Sausage and temp swings

Try private messaging to one of "sausageman's" posts.

I saw him this weekend at the Minneola cookoff and he doesn't monitor the forum real regular.

He is good on that stuff.

Try chopping your wood into little bits, like 1/8" to 1/4" thick, to get it to smoke at lower temperatures. I make summer sausage often using this schedule:

Dry casings (no smoke) 100F until tacky
Smoke 100F 3 hours
Smoke 125F 1 hour
Smoke 150F 1 hour
Smoke 175F until sausage reaches 160F internal
Dunk or drizzle with cold water until 100F internal

If outdoor temperature is very high, like above 90F, I have to crank it a bit higher than 100F to get smoke.

Now maybe I'm just lucky with my thermostat...

Thanks for the help guys. Tom, I can't find any of "sausageman"s posts, can you tell me how to find him?

tjr, do you have a problem with the fat rendering and how long would it take you to finish sausage in a 2.4" casing?

I got a heavy piece of plate metal cut to fit inside my CS from a co-worker. I guess it helps to work with people that know metal even in sausage making. I'm going to use it as a baffle to see if it will help even out the swings. I'm thinking it will also work as kind of a heat sink as well.

Thanks, Mark

Try this thread for sausage man.

Charlie said he would get back to you.

Sorry, I guess I'm not seeing the thread.

Mark

Mornin' Butcher and sorry about that.

Try this zzz chughes6 at cfl.rr.com zzz.

Do the usual adjustments.

Sorry, been off for a while. Anyhow, no, don't think I've had trouble with fat rendering when I've followed that schedule - I assume fat rendering is where you get some melted and cooled fat accumulated between the casing & sausage or at the bottom end? That's happened to me with a couple "experiments". For summer sausage, I keep it pretty lean around 15% fat and my best-working recipe does include some binder.

My most recent summer sausage was a 2.75" 2lb size. It took about 3 hours for the final step at 175F, so a total time of around 8.5 hours. It seems to vary a bit even for the same size and recipe, some may take more like 4 hours instead of 3, not exactly sure why.

For smaller diameters like snack stix, I usually go straight from 100F to 175F. Get more wrinkling but it doesn't matter to me for that type of sausage.

For Sausageman posts, try using Search at top of page. Search All Forums for User Sausageman. Bizarrely enough, the post you want, "Making Sausage" returns "You requested a topic that does not exist."

Smokin?? Help??

Thanks tjr, that is exactly what I'm talking about when I say rendering. I think I'll try your schedule and a binder. What do you use for a binder? I had some soy powder here and almost threw some of that in. Mine took a lot longer than yours, I assume because I had the door open far too much. Thanks for the help!

Mark

For the recipe I mentioned, per lb of meat I use 1/4 cup by volume or 1.5 ounces by weight nonfat dry milk for sausage making. Now that I think about it, that's quite a bit, like 10%, probably more than would be legal for trade. Tastes good tho.

Another recipe for thuringer-style summer sausage calls for 1 Tbsp or .6 ounces of Blue Star binder, mostly soy flour, per lb of meat.

I don't open the door except maybe once to make sure everything is going OK.

quote:

Originally posted by tjr:
[qb]
For Sausageman posts, try using Search at top of page. Search All Forums for User Sausageman. Bizarrely enough, the post you want, "Making Sausage" returns "You requested a topic that does not exist."

Smokin?? Help?? [/qb]

Help is here...

I rebuilt the search index and doing a search now, it works.

FYI, here's the link:

Sausageman Post

Gracias, Smokin, although maybe that's not the post I was thinking of after all.

Time for a sausage 101? Trouble is there's lots of kinds of sausage and even more opinions on how it should taste. Much like BBQ

Thanks Smokin. tjr,I'm going to try your schedule and some binder on my next batch. I don't know why I didn't use it this time. On the non fat dry milk, is that the kind that susage making suppliers sell or the kind from the store?

Mark

Sorry for the delay...I used the sausage making type. One big difference is that it's a fine dust rather than the instant puffy bits. Bought it from Con Yeager Spice. Altho it isn't listed in their catalog as such, they did sell me a 5lb minimum quantity when I asked. Other places should have as well.

Made a 15lb batch of beef summer sausage last weekend. I used 80% lean ground beef and added 1 and 1/2 cups of soy for binder and smoked according to your schedule tjr. I used my steel plate inside and it dropped the temp swings down to about 10 to 12 degrees. The temp never got above 175 but I still lost a lot of fat and had shriveled cases. The sausage is excellent just doesn't look good. I have to remove the casing and wash the fat off the outside of sausage with warm water before serving.

I've come to the conclusion that the only thing I'm doing different from when I used my "Sausage Maker" smoker is not doing the final cooking with steam. In my SM smoker after smoking desired length of time I would put a pan of water on to boil on the element and close the damper, basically making it a steam cabinet. The internal temp of the sausage then would rise very rapidly from about 130 to the required 152 usually in less than an hour.

Today I took my CS and removed the wood box and set a 9x13 cake pan on top of the element with water in it and turned the thermostat up as high as it would go. The water started boiling and temp stayed at about 200 the same as in the SM. I'm not sure why but even with the temp at 200 degrees while steaming the fat doesn't render. Somebody explained to me that steam has a higher calorie content than dry air or something to that affect.

I will give this a try on my next batch. Thanks for the help.

Mark

I have made summer sausage many times in my cs.
I never had a problem with fat rendering or bad casings. I made summer sausage in 1# ,2#, and 3# casings with no problems with the exception of 3# casings being too long and burning a little at the bottom.

I just did a batch of summer sausage this past Thursday. Taste and texture turned out great.
It was a 5 # batch consisting of 4 1/2# 90% lean ground beef, and 1/2# of pork butt.
The only trouble I had was with the casing pulling away which is do to understuffing. That only happened on the smaller chubs I had to hand stuff.
I followed a similar temp. & time meathod as listed above, but I skipped the 125 degree stage.
I was running out of time so I took them out when they were @ 147 degrees and simmered in 170 degree water till they hit 152 degrees.

Let me know how your steaming works. I make venison summer sausage in my smokette and I have the same problem with the fat rendering. The sausage tastes great but does not look good. I'm looking for a better method.

After some advice from Tom and others this is what I've come up with and it works, especially for solving tough casings if you get them. By the way I produce about 80 lbs weelkly and use my CS as a holding cabinet during the day.
-Soak casings for at least an hour prior to use with a few drops of lemon juice.
-Stuff fairly tightly.
-Place sausage in the smoker and set to 180. Place sausages and let dry for approx. 15-30 min with door ajar so they aren't "wet" on the outside and smoke will adhere better (you can help by paper toweling them).
-Place wood in and smoke for 15-30 min
-Then place water pan on the lowest level for the remaining time, about 1 hour or until 155. This prevents moisture loss from the sausage and cooks them nicely.
Also I use rusk as the binder and do not get any shriveling. For 10#'s of Brats, Polish or Italian style sausages I normally use about 1 cup of rusk and 3 cups water.
Hope this helps!

stoly:

What is rusk????

Thanks
Paul

Wrenchead,
Rusk is a dried cereal binder made from wheat, salt and a raising agent and began as a replacement for breadcrumbs. It is regarded as a very high quality binder, it holds twice it's weight in water and since it's not a soy or milk protein ingredient you can avoid some specific allergy or tolerance problems.
And do watch how much you use with the water as I get some good long spurts when grilling!