Venison Summer Sausage: Kits, Casings and the Internal Temp That Matters

Cook venison summer sausage to an internal temperature of 160°F, USDA's figure for ground meat and for uncooked sausage made with beef or pork. A kit is the simplest route: Hi Mountain's seasons up to 30 lb and includes pre-portioned cure and ten 2.5 x 20 inch fibrous casings. Add pork fat to your venison (about 20% of the batch), stuff tight, refrigerate overnight, then smoke or bake to 160°F.

Summer sausage is the batch most hunters make once they've got fresh links down, and it's where a few specifics matter: a cured mix, big casings with no air in them, and a finish temperature you actually measure. Every number below comes from USDA, a university extension bulletin, or the kit and casing makers' own instructions.

Venison summer sausage internal temp: who says what

You'll see several finish temperatures in print, and it's worth knowing where each comes from.

Kit or from scratch

The case for a kit is the cure. It arrives pre-portioned to the seasoning, so the one measurement that can hurt someone is done for you. The three kits we point to, per their makers' listings:

That tang is the other reason kits exist. USDA describes traditional summer sausage as a semi-dry sausage made with a lactic-acid starter culture, fermented and then heated in the smokehouse; the acid is where the flavor comes from. WSU Extension says semi-dry sausage can be made safely within 24 hours with very fresh ingredients, a properly handled starter culture and careful temperature control, but also that home production of dry sausage is not recommended. Bearded Butchers' encapsulated citric acid sidesteps fermentation: the maker says the coating holds until the smoker comes up to temperature, then releases the acid.

From scratch is fine if you're comfortable with cure math. NDSU's venison summer sausage formula (15 lb venison, 10 lb 50/50 pork trim) is a good published starting point; use Cure #1 at the package rate and read our curing salt guide before you measure.

How much pork fat to add

Bearded Butchers' kit says to blend venison with pork trim to around 20% fat by weight so the sausage slices clean instead of crumbling. NDSU's formula lands on the same number: 10 lb of 50/50 pork trim is 5 lb of fat in a 25 lb batch, which is 20%. Hi Mountain's instructions say to combine venison with ground pork without giving a ratio, so use 20% as your baseline. The reasoning behind the ratio, and the alternatives, are in how to make venison sausage and venison fat ratios.

Casings: fibrous, soaked and pricked

NDSU calls fibrous casings the more suitable choice for summer sausage because of their strength and range of sizes; they're permeable to smoke and moisture and peel off the finished sausage. Prep, per the makers and NDSU:

• Soak. LEM says at least 25-30 minutes in clear, warm water; NDSU says 80-100°F water for at least 30 minutes but no more than four hours.
• Prick. If the casings aren't pre-stuck, NDSU says to puncture them with a knife point or pin to eliminate air and fat pockets.
• Use a big tube. A 2.5 inch casing wants your largest stuffing tube, roughly 38-40 mm or 1-1/2 inch. Stuffing through a grinder struggles here; a piston stuffer with an air valve doesn't. See best sausage stuffers.

The process, start to finish

1. Chill. Keep venison and pork at 40°F or below throughout, near 32°F when grinding (NDSU, Penn State, Mississippi State).
2. Grind coarse. Cube and coarse-grind the venison and pork together.
3. Mix in cure and seasoning. Dissolve them in the recipe's water, per Penn State, and mix 2-5 minutes (WSU). With a Hi Mountain kit, use a non-metal container.
4. Regrind through a finer plate, if your recipe calls for it.
5. Stuff tight into soaked, pricked fibrous casings, and tie off.
6. Rest cold. Hi Mountain says 12-24 hours in the refrigerator before smoking or cooking; Mississippi State says cured sausage should sit about 24 hours before smoking.
7. Smoke or bake, raising the heat in stages. NDSU's venison recipe runs 140°F for 2 hours, 160°F for 2 hours, then 170°F to finish. Hi Mountain's kit works in a smoker or oven. WSU notes a household oven used for sausage must be able to hold 185°F.
8. Finish at 160°F internal, measured in the thickest chub.
9. Cool fast and refrigerate. WSU: cool sausage quickly after cooking, then refrigerate or freeze.

How long homemade summer sausage keeps

USDA's sausage storage chart, which sits alongside its advice on reading the dates on store-bought sausage, lists summer sausage (semi-dry) at 3 months unopened in the refrigerator, 3 weeks after opening and 1-2 months in the freezer for best quality. For homemade sausage, WSU Extension is more conservative: 3-4 weeks refrigerated for properly fermented dry and semi-dry sausages, 1 week for non-vacuum-packaged cooked sausages, 2 weeks vacuum-packaged, and up to 6 months frozen at 0°F for cured, smoked sausage in a moisture-vapor-proof bag.

A kit summer sausage made without a fermentation step is, by our reading, closest to what WSU calls a cooked sausage, so we'd use the shorter cooked-sausage windows unless your kit's instructions give their own: about a week refrigerated as is, two weeks vacuum-sealed, and the freezer for anything longer. Vacuum sealing the chubs is the single best upgrade for keeping quality; see how long vacuum-sealed meat lasts.