Summer Sausage

Olive Ridge Summer Sausage

Green Olive Style Summer Sausage

Olive Ridge Summer Sausage is a summer sausage built on a 50% lean meat / 50% pork blend, using lean wild game or lean beef. Smoke at 130-170°F (54-77°C) and finish at an internal 155°F (68°C), stuff into 2.5-3 inch fibrous casing, grind at 1/8". Exact amounts scale to any batch weight in the DeepWoodz Smokehouse app for iPhone and Android.

The olives go in last, after the test patty, and they only get worked in until they are spread through. Keep that short — olives are soft, and the longer they are worked the more they break up and bleed green through the loaf, which costs you the sliced faces on the cut end that are the entire point. This one also carries far more olive than most versions, which use so few you have to hunt for them, and the brine they bring is why the salt and the water both come down slightly from a plain summer sausage.

• Smoky
• Savory
• Tangy
• Mustard

Internal temp

155°F (68°C)

Smoker temp

130-170°F (54-77°C)

Casing size

2.5-3 inches

Casing

Fibrous

What goes in it

• Kosher Salt
• Cure #1
• Sliced or Whole Green Olives (drained)
• Coarse Black Pepper
• Mustard Seed
• Garlic Powder
• Allspice
• Ground Mustard
• Onion Powder
• Coriander
• White Pepper
• Ground Nutmeg
• Dextrose
• Ice Cold Water

Amounts are calculated for your batch weight in the app — including the cure, which is held at a fixed, food-safe rate.

The meat

Lean Wild Game · Lean Beef · Pork Butt · Pork Shoulder

Bear or wild hog: take it to 165°F and hold 3 minutes. Freezing, smoking and curing do not reliably kill trichinella — only heat does.

How it's made

1. Grind the meat through a 1/8" plate.
2. Drain the olives properly and pat them dry. Sliced, whole, or a mix of both all work — a mix gives you the best look on the cut face. Set them aside. They do not go in until the very end.
3. Add the dry seasonings to the ground meat and mix to distribute evenly. Dextrose is used here instead of table sugar because it is less sweet and dissolves clean - it rounds off the salt rather than reading as sugar.
4. Dissolve the cure in the ice cold water, then add it to the meat. Mix thoroughly until the meat is very tacky and you have good protein extraction. Water sits at 8% rather than the usual 10% because the olives bring their own moisture with them.
5. Fry a small test patty and taste it before you stuff anything. Olives carry brine, and how hard you drained them moves the salt more than any decimal in this recipe does. This is the last moment you can fix it.
6. NOW add the olives, and work them in only until they are just distributed. Keep it short and keep it gentle. Olives are softer than most inclusions, and it is the time they spend being worked that breaks them down and bleeds green through the loaf - stop the moment they are spread through.
7. Stuff tightly into 2.5" fibrous casings and remove all air pockets. Pack it firm - a wet inclusion leaves voids in a loose stuff, and olives will settle on you. That settling also means the last casing off the stuffer runs leaner than the first; fold what is left in the hopper back through partway if you want every log to read the same on the cut face.
8. An overnight rest in the refrigerator is optional. It lets the cure even out and the color set uniformly, but nothing here requires the time: Fermento is already-cultured dairy, so there is no live culture waiting to work. If using ECA, do NOT rest overnight - ECA must be stuffed and smoked the same day, or the capsules release their acid early and turn the sausage crumbly and sour.
9. If you are using ECA, smoke immediately.
10. Place in the smoker at 130°F for 1 hour with the damper open.
11. Raise to 150°F and apply smoke for 3 hours.
12. Raise to 170°F until the internal temperature reaches 155°F.
13. Cool them down promptly. (Optional - an ice bath is not required. It is personal preference; many just let them cool at room temp, or outside in cold weather. Just cool them down promptly.)
14. Hang at room temp for 1 hour, then refrigerate. On the olives: 10.5% is about two 21 oz drained jars in a 25 lb batch, and it is deliberately heavier than most recipes, which use so few you can barely find them. Salt sits at 2.65% rather than the usual 2.75% because the olives bring their own.

Before you start

• How much Cure #1 per pound
• Summer sausage internal temp
• Venison to fat ratio and blends