Making Sausage

I think the CS does a very good job on summer sausage, ring bologna & snack sticks - those are mostly what I make. True, you don't have a controllable damper, but it seems to work well anyhow and is very simple to use and clean up. And I don't have much to compare with as I've never used a Sausage Maker-style smoker, which seems to be the similar priced alternative. With the smokette you're limited in sausage length to maybe 15", so you wouldn't be able to do a freezerful at a time. The larger models would hold a lot more.

I find the CS great for making larger sausages like trail bologna. It is difficult to make smaller diameter sausages because of the humidity. You have to open the door occassionally and let the moisture out. The over all smoking with the CS for whole meats like ribs or butts etc. is great

joe b

works great for summer sausage to about 15# there is a thread on this in the open forum right now, and you will probably get good info with a search. It does work for sausage sticks, but I can't find a way to get the volume I want.

I was glad to see this posting since I drove over 3 hours to purchase my CS #050 specifically to smoke and dry my homemade Polish sausage. I have used homemade smokers of all descriptions and even borrowed some of the more "lightly" made commercially sold smokers, to be nice. After doing an exhaustive internet search and calling several commercially sold smoker companies I had to make a decision between the Bradley Smoker and the CookShack. What really convinced me to buy the much more expensive and larger CS #050 was the quality handsdown. From reading many books on making sausage both at home and commercially and smoking it for both "fresh smoked" and "dried smoked" sausage I see no reason why the CS should not absolutely do a fantastic job. The problems with my former attempts using home versions have always been heat and smoke control. The CS seems to take care of all of this as I see it. It is very insulated, the smoke is deflected and circulated and the temp is highly controlled. If you price the commercial sausage smoking units that are able to do this that are of this quality you will see what a value purchase the CS is. I use natural casings and make about a total 12 inch total length loop, so these sausages are a total of 24 inches in total length that are tied together at the ends with twine. I place them on rods and hang them in the smoker. So, I take steel rods that I cut with my bolt cutters to the width of the CS and then hang the links. I know that this model claims that it will hold about 30 pounds of meat, but, I will get back to how many links/lbs of sausage I will be able to hang in this CS. As I take off some of the sausage for fresh and then use some for dried I will have to smoke several runs. From what I have read on the efficiency of this unit to make jerky it should be able to turn out dried sausage at quite a reasonable rate. I also will have to pass on some info that could help others attempting to make sausage, perhaps for the first time. There are many receipes for seasonings, including Polish, but I have to tell you for the time and expense I would recommed using a company that happens to be right here in the Houston area. The name of the company is the Zach's Spice Co. in Deer Park, Texas. They have the spices, cures, receipes, and casings, both natural and synthetic (COLLAGEN). I have made well over a 1000 lbs. of sausage using Zach's spices, etc. and never had a failure. Anyway, I will get back with the results from my first batch of sausage smoked/dried with my CS. I am really looking forward to it. If anyone has any comments or recommendations they would be appreciated.

I made my first attempt at smoked brats last nite. Last nite I stoped by the butcher shop and picked up 2-4 packs of fresh made brats. He left them all connected together. I hung them over a dowel in my smoker and set the heat for 100 degrees for 75
minutes. Then I put in a little piece of hickory wood and shut the door. Set the heat at 180 degrees and let it go. Pulled them out when the thermometer hit 156 degrees and put them into a
ice water bath to cool them off. My wife & I tasted one and it was delicious!!!

The only problem I saw was they touched each other while hanging. I had 4 brats linked on a string and 2 hung down each side of the dowel. Where they touched during the smoking process, didnt turn color like the rest of the brat. It stayed opaque or white. How can I achieve seperation on these without cutting the links apart and using the grill racks?

You might want to invest in some metal smokesticks. They're around 1.5" wide, so they hold the sausage apart. They come in two styles: The more common aluminum with a Y cross-section, and the hard-to-find stainless steel with a hollow bell cross-section. They normally come in 42" lengths for big smokers, so each one can be cut into 3 pieces for the little CookShacks. The smokesticks can be cut off square and set on top of the side rails, or notched so they fit into the side rails.

An alternative would be to try something like a hardwood 1x2 lying flat, but that might give flat spots at the corners. Or you could mill a piece of hardwood into a triangle shape.

As an aside, if you're going to cold-smoke brats, you might want to check to make sure they include a cure, altho 75 minutes of cold-smoking seems too short for much trouble. Most sausages intended for fresh use don't, so they probably are best hot-smoked.

Thanks Tjr. Nice tips. The 75 minute cold smoke was just to dry the casings some (according to CS instructions), and there was NO wood involved then. I did hot smoke them (using a 1 oz chunk of CS hickory) after the drying process for almost 2 1/2 hrs to an internal temp of 156.

I was thinking of maybe taking a 2" long, 1/4" dowel and cutting a "V" in each end. Place each end of this V on the "string" connecting the links so it would hold them apart. Easy to make & test. And the best part is, the experiments are edible!

Once you get 'em hanging good, try leaving the door slightly open during the drying period. I'll bet that unless they're really wet or really cold, they'll be "tacky" in around 1/2 hour.

It is indeed fun to try different techniques, recipes, equipment...

Tjr - Yes, I forgot to leave the door open in the drying phase and that is most likely why mine took longer to dry. Thank you !! These brats had just been made & stuffed about 3 hours earlier. Talk about fresh!

I took 3 of these down to lunch today where the butcher also eats. We sliced up one and put the other 2 back for me to take to work. The "tastes" were gone in a second and we had to cutup a second one. Opinion was the BEST smoked brat ever. And THAT came from the butcher. He said if you can do 50 lbs of those a week, I can give you some business!

Cire, I have a 008 and have smoked some sausages and what I do for a dampner is open the door a bit, I use a clamp to keep the door open to where I want. I also use 2 temp probes, 1 for the meat and the other for the internal temp of the box, so far everything has turned out great. The first time you might have to baby sit it, but take good notes so the next time you will know what to expect and you wont have to sit by it.

I have also had a lot of trouble smoking sausage. I have made sausage for quite a few years all stuffed in natural casings. It is stuffed in Beef rounds which are 43 mm diameter and I traditionally make it in rings making anywhere from 25 to 150 pounds at a time. Typically I have taken it to a butcher shop to have them smoke the rings don't fit well into smaller smokers. The butcher shop I use now smokes for 2 hours. His smoke generator is separate from the oven and he finishes the sausage with a water boil to complete the cooking and also to prevent the wrinkled look. Ideally I hang my sausage overnight before taking it to be smoked but I can only do that when it I make it in the winter as it is too warm in California otherwise. When I make it in the summer, I have the airconditioning turned down to 65 degrees and I put a fan on the hanging sausage to speed the drying. I always use cure. I am wrestling with buying a new smoker as the price for smoking has now gone up to $1.50/pound.

..Doyle

I have had very little success with smoking sausage in the smokette. But I think I may have figured out part of the problem. The last time I did venison sausage I used the racks and did not hang them. I know you dont want your smoker temp to get above 180deg or your fat will render out and leave you with a substandard, dry product. This is what happened to me. I had the polder hanging about rack level, not touching anything, and my fat rendered. Smoker did not ever go above 175deg. SOOOO I think the racks hold more heat and your sausage renders out because of the racks thermal mass.....I dunno???
I do know that dad did a batch last week in our homemade file cabinet smoker(sausage maker type)His sausage rendered all fat as well. Guess what.... He used the racks in it as well!! Im starting to see a pattern here.....
I believe that sausage is the most difficult thing to smoke and get right. Ive done a bunch and had a lot of success but not much with the CS. But I dont plan to give up anytime soon, still have plenty of venison. Good luck, Bubba

Oh yes, Cire go with the mod.50 the sausage will hang much further away from the firebox the smokette is awfull short and my bottoms get dry when I hang them. just my .02