Venison Bratwurst

This is where two of my favorite things meet: the German bratwurst I make from my books, and the deer I bring home every fall. Venison is lean to the point of being almost fatless, so a straight bratwurst recipe would give you a dry, crumbly link — the whole trick is the pork fat you carry in with it. Season it like a proper Thüringer-style brat (caraway, marjoram, a little nutmeg) and you get a game sausage that eats like the real thing off a charcoal grill, with just enough of the deer coming through to remind you where it came from.

Ingredients

MEAT BLOCK (2,720 g / 6 lb)

• 1,810 g (4 lb) venison, trimmed of all silverskin and connective tissue — ~67%
• 910 g (2 lb) pork back fat OR fatty pork shoulder — ~33% (venison brings almost no fat; without this it’s dry and crumbly)

SEASONING

• 48 g salt (~1.8%)
• 6 g white pepper
• 6 g rubbed marjoram
• 5 g whole caraway seed
• 3 g ground nutmeg or mace
• 8 g fresh garlic, minced (optional)
• 240 ml (1 cup) ice water
• NO cure — a fresh sausage, refrigerated and cooked
• 32–35 mm hog casing

Directions

1. Key ingredients: built on my Thüringer Rostbratwurst — same seasoning family, deer swapped for the pork lean, more added fat to make up for what the deer doesn’t have.
2. Trim ruthlessly: pull every scrap of silverskin and sinew off the venison. It won’t break down, it wraps around the grinder knife, and it’s the number-one reason home game sausage comes out chewy.
3. Keep it cold: venison and the pork fat both go through the grinder near-frozen, ~30°F. I mix in my Vevor BMM-10 with the parts frozen first — game trim warms up fast in your hands.
4. Grind: a single pass through a 3/16” (5 mm) plate for a brat texture, meat and fat kept cold and ground together.
5. Mix: work in the seasoning and the ice water until the batch is tacky and grabs. That bind matters more with lean game than with fatty pork.
6. Stuff and link: 32–35 mm hog casing at ~15 cm. Rest overnight so the caraway and garlic settle in.
7. Cook: grill over charcoal, or brown in a pan. Do NOT overcook — lean game dries out fast; pull it right at 160°F internal.

Notes

The one rule with any game sausage: fat is not optional. Venison, elk, antelope — all of it is far leaner than pork, most of it under 5% fat. A sausage that’s all lean is dry, crumbly, and won’t hold a bind. I run roughly a third pork fat into every game sausage I make, and I’d rather err fatty than lean. Use hard pork back fat or fatty shoulder — never the venison’s own fat, which is waxy, off-flavored, and best trimmed and thrown out.

Why the trim step is the whole game. Deer silverskin and sinew don’t render or grind; they smear and string. Twenty extra minutes of knife work on the trim is the difference between a clean brat and a chewy one.

Variations. This same base takes elk, moose, or antelope one-for-one. Push the caraway down and the garlic up and you’re closer to a Nürnberger character; add fennel and you’ve got a venison Italian instead.