Venison Brats from Scratch

We have been wanting to make our own venison brats for a while now. We decided to buy a kit to help us in this endever. However, we are venison purisists and did not add any pork or other animal fat. It was a learning experience as you will see.

Everything we need to make brats. We decided to add some garlic, onion and onion juice, fennel, and liquid smoke to the seasoning provided.

No, this is not a bowl of tapeworms. These are natural casings. Yup, pig intestines. I know, I know what about the "no other animal" thing. Well, these came in the kit. They are even more disgusting then they look. You do not have the priledge of being engulfed in the gag inducing odor they exude. Removing them from the vacume packed pouch released the most potent wave of indiscribable aroma. Soaking them and rinsing them created more unpleasent waves of odor.

Trying to get the casings on the grinder was another challenge until we figured out a system.

Let the stuffing begin.

Keep your mind out of the gutter people. It gets worse.

Our first batch.

Not too bad, but they are pretty hefty MAN brats.

Round two.

Jez found this all very interesting.

The last little bit we decided to make a mini rope sausage.

For those of you who do not know what rope sausage is...it is just a big brat.

You can't have rope sausage without sour kraut.

Mike is the first to try it.

...and the verdict is?

Not bad.

Like I said this was a learning experience. We have decided, we do need to add fat of some sort. Venison on its own is just too dense. We will try adding cheese next time.

Flavor wise they are good, but just don't have the brat mouth feel.

Maybe when we get it perfected we will have a brat party.