I'm helping process my nephew's deer & am thinking about making some of this into brats. Do you think a filler is necessary & if so how much and what kind?
I love venison hamburgers & I make 'em as lean as this & put in no filler.
For brats, I suppose I may want some filler meat.

I buy pork shoulder/ picnic or butts add 10-15% to venison works out very well.

I did brats and brat patties in the past

we went to all Brat patties , same flavor , much faster with no casings to wash , soak and stuff

we did mix in pork , whatever is cheap

I just use the fat thats on the animal. Both moose and bear turned out good, a bit lean but juicy and good.

I use filler fats not filler meat. Pork or beef were always used for venison brats at my grandfathers. He was a butcher by trade. I get pork trimming from a local super market. Probably 90 % fat and 10% meat

I used ground pork from a hog we had butchered. 10lb ground deer 5lb ground pork. They always turn out great.

It's really personal as far as how you like your sausage or brats. I like to use as much venison in my mix as I can. Yet I find for myself I end up at about 70-30. I buy spice mix that is for 25 lb batch. I use 15lbs venison 10lbs pork butts for most things. I've also done 50-50 on certain things and in past some stix straight venison. Use what you got make it how you want. Maybe make small batch first time so you can tweak the next.
I like to say it only needs to be good enough for me. If others like nice, or don't like it so be it. Big test is family the rest don't matter.

Keep us posted how it turns out.

Mac

Anyone willing to share a good Brat recipe? Also, what size/type casings are you using?

I like using AC Legg seasoning

We are using a brat mix from company here in WI called PS seasoning. Brats are usually made in natural hog casing and that is what we use.

Mac

There is nothing worse than a dry brat! If you’re going to go thru the effort, you might as well have something that’s edible when you’re done. I mix mine 50/50 with pork butt and use plenty of fat. Natural casings is the only way to go.

40/60 would be better yet.

yes 50/50 pork butt

PS Seasoning is the best! They make tons of different flavored brat mixes, but for a normal ol brat we really like the Sheboygan Brat seasoning.

Yep, same here. My favorite is the Tailgater brat seasoning. The just ran a 25% off sale for Black Friday. Otherwise, I think you get 15% your first order if you sign up for their email notification thingy.

I have had some commercially made venison brats and I have never had any that were worth eating. No more venison brats for me.

I too have gone the way of the patties instead of the brat links. Faster, easier. We are having several sticks of venison sausage made by a meat processor who specializes in the cold smoked sausage. Last year they were great, so we are doing more this year.

Not to steal this thread but we have about 50-60 lbs. of venison for ground meat. What percentage of say beef do some of you add to the ground meat.?

Bryce

I add nothing to my ground , toss in 2 eggs per pound when cooking if I need it to patty or ball or use it as is for loose meat.

my venison ground mostly goes in tacos , meatloaf , meat in pasta sauce , things like that.

for patties , using a jelly-roll pan (what a lot of people call a cookie sheet) with parchment over it and pack the meat in then score with a butter knife and freeze when frozen break on the scored lines and stack in bags frozen with wax paper or parchment between patties that was as fast as I could get it with the tools I had

20-25% ribeye fat.

Thank you, I will find out what the meat plant has to offer as they will grind, mix and tube for us.

Bryce

Here's the recipe I plan to use. I just have to decide how much & what kind of pork to add

https://meatprocessingproducts.com/bratwurst-recipe-1.html