cure

Curing Sausages is a science with strick temperature and humidity requirements and I would suggest you get a book on curing before playing with it.

If you are not cold smoking you don't need to use a cure, although I might suggest freezing your finished sausage until you want to use it rather than leaving it in the refrigerator.

One tip on seasoning is to cook a small sausage patty in a skillet after you have mixed to test your seasonings prior to stuffing in casings.

quote:

Originally posted by SkipQ:
...Do not smoke any sausage that doesn't contain a cure unless you are cooking it above 225 degrees (essentially barbecuing it).

I couldn't disagree more with this one. Having run the forum this long, I'm not a fan of absolutes. I like to educate with details so people understand what's happening and why.

Companies, restaurants and lots of home people have been "smokin" fresh sausage and never have I heard this statement made.

That doesn't make it wrong, just never heard it the way you said it.

So if I smoke (smoke is generated from 140 to 325 when I'd call it grillin) and if I take it to 165 internal then what, I'm wrong and I'll die?

I think the USDA would disagree with anything about the duration having an affect if the end is to take it to a food safe temp for a specified time.

165 is 165 regardless of how I got there, isn't it?

I'm not disagreeing with the danger zone, but the final temp has a lot to do with it too, more so in fact.

FYI, High heat is typically consider over 325 or grilling around most of us. Smoking is usually 325 and below. Barbecuing as a term isn't a 225 thing, most traditionalists consider barbecuing grilling.

Let's not threadjack his original post, but I'm sure you'll want to provide more details or discuss it, and we all love a discussion.

Well right or wrong here is what I did. I used 2 1/2 pounds of 80/20 burger and 2 1/2 pounds of lean ground pork. I mixed it with the spices called for in the Jalopeno Sausage recipe and then added 6 tsp of a bulk cure I bought from Hi Mountain. Refirgerated for 48 hours, remixing a couple of times. I fried a couple of small patties for a taste test and thought it tasted OK so I went ahead and rolled the meat into hot dog sized rolls. It made 40 sausages. I wrapped and tied them in corn husks and smoked them at 220 until they reached an internal temp of 160. It took less than an hour. I cooled them, ate a couple, refrigerated about 15 of them and froze the rest. They are very good. I hope nobody gets sick or dies. So far so good.

Skip, the web site you reference is related to smoking methods related to preserving meats, whereas in this case the meat was hot smoked to cook the meat and add smoke flavor. The preservation method here, as stated is refrigeration or freezing. I think you'll find that the vast majority of the smoking on this BBQ forum is related to cooking meats rather than preserving them. Preservation methods I see quoted here are using cures and adding smoke for flavor, where the cure is a vehicle to bridge potentially unsafe time and temperature ranges while smoking; the long term preservation methods are refrigeration and freezing.

Thanks DB! That is about as a simple explanation of curing vs smoking as I have ran across and it makes perfect sense how you phrased it, which at times surely does confuss me when it comes to curing and the reason for doing it.

Preservation,yep!