smoking fresh breakfast sausage

I have the same question and have been unable to find the answer in this forum. What did you end up trying and how did it turn out?

I ended up smoking it to 162 degrees internal. Not what I was wanting as it's more like summer sausage than breakfast

I tried it this weekend. 100% ground pork butt and used casings from from Bass Pro Shop that did not need to be soaked. I put the sausage in for 30 minutes at 100 degrees then cracked the door for another 30 minutes. I added 2oz of hickory and 1oz of apple (I splintered the wood into small pieces) for 2 hours. I then smoked another 2 hours at 125 degrees. Lastly, I increased the temp to 145 degrees and it took 25 minutes to get the internal meat temp to 140 degrees and removed. I steamed a few links for 45 minutes and they turned out pretty good but a little dry. It could have been that my meat was not fatty enough or that I took the internal temp too high. I read that 140 degrees is what it needed to be to be safe. I think next time I'm going to skip that step.

I'm going to try again in a week or so, skipping the last step. Please let me know if you have success with something different in the future.

WTF?

Are you guys serious? Breakfast sausage is fresh sausage which means typically no nitrites are added to the product. Smoking sausage that doesn't contain nitrites can cause botulism.

FYI, smoked products can be smoked b/c they contain nitrites to kill the growth of botulism. I would suggest not smoking sausage unless first studying sausage making first.

quote:

kosy1993

I agree with kosy1993. I think you are playing with fire smoking fresh sausages without curing the meat.
If you want the smoked taste I would smoke (cook) at 225f or better until the internal temp. of the meat is at least 152f.

kosy1993... "WTF"????? Are you serious? Is that considered help in this forum?

Have you ever seen sausage cold smoked in the country in a smokehouse? My grandparents smoke theirs for two days at low temperatures. I know that there are different factors when comparing a smokehouse versus a Cookshack, such as the flow of oxygen, so I was trying to see if anyone here has tried to reproduce that.

I appreciate your obvious concern for my health but starting out with "WTF" is a poor way of showing it!

quote:

Have you ever seen sausage cold smoked in the country in a smokehouse? My grandparents smoke theirs for two days at low temperatures.

MCS.... It doesn't matter where you smoke your sausage, the country, suburbs, city..... if you are going to smoke sausage at low temps you need to cure the meat first. If your grandparents never used cure I would be surprised. My grandparents smoked cigarettes... but then again back then they didn't know it causes cancer....

MCS- You need cure to smoke ANY product at low temps. Fresh sausages need to be frozen. Read Kutas' book and KNOW why. There is a window at which the baddies explode in growth. Cure, stops the growth period while in the danger zone. Good luck, Jamey

Joe b / greenebelly... thank you for your comments. I have done research on botulism because I believe the threat of botulism is very real but I've been puzzled why it has never been an issue with my grandparents’ smoked sausage. They cold smoke their sausage for 1.5 - 2 days and they do not cure the meat, I know this for a fact. They only smoke during cool weather but the temperature in the smokehouse is much warmer than 40 degrees and the internal temperature of the sausage never gets even close to 152 degrees. After they take the sausage out of the smokehouse, it is packaged and frozen. When it is prepared for eating, the sausage is boiled in about 2 inches of water for 45 minutes.

I learned from research that the botulism toxin is what can be fatal, not the spores themselves. If you kill the toxin and not the spore, the spore can however create more toxin in the future. I saw the following on

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FS104

...."Most outbreaks of foodborne botulism are the result of poor home canning mechanisms. Proper time, temperature, and pressure required to destroy spores as well as proper storage methods of home canned food products is necessary to ensure the safety of the consumer. According to the CDC, a pressure cooker can be used for home canning purposes merely because it can reach temperatures higher than boiling point (212°F) which is necessary to kill the spores.

While the botulinum spores are heat stable, the toxin itself is heat-labile, so heating a food to 176°F for 10 minutes before consumption can greatly reduce the risk of illness.

The suggestions below are good examples of how to prevent foodborne C. botulinum:

If consuming home canned foods, heat low acid foods to 176°F or boiling for 10 minutes and corn, spinach and meats for 20 minutes before consumption to reduce the risk of illness.".....

I just boiled some sausage for 45 minutes and the internal temperature got up to 210 degrees within 15 minutes. Do you think this is why they have never had an issue with botulism? I’m not condoning playing with fire here, if all it takes is nitrites to take away all risks I’m for it. I am looking for a logical explanation of why my grandparents feed hundreds of people a year smoked sausage and have never had an issue with botulism. I apologize this is so lengthy, but what are your thoughts?

Why would you take the chance when you just need to add liquid smoke to the raw product?! Jamey

maybe im missing something but most of us put a hole porkbut on low for 3-5 hours around 140 before bummping the temp up to 225 and cooking for another 8? hours. how does this differ if it is done with a suasage enstead of a hole piece of meat? Say put it on 140 for 4hours and then take the temp up to 180 till you hit the 160 internal? would this not work? i have just received all my equipment and am getting ready to make my first batch so this truely is a learning question i just dont see the diff. right now they are both the save meat!

One meat is a whole cut and the other is ground. Ground meat is what gave the danger zone it's name.

I'm reading with interest this forum as it shows the mass confusion I've found on other sites about what fresh sausage is. I'm looking for info also. Smoked fresh breakfast sausage doesn't need nitrates ( i don't think) because, and this is crucial, the temperature in the smoke house cannot exceed 38 degrees. You DO NOT cook, heat or warm the sausage. You make sausage, smoke it and freeze it with the temp of the meat never getting in the danger zone. IMO a smoke house whether you are doing hams or sausageshould never get up in the 40s. I would like advice on whether I'm correct that nitrates or not necessary under these conditions? Also how long should the sausage stay in the smoke house for "light" smoke?

If its truly below 40 then you are probably safe straight from smoker to freezer. But that is a cold smoke that I am assuming u can only do in the winter. You really have to monitor your temps. I don't know how long to smoke it. I am guessing less than an hour would give u enough for a light smoke. I would imagine the sausage would pick it up quick. Experiment. Take some out at 1/2 hr then 1 hour, etc. you said breakfast sausage, so I imagine they would be thin.

quote:

Originally posted by MCS:
my grandparents’ smoked sausage. They cold smoke their sausage for 1.5 - 2 days and they do not cure the meat, I know this for a fact

I am with you I think.
My Grandmother ran the show. : )
I remember hog killing time in Tennessee where I was born in East Tennessee.
Big huge cast iron kettles with canoe paddles to stir. fresh crackings rendering lard and all that wonderful stuff.
I was a little boy so I didn't get to help a lot.
She had a very large smokehouse. About 10 by 12 foot. Well it was big to me. And full of hanging hams. Well they were cured.
She had big victor traps on the floors. I can still hear them rattling in my head. I would put my ear to the wood walls.

I'm still a nut for country hams.

You guys know a lot more than me. In Tennessee everyone in the family knows how to smoke. Then I moved to Texas as a boy. It's not a big of a deal here.

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Originally posted by Doug Carroll:
... the temperature in the smoke house cannot exceed 38 degrees.

... the temp of the meat never getting in the danger zone.

...that nitrates or not necessary under these conditions?

Couple of thoughts. Keep in mind a lot of these post are from 5 years ago or so around the time we first created the forum.

Good thoughts, so let's discuss. I'm not the sausage expert but I know more about smoke/nitrates/nitrites than most.

You first comment. I'm not saying it's not a valid statement, but it's not a statement I've seen before or discussed stated just that way. I don't know many smoke houses over the years that are designed to be in that zone all year. The tradition of smoke houses being used during the winter had more to do with when the butchering took place (fall) than anything else. So how do we accomplish that today. Maybe in the right place only during a certain season would an outside smokehouse work, and I don't know many refrigerated smokers (the ones I've seen in most "factories" aren't in that temp range). Thus it's more likely to use cold smoking.

From your statement it sounds like you're saying that if you smoke and stay out of the danger zone then nothing will happen. I don't know that statement is true. It will keep the food from "growing" if it's not in the zone but you can still have certain bacteria/parasites.

Now what is more likely is cold smoking or temps below 100 or so (I've never seen a scientific discussion of what cold smoking temp really is. Then the discussion is whether you need to introduce Nitrites/Nitrates in to the food chemically add N/N, curing salt, even celery Juice (which has N/N).

One reason for smoking at those low temps for long periods is to all the Nitrites/Nitrates that do come from smoke time to have their effect on the meat. Think smoke ring. That little pink ring is causes by the wood smoke.

The 2nd statement, "...never gets in the danger zone". Yes it does. As soon as you take it out of the fridge, put it on a plate. Are you eating it raw or cooking it? The DZ is from 40 to 140 (US FSIS) but ServSafe uses 41 to 135. So there will be a period of time in that zone.

There is a lot more discussion recently about Charcuterie and it's the way of preserving meat before refrigeration. That is more and more discussion going on.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Carroll:
I'm reading with interest this forum as it shows the mass confusion I've found on other sites about what fresh sausage is.

What's your definition as you say there is confusion? To me, fresh sausage is uncooked. Are you saying Cold Smoked Sausage isn't fresh sausage? Sausage with Nitrites/Nitrates isn't Fresh Sausage? Maybe it's just as simple as you have to define cooking. Is 100 degree cooking? Is it the internal temp of the meat?

The only way I've ever smoked fresh breakfast sausage, is to make patties, smoke it to an internal safe temp of around 150 and pull it before the fat breaks, let it cool and vac seal it and freeze it. Then just reheat it in the skillet. It was in the smoker maybe an hour or so. Pink all the way thru from the smoke ring of the FEC.



By the way, I had a cracker barrel manager pull a package of their smoked breakfast sausage and the ingredients I read had liquid smoke. That's likely how they make fresh sausage with smoke flavor.