I use moose to make up a lot of sausage meat.I use it as breakfast sausage,and it's great to mix with hamburger to give Bar-B-Qued burgers a great flavour.It also makes a great turkey stuffing as well.
I buy commercial sausage binders direct from the butcher at my local grocery store.Most butchers are pretty helpful in getting it for you.I've used various binder flavourings such as maple,honey garlic(both great for breakfast sausage)Mexican,Italian(great for using in Mexican dishes and Lasagnes,etc.)and simple bratwurst recipes which I use for stuffing into casings to make,what else,Bratwurst.
The binder packages that I use call for 22 pounds of meat.That's meat AND fat combined.I add about 20% fat,by volume and not weight.I use only pork fat because to me it adds a nicer flavour to your sausage.For a bratwurst mix,I use a 3/8" grinding plate and run the fat and meat through ONCE only.If you run it through a smaller plate you end up with a mushy sausage by the time you run it through the stuffer.This will give you a nice texture to your Brat.
For the other mixes which I freeze in small packages,I run through a 3/16" plate which is the same as what I use for hamburger.Again,I run the fat and meat through ONCE only.
It's easiest to divide your ground meat into about 4 evenly sized portions and divide the binder amoung the.The smaller portions allow better mixing of your binder with the meat.Once it's all mixed I dump it into a Coleman cooler and mix everything together.The binder will cause the meat to stick to your hands like glue but the next step will take care of that.The recipe calls to add 3 pounds of cold water to the meat.The colder the better.That may seem like a lot of water and it is.You're going to have what looks like a soupy mess in the cooler because thats excatly what you do have.However,keep mixing the water in and before long the meat will absorb the water and you'll have a nice sausage mix to work with.
This is the point where you can get creative.I like to add onions to some of my sausage so I buy dried onion flakes and reconstitute them in water.When they're ready,I drain them and add them to the mix.For Italian sausage,which I also use for Bratwurst sometimes,I add a bit of zing by adding flaked chili peppers.You can never go wrong by adding garlic powder to any mix,and Liquid Smoke can add a great smokey flavour to your sausage.You can add whatever you like.
I then stuff the Bratwurst mix into large natural casings.I'vre tried synthetic casings and I don't like using them.The sausage meat mixes get frozen into 1 1/4(approx) pound packages.I fill an greased 8 X 14 baking dish with meat,dump it out onto the counter and cut it into 4 portions.Perfect sizing for my family. I get between 25 and 28 packages from each batch.Unthawed,I slice it into smaller portions to fry up for breakfast on the weekend,or to put on the Bar-B-Que for dinner.Depending on the type of sausage,my wife uses it for spaghetti sauces,stuffings,lasagnes,taco and burritto mixes.I've already made 100 ponds of sausage this year with 2 more batches to go.
By the way,congrats on your moose.You're going to have lots of meat for sausages.I use both the front quarters and all the trim left over from the hinds from all my elk and moose for nothing but hamurger and sausage.
Good Luck with your sausages.
Dave
