The beautiful bull moose I harvested on the 17th has been hanging in the cooler now for approximately two weeks, today Bassan and I started the process of cutting up/deboning the quarters. I transformed my garage aka Area51 into a meat processing facility first by de-cluttering then thoroughly cleaning all surfaces particularly my stainless steel bench and thoroughly mopping the floor. The bike and Argo have both been stored in the trailer since we got back from moose hunting two weeks ago and all other containers of fuel etc are empty and well sealed.

In this pic, the floor appears dirty but its just the epoxy coating I put in on 2014 wearing through after eight years of service and many many projects.

We retrieved the quarters from the moose cooler two at a time and systematically worked our way through each one. Bassan separated out and removed the roasts one by one, while I trimmed down the bones and scrappy bits. I used a two tub system, a small black tub for discard and one of our 50lb grey meat tubs for trimmings to be ground. In our experience, trimming out the grizzle, tendons and moose fat makes for a way better tasting & texture of ground moose.

We'll gladly sacrifice a few pounds of quantity for a much higher quality finished product.

Some people enjoy and use moose fat, personally I find it sour as does the rest of our crew, we trim it out during our processing.

Meanwhile I had the Pitboss Austin XL fired up and a pork shoulder smoking away to make some epic pulled pork for our supper.

Today I seasoned the meat with Salt-Pepper-Garlic and Meat Church Honey Hog. My Meater+ Bluetooth thermometer let me monitor the progress from the garage without having to run back and forth.

The pulled pork came out amazing and was served with rendered juices from the second half of the cook, along with a selection of BBQ & Hot Sauces and French fries.

Work continued late into the evening but we got the last quarters done before midnight.

Saturday afternoon we picked up the full meat totes from the moose cooler and then began the process of grinding and packaging. I ran the meat grinder attachment for our Kitchen Aid Mixer  while Bassan weighed and bagged the meat in 2 & 5lb ziplock bags.

Of course moose processing can't sensibly occur without a taste test!

On the menu today were chicken legs lightly seasoned with Suckle Busters Clucker Dust and flame broiled on the Pitboss.

With supper and grinding meat complete, we began bagging up roasts. In the past we also used ziplock bags for roasts, but this year we decided to vacuum seal them to prevent freezer burn while in extended storage.

Running two machines at once really sped up the process as one machine was loaded up while the other one was sealing. Bassan's Costco unit worked equally as well as my Nesco Vacuum Sealer purchased at Outdoor Pros.

The last step was counting out and diving our harvest into four equal shares, one for each member of our hunting party. Some groups take a quarter each choosing front or rear, we prefer to do it this way as it's perfectly even across the crew.

One final small roast was sliced thin and pan fried as a taste test. It was absolutely fantastic, very tender and tasty!

This beautiful bull moose dressed in at 430 lbs when we put it in the cooler. After drying down for two weeks, then trimming and deboning we cleared 276lbs of meat which includes all roasts and ground meat!

The following day I threw a couple blocks of Old Cheddar Cheese on the Pitboss to cold smoke for a future project. To do this I DID NOT turn on the pellet smoker, the lowest setting on the pit boss is too hot and will sweat and probably melt the cheese. Instead I simply lit my Lumberjack smoker box filled with apple wood pellets and let that run on its own.

It smouldered away perfect never getting the unit over 90ºF and burned for about three hours. Once finished, I vacuum sealed the pair and let them rest in the fridge for fourteen days to mellow.

Today I started making my very favourite moose sausages Wild Game - Jalapeño - Cheddar Cheese, the recipe was 12lbs of Costco lean ground pork, 17lbs of ground moose, a block and a half of my smoked cheddar cheese diced, and 10 Jalapeño peppers also diced seeds and all for an extra kick.

The final ingredient is Outdoor Pros Wild Game sausage flavouring which has a very pleasant salty/garlic/pepper flavour.

First I thoroughly hand mixed the two kinds of meat along with the Wild Game seasoning and two cups of water.

Before continuing I pan fried a sample to check if there was enough seasoning or too much. If the seasoning is too strong it will usually be very salty, to fix you can add a couple more bags of ground meat to the mix.

Happy with the taste, next I added the peppers & cheese and continued hand mixing to evenly distribute these epic ingredients.

Now I was ready to stuff, today I used 23mm collagen casings swapping to larger 30mm at the end on my 5lb stainless steel sausage stuffer. To make sausages I highly recommend getting a proper manual sausage stuffer as it makes the job easy for one person and creates more consistently stuffed casings.

I like to twist and cut my links into even lengths usually 7" long.

The thicker sausages were cut a little shorter and are really nice on the BBQ.

The final step is vacuum packing which provides the best protection against freezer burn especially in the long term.

Now I'm all set for winter meals & outdoor adventures with a suitable quantity of my absolute favourite sausages in stock. Stay tuned as later this fall we will be making lots more moose products with the crew!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith