Venison Casings

[Rick]

Here's a question for you deer poachers....hunters. Can you use the intestines for casings? I know you can use cow, pig and sheep but I've never heard of anyone using deer and I can't find anything on it via google. I'm sure that artificial casings are used today but what would be wrong with using deer?

[canid]

nothing whatsoever.

[Gray Wolf]

Every Venison sausage or baloney recipe I checked on, said to use pork casings?

[Bibow]

i think the reason people would use the pig is the thought of using deer is repulsive but thats a guess never made sausage before.

[trax]

I think intestines period are repulsive so I tend to leave them for the crows and coyotes. My guess is when they tell you to use pig intestines it's because you're buying them cleaned up and ready to use, but you're going to have to do some work to clean out the guts of any animal you just dropped. But as far as I know, it's all basically the same material, right?

[crashdive123]

I think Trax is right. Pigs are slaughtered commercially (bacon - yummy) so the pig intestines are readily available in a processing plant already. Probably nothing much more than that.

[trax]

I think Trax is right.

You'd think I'd get tired of hearing that, but surprisingly...no...:D :D :D:D

[Rick]

Yeah, but if you're out in the outback, you know, out back and you don't have access to sheep tubes then I would think you could turn deer tubes inside out, clean them up, boil them and use them. Eh?

[trax]

Absolutely, you can make water bags out of their stomachs, same thing, just scrub 'em up so to speak and don't let them leak, and when you wash em they squeak...but the finished product is quite sleek. Any other info you seek?

[Rick]

Aw, man. You reek.

[trax]

Hey don't freak.

[Rick]

Oh, wait. My bad. Mispell. You Reek A. You figured out a use for the stomach.

[trax]

Yeah, can't actually take credit for that, it's been around for a few thousand years.

[canid]

beyond that; compared even to the amount of trim most people get from a deer, there's only so much plumbing to go around. you invariably need more, especially if you take it to a lazy butcher, or you end up with a lot of breakfast patties.

any job worth doing is usually worth doing yourself.

[trax]

good point canid, I used to take my wild meat to a guy to get it cut up, wound up with an awful lot of ground compared to doing my own cutting and I wound up with a lot more meat period. It's not that hard to figure out how to do it right. I'm not fast at it, but what the heck, it's worth it.

[canid]

the last deer i had was given to my by my boss's husband [seems the health inspector was upset about it's being stored in the resteraunt freezer]. it was about half breakfast sausage, some 30lb lighter than it should have been and half of everything else was labled some loin cut or other. makes me wonder what factory assembled that deer...

[maximilian]

Haven't heard about intestine but I have about the stomach.

"Royal Haggis." It's basically the same as regular sheep haggis, just use deer instead. This makes me think the intestine might work the same too, but perhaps an experiment is in order. I have a friend that makes specialty sausages as a hobby, and I might be able to get some natural venison casings to him this fall.

[Rick]

You dare bring haggis to this thread, too? Sheeeeeesh!

[canid]

it's not a question of might; we just said it does.

[gourdhead1997]

This would definitely be something to investigate further. I do know that deer fat will go rancid even in a freezer. I know this from an awful night spent doubled over in a bathroom after eating sausage that I made myself and used the deer fat instead of adding pork fat as suggested. I wouldn't know if the intestines would hold up or not but I would want to know more before spending another night like that.

[FVR]

I made a 48" pony bow once pulling 45 at 26 inches. Backed it with about 5 layers of sinew, that's why I could pull it back 26 inches, and then I encased the bow in a pig intestine.

Plains Indians would do this then wipe the outside of the bow down with bear grease.

I did it, did not like it, scraped it off.

[Gray Wolf]

FVR, that had to feel kind of strange. :eek:

[Rick]

gourdhead - Perhaps it didn't go rancid in the freezer. It might have already been bad. I don't know how anything could go bad at freezing temps. How did you prepare the fat before using it in the meat? And...how did you determine it was the fat and not the meat that was bad?