausage Christmas Eve and it was well received. I felt good about giving it away.

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Weekend Sausage Extravaganza

 

For the second consecutive year, daughter Betsy and I made sausage with venison, goose and duck breasts. We mixed the fowl with the venison and figured it would all work out in the end – which it did. Snow geese, Aleutian geese, widgeon and spoonies joined with shoulder and rump meat from my buck.

I found a couple pork shoulders at the local grocery store – ten pounds apiece. Combined with 20 pounds of game meat we had the makings of a bunch of sausage.

I purchased sausage kits at Bass Pro. This made the process of gathering up materials and spices quite simple and I had enough to do to get ready anyway. We were very pleased with the product.

Here’s a photo essay of our weekend efforts.

Meat ingredients

grinder

We sliced and diced the pork and venison.

It's ok to have a beer while making sausage.

Casings come packed in salt.

Rinse the casings to remove salt.

Note the prepackaged sausage kit.

The casings must be soaked until soft.

We ground the pork and venison together.

I followed directions from the kit carefully.

The meat after one pass through.

After the first pass we added seasoning and cure and then reground.

After regrinding and a night in the fridge, the meat was ready to be stuffed.

Summer sausage is 80% lean meat and 20% pork.

Polish and bratwurst are 80% pork and 20% venison, but you can go to 50/50 if you prefer a lean product.

When the grinding was over, we switched the knife and grate (on the counter) for the stuffing blade - inserted into the grinder.

The casings slide over the stuffing tube. After it's in place tie a knot at the end.

Betsy attempted to make sausage by herself, but it really takes two people, one to hold the sausage and the other to run the machine.

Summer sausage casings are quite large and a larger stuffing tube is used.

Twist the casings as each link reaches the desired length.

The summer sausage made us laugh.

Dad stopped by to supervise for a while.

Polish links with a little left over for smoked sausage patties.

I was quite proud of the summer sausage.

We ended up with 15 pounds of summer sausage.

To prepare the smoker, I place apple wood chips inside aluminum foil. This created an appropriate amount of smoke and heat when placed over the coals.

Bratwurst first.

Almost there.

After three hours of smoking, the bratwurst reached the 160 degrees necessary to be safe.

The summer sausage is fabulous.

The bratwurst and polish have an excellent smokey flavor.

What a great way to share your game with friends.

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Goose Jerky

Here’s a good way to make goose jerky, or any kind of jerky for that matter. I’ve always used a combinatgion of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce as the basis of my jerky. With just these two ingredients, you can produce good tasting jerky by marinating your jerky meat in a 50/50 mixture. The flavor is good, but after a while it gets a little boring. So, here’s a way to make things more interesting by adding some variables that you can experiment with.

Here are some ingredients to use to make jerky spicy and/or sweet.

Teriyaki can be used instead of Worcestershire sause or in combination with it. This will sweeten the flavor. Chili powder and red peper flakes can be used to make the jerky spicy hot. Don’t overdo it. A cup of brown sugar and water will also sweeten the pot. Ducks unlimited magazine published a variation of this recipie in their Sept/Oct issue and my friend Jeff suggested the addition of teriyaki sauce. He also said he preferred to make his with little or no chili powder.

Brown sugar is a good addition.

I generally use a dehydrator to dry my jerky (Jeff used an electic smoker for his, smoked it for an hour at 165 degrees and finished by air drying). The temperature on the dehydrator can be set as high as 165 degrees, but don’t leave it that hot for more than an hour. Today I left the temp set at 120 degrees for about nine hours and then 165 for an hour to finish. It’s a good idea to make it hot for an hour to eliminate any chance of bacteria growth. I’ve never worried about this before and many times I’ve just air-dried jerky to completion, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.

Here’s the recipe I used for this batch. 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup water, 1/4 cup Worcestershire, 1/2 cup teriyaki, 1 cup brown sugar, 3 table spoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of chili powder, 2 tablespoons of red pepper flakes, 3 tablespoons of course ground pepper. I brined the meat for about 20 hours and dried it for ten. The flavor is very good, but it’s slightly hot. Good with beer, but probably hotter than you’d like if you’re going to eat it in the woods.

To take on a hike, I’d leave out the hot stuff. Other than that it would be just fine.

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Turning A Pile of Geese into Table Fare

If you read my previous post, you know what a mess of geese looks like. Here it is again. 

This is a pile of waterfowl.

 

This is a pretty intimidating pile of dead birds. I have to admit to being a bit overwhelmed as Fred and I began the process of plucking. We got the birds into a reasonable state and I also dropped one spec off at a friend’s house on the way home. It was plucked, but not gutted. The wings, legs and head were also still attached. My friend’s wife came to the door in her bathrobe as he wasn’t home. I placed the carcass on their kitchen counter and departed, hoping that he would know what to do when he got home. My worst fear was that she would drop it in the garbage before he even arrived. Anyway one less bit of goose work for me. 

On Sunday afternoon while watching football, I began the process of cleaning up the pile. That’s when I videoed the project. The video is on youtube. Click on the link to see it now. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OkAj6vIB9g 

That will give you my thoughts on how to proceed. I worked on each bird, resulting in a processed result of goose meat to be used in several ways. The best eating birds, the specs, mallard and pintail were completely cleaned and plucked for roasting – one spec for dinner Sunday night and the rest for freezing, except I ended up delivering one spec to my neighbors across the street who enjoy eating ducks. 

Here are the results. Some for roasting, some for frying and some for jerky.

The Aleutian, snow goose and damaged spec will be sliced thinly, brined for a day and then dried in my dehydrator for jerky. The roasting birds will be shrink wrapped except for the one on the rack which is ready to be roasted at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. I recommend that you pull it out of the oven and check it by slicing open to see if it’s right for you after 12 minutes. 

Here’s the shrink-wrapped result. 

 

The specs were split to make individually sized individual portions.  The gizzards will be fried up. And, the package to the upper left is the leftovers from dinner. Here is the dinner.

 

I’m convinced it was every bit as good as filet mignon.  Do not over cook. Medium rare is ideal for me.

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