This is a basic salami recipe for venison or other red meats. If you are not already an experienced sausage maker, you'll want to read my tutorial on making fresh sausages first. Salami is an advanced skill.
Cut your meats and fat into pieces you can fit into your meat grinder. Mix with the salt, curing salt and dextrose. Put this in the fridge overnight to set. This step helps the sausage bind to itself, but is not 100 percent necessary.
Soak about 10 feet of hog casings in warm water. Dissolve the starter culture in the distilled water.
When you are ready, mix the garlic, sage, pepper and juniper berries in with the meats and fat. Grind through a medium die (6.5 mm). If your meat is relatively free of silverskin and connective tissue, you should be fine. If you are grinding gnarly meat, run it through the grinder a second time.
Make sure the meat is cooler than 40°F, and ideally it should be closer to freezing. Mix the distilled water with the starter culture in with the meat and knead this with your (clean) hands for about 90 seconds to 2 minutes: You want to see the mass come together as one blob, and you will be looking for white streaks to form on the sides of the bowl or tub.
Pack the mix into the sausage stuffer. Thread on a casing, leaving about 4 inches free to tie off later. Fill a link about a foot long, then pinch it off and pull the casing off the nozzle until you have a "tail" about 8 inches long on the end. Cut this in half with scissors. You've made 1 link, and started the next. Repeat this process until you've stuffed all the links. you'll probably have about eight.
Carefully compress each link to fill the casings, then tie off one end and snip the excess. Compress a little more, carefully, and then use a needle or sausage pricker to remove any air pockets. Compress a touch more and tie off the other end, leaving the excess -- you'll need this to hang the links. Repeat with the remaining links.
Tie the long end of the links around "S" hooks and hang in your oven off the top rack. Put a baking sheet underneath to catch drips. Leave like this for at least 24 hours -- follow the directions for your particular starter culture. Use a spray bottle to spritz the links twice a day during this time.
Once the sausages have turned a pretty red and have the enticing smell of cured meat, move them to your drying chamber: My recommendation is 50°F and about 75% humidity. Hold them there for at least 3 weeks, but more likely 6 weeks. Start slicing one link to test how firm the meat is after 1 month. Store in the fridge indefinitely.
Notes
You either need distilled water, or you can boil water and then leave it overnight.
Dextrose is easier for the good bacteria to consume as they acidify your salami. White sugar works, but not as well.
If you want, hand dice the fat small. It makes the salami a bit more interesting.
You can also make large loops instead of links. Tie each end of the loop off and hang the sausage from that.
If you have extra meat, pat it into a fat disc and coat it in cornmeal. Cure alongside the links. When it's ready, you'll be able to slice it the same way.
When you're done, vacuum seal the salami and store in the fridge. This helps equalize the moisture left in the meat.