voidecho
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It'll go well with my free bison.
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It'll go well with my free bison.
HogWild805
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As a matter of fact my recent boar BBQ was cooked to temp after marinading for 24 hours. It twas a fine tasting piece of leather. I do recommend crock pot however the temps I indicated of 180 degrees is based from recommendation from the USDA. Do what makes you comfortable is my recommendation. I love to hunt and I love to eat what I hunt with confidence that it wont make me sick.
I was referring to Brucellosis which is carried by wild swine and transmittable to humans.
That is a reality for us wild boar hunters and a major bummer for your buddy. I hope he made a full recovery.
ltdann
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With only 1-2 hundred cases a year reported in the US, Brucellosis is very rare. As I said, simple precautions are effective. Wearing gloves, washing hands and final internal cooking temp above 138F. 138F kills the trichinae and the Brucella Suis bacteria.
By cooking to 180F, you really limit what you can do with wild game. That temp is WAY to high for most applications.
We all eaten game cooked by some else that's been cooked into oblivion. We grin and bear it because the other guy is so proud of it. You know what I mean, that sausage that was grilled until is was dry and hard and resembled (and tastes like) a dog biscuit, that steak that you couldn't cut with a chain saw. Non-hunters will rarely ever try wild game again after busting a molar on an elk steak.
Face it, most game is over cooked and doesn't taste all that great.
There are a lot reasons for this, and top on the list is the person cooking doesn't know any better. Most recipes were developed for beef, rich with fat and marbling. The fat keeps it moist and gives flavor at higher temps.
Wild game doesn't have much fat and almost never has marbling. Because of that, it'll cook in about half the time of beef. Further more, you can't cook it "until the pinks gone" because it won't EVER go away. Wild game will remain pink even when its fully cooked. When you do get the pink to go away, you'll have a beautiful piece of meat, suitable to resole your boots.
Game animals work for a living, their meat is denser, less fatty, has more color and has FLAVOR. So why not showcase that instead of trying to fix mistakes with a marinade? Marinades are great for domestic meats, poultry etc because all the flavor has been bred out of the animals.
There's a whole world of game meat processing out there beyond the crock pot, and it's perfectly safe. There's fermented sausage like summer sausage that doesn't need refrigeration. Dry cured meats like Prosciutto that have NEVER seen heat.
The meat thermometer is your absolute best friend, when it comes to game meat. Final INTERNAL temperature is more important than the cooking temperature. When you hit 145F, you've killed the bacteria. 152-155F is perfect for hog recipes, not too dry, good color.
Pork is king when it comes to home sausage, ham recipes. People have been making pork into wonderful foods for thousands of years. It's natures perfect butchering animal. Everything is eatable, from the rooter to the tooter.
When making say...elk salami, you have to add pork fat to the recipe. It acts as a binder and adds moisture to the meat. At temperatures above 160F, the fat melts and pretty much ruins it. You've all eaten salami, pepperoni etc, with those nice chunks of white pork fat in it. That's all done at temps below 160-165F. The laws of physics are unbreakable.
Low and slow is the way to go. If you cook a sausage say at 350F, you'll reach the 155F internal temp quickly, but the sausage will be cooked unevenly. The fat on the outside diameter of the sausage will be melted, leaving some fat in the middle.
The crock pot and the pressure cooker (mmm wild hog tamales!) certainly have their place, but there's so much more that a guy can do himself in the comfort of his own kitchen, and do it better than a butcher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXnZgz-WXNQ#t=11
By cooking to 180F, you really limit what you can do with wild game. That temp is WAY to high for most applications.
We all eaten game cooked by some else that's been cooked into oblivion. We grin and bear it because the other guy is so proud of it. You know what I mean, that sausage that was grilled until is was dry and hard and resembled (and tastes like) a dog biscuit, that steak that you couldn't cut with a chain saw. Non-hunters will rarely ever try wild game again after busting a molar on an elk steak.
Face it, most game is over cooked and doesn't taste all that great.
There are a lot reasons for this, and top on the list is the person cooking doesn't know any better. Most recipes were developed for beef, rich with fat and marbling. The fat keeps it moist and gives flavor at higher temps.
Wild game doesn't have much fat and almost never has marbling. Because of that, it'll cook in about half the time of beef. Further more, you can't cook it "until the pinks gone" because it won't EVER go away. Wild game will remain pink even when its fully cooked. When you do get the pink to go away, you'll have a beautiful piece of meat, suitable to resole your boots.
Game animals work for a living, their meat is denser, less fatty, has more color and has FLAVOR. So why not showcase that instead of trying to fix mistakes with a marinade? Marinades are great for domestic meats, poultry etc because all the flavor has been bred out of the animals.
There's a whole world of game meat processing out there beyond the crock pot, and it's perfectly safe. There's fermented sausage like summer sausage that doesn't need refrigeration. Dry cured meats like Prosciutto that have NEVER seen heat.
The meat thermometer is your absolute best friend, when it comes to game meat. Final INTERNAL temperature is more important than the cooking temperature. When you hit 145F, you've killed the bacteria. 152-155F is perfect for hog recipes, not too dry, good color.
Pork is king when it comes to home sausage, ham recipes. People have been making pork into wonderful foods for thousands of years. It's natures perfect butchering animal. Everything is eatable, from the rooter to the tooter.
When making say...elk salami, you have to add pork fat to the recipe. It acts as a binder and adds moisture to the meat. At temperatures above 160F, the fat melts and pretty much ruins it. You've all eaten salami, pepperoni etc, with those nice chunks of white pork fat in it. That's all done at temps below 160-165F. The laws of physics are unbreakable.
Low and slow is the way to go. If you cook a sausage say at 350F, you'll reach the 155F internal temp quickly, but the sausage will be cooked unevenly. The fat on the outside diameter of the sausage will be melted, leaving some fat in the middle.
The crock pot and the pressure cooker (mmm wild hog tamales!) certainly have their place, but there's so much more that a guy can do himself in the comfort of his own kitchen, and do it better than a butcher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXnZgz-WXNQ#t=11
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HogWild805
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Hands down you know your stuff. Killer sausage/salami setup. I would love to do that some day.
I understand tainted meat is rare. Like I said i do what is comfortable for me.
ltdann
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It's Sooooooo easy to do. And it tastes so good. There's a ton of books, websites and YouTube vids to help you learn. The casings are cheap.
Old German proverb: if you can't put it in a hog casing it's not worth eating.
Sent while in pursuit of free range, organic protein
Old German proverb: if you can't put it in a hog casing it's not worth eating.
Sent while in pursuit of free range, organic protein
