Results of Sausage Tasting

John, Keith, Steve, Kenley, and I spent a Sunday afternoon making lots of different kinds of sausages. I will post the recipes we used, variations we made, and some general thoughts. Here are the results of our taste testing dinner after making all of these sausages. No check means that the person did not like the sausage at all.

I have an immediate apology to Joe as I only used 40% of the ingredients to make the sausage so some thought it to be a bit bland.

You will also note that there are no marks for Banger sausage. Steve had mentioned he had it once and did not like it, but wanted to try one on his own to see if it was better. Not sure if it was the breadcrumbs or the mace but the Banger sausages got a big thumbs down.

Sausage	Steve	Grandpa	Amy	Keith	John	Malcolm	Kenley
Stevo
Nahunta
Banger
Garlic
Johnsonville
Joe
Italian
Tuscan

Location, location, location - why your stand location makes all the difference.

I got a really great lesson in stand locations this past season. In the off-season we decided to move my stand to be adjacent to a slue that had water year round and was on higher ground that the current location. I was looking to find both more pigs and more deer. In the current stand location I could often see deer working their way around my location but never could get them out of the thick cover to properly id them and to get a clean shot so I spent a lot of team seeing deer and never did bag one from the stand. I was also only getting a single group of pigs (one sow and her 9 piglets) coming to the stand.

Well the new stand location was a total bust. In an entire deer season, I  only got a deer on a trail camera twice and pigs only sporadically throughout the season. The new location was about 200 yards away from the original location and the animals just were not moving around that slue.

So at the end of the deer season, we decided to move the stand 300 yards (100 yards away from original location) and voila. The first week I had 7 deer coming by the stand everyday. The entire spring I had deer every single day on camera. I also started getting a few more pig sightings.

So my lessons learned ...

1. Even the smallest distance matters.
2. A little corn on the ground will not make deer change their walking pattern.
3. You can't really know if a location is good or not just by the raw dynamics (e.g. layout, habitat, water access). This is not fishing, deer and pigs are more complex than that.

Looking forward to taking some deer from this stand location next season!

Patience, patience, patience - why you should never switch stands in a weekend!

Invited my friend out to Howell Woods to hunt the weekend (Thu - Sat). Dad and I always like to try to find a good stand for friends and family when they come to hunt. After two days of seeing nothing, my friend decided he needed a change of scenery. Collectively people told him it was a bad idea and he should stay put but to no avail. We moved him to another stand for the final night and my dad sat in the stand he had occupied for the first two days.

Wouldn't you know it, seven pigs came in to the stand and my dad shot a 95 pounder. And wouldn't you know my friend got shut out. I might have really let him have it, but the fact is that I have done that myself a number of times and so have most of the people that hunt at Howell Woods.

Pigs are much different than deer. They can avoid a stand for weeks or months and then when they decide they want to start going to a stand they do so stubbornly. With pigs it is real important to know how they are trending as that will greatly increase your overall success. With deer, you can kill a deer just about anywhere as they tend to stay spread out and pick through the woods. Pigs seem to both travel more (we have pictures of the same group of pigs 3 miles apart in the same evening) and travel more focused. If you are in the current travel path, the pigs are coming, just a matter if they make it there before it is time to call it a hunt.

So if you have a stand the pigs are frequenting, keep with it, don't give up. It doesn't even matter if you shot one or more of the pigs. Amazingly the same group of pigs might come back the next night. 

Oh yeah ... another shot at sausage now with this new pig.

Pork Tenderloin w/Pancetta & Swiss Cheese == Awesome!

We always seem to struggle on what to do with the tenderloins of both deer and pigs. They are usually relatively small and like no other cut of meat and never enough for a meal (we feed 7 for dinner), so we usually end up with a stockpile of them by the end of the year. Was heading to a super bowl party so I figured I would try something new.

I pounded out the tenderloins, layered on top my  thin sliced pancetta, layered that with some swiss cheese and then sprinkled in some oregano and marjoram. I then rolled it into a tight roll, drizzled with olive oil and slow cooked it in my oven (250).

To serve at the party I cut the rolls into discs. The end result was a savory, cheesy treat. I will definitely be doing this again.

Curing a ham ... if it is so simple ... why won't it cure all of the way

So I have cured several hams now. They are delicious ... moist, mildly salty, a little sweet. Everyone seems to love them. One problem though ... I can't seem to get the cure to fully penetrate the ham. My first attempt, I soaked the ham the suggested time of 2 pounds/day.  My next attempts I tried soaking the ham for 1/2 pounds/day. Surprising there was very little difference in the amount of the meat that turned the desired pink color; instead, I had hams cured basically the same amount but a lot saltier.

My brother-in-law did some research, that was latter confirmed by a member of the hunt club who use to work at a meat packing plant, you must inject your brine into the ham along the base of the bone if you want the ham to have that nice, consistent pink color throughout. Of course I now know there are many kinds of injector needles ... off to do some research before the season runs out.

Curing a ham ... yes it is that simple.

One of the first things I wanted to try with my learning of the craft of Charcuterie was to properly cure a ham. I love ham, my family loves ham, let's make some ham ... I looked up some recipes for a holiday ham - slightly sweet, light on the salt.  The process was simple enough. Take the following brew ...

1 Gallon of Water
350g Salt
360g Dark Brown Sugar
43g of Pink Salt

and sink your ham into it in the refrigerator for 2 pounds/day, take the ham out of the mixture, wash it off, let it rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours, and then smoke it slow at 200 degrees until an internal temperature of 150.

Sounds easy enough ... right? I am now six hams in and I can tell you that they are delicious. The meat is slightly sweet with a hint of salt and moist from the outside all the way to the bone. This was especially pleasing as one of the challenges of wild pork is that it has a tendency to be a little tough.

Successful First Night Hunt

We had our first night hunt at Howell Woods on Saturday. Amazing how different the woods feel when it is completely dark. I took my daughter, Kenley, to sit with me. We didn't see any hogs but we did get to watch a couple young bucks for a while. My dad had much better success. He had a sow and 5 piglets come in and he took a nice 140 pounder. While he was waiting for me to come pick up the sow, he had four more pigs come in and shot another. Unfortunately, he had some equipment malfunction (his scope light went out) and the pig got back up and took off through the woods.

We followed a blood trail for about 200 yards but never did find the pig. We even went back the next morning and still no luck. Pigs are incredibly hardy. They can take a lot of abuse and still keep going. We decided to hang the sow and come back the next day to butcher. My son was a little nervous standing next to such a big pig.

I plan to cure the hams, make some bacon, and make some Carolina barbeque with this one. 

Forgot to mention ... the walk-in cooler at Howell Woods rocks!