Smoking home made sausage

I made venison summer sausage this year. I took 20# of venison and mixed with 5# pork trimmings from the local butcher (50% meat, 50% fat) and added the spices (premixed form a butcher supply house) I loaded into casings and smoked. I have the smokette and could only fit the last two into it, so if you have a smokkette, make the casings smaller so they fit. My casings were about 3" in diamerter and 24" long. Next time I will cut them in half. I gathered you want an internal temp of 155 or so for ground meat so I cooked at 200 for 2 hours and they were 157. Perfect for me. cooked all the way through, but not all dried out. Delicious. If you buy a premixed pack of seasoning form a buthcer supply co., you might want to decrease your mix of meat a touch to give it more flavor. The batch i did called for 25# and i followed the directions, but will make 22# next time instead. I actually made 4 batches this year. One polish dogs, one Bratwurst, one summer sausage, and one breakfast sausage. The breakfast sausage i reduced to 22# and it had better flavor. Good luck. The smoked summer sausage was great.

Just hang in there.

We have several guys that do sausage regular and Jackitup does a lot of venison and pork sausage.

Jackitup Sausage

I hang my sausage in a 130 degree smoker until the casings are dry. then add smoke and gradually raise the temp. to 165. when the internal temp. of the sausage reaches 152 I remove the sausage to a cold water bath until the internal temp. of the sausage is 110. this prevents the casings from looking all shriveled. When using the 2 1/2 and 3 inch casings I remove the sausag from the smoker when the internal temp. reaches 135 and put thm in a hot water bath of 165 degrees, no hotter, untill the sausage temp. reaches 152 then into the cold water bath. This saves alot of time.

I followed the cook time and temperatures in the Cookshack cookbook (the one that came with the cs50)last week for venison/pork summer sausage and it was really close. About a 25# batch put into 1 1/2" x 10" casings and then some of the 2 1/2" cut to fit in the 50, the 2 1/2 ers stayed in a little longer. Half of it we added 1 small can of Hallepeno(sp)peppers and a pound of sharp cheddar and it didn't get any too hot or cheezey so next time we'll try and add more. Wood to smoke flavor was fine per the book too. That was my bible for that night, others may have had more experience.

Hi CP,

Here's a post you may be interested in that I posted earlier.......

I just finished a 15 lb batch of venison summer sausage. I used a High Plains summer sausage kit & added 3 TBS black pepper, 1 TBS cayenne, 1 TBS onion powder, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 TBS garlic salt, & 4 tsps of encapsulated citric acid. Stuffed into casings that held about 3 Lbs each.

The first 5 pounds I stuffed as is. The next 5 pounds I added about a pound of diced smoked cheddar. The next 5 pounds I added about 1/2 pound of diced smoked jack & a couple diced roasted green chilis. Hung the sausages in my kitchen for 3 hours to warm up a bit. Next, added to smoker set at 120 degrees with the door cracked about 1/4 inch for 45 minutes. Added 4 1/2 oz of hickory & closed door & smoked at 130 degrees for 30 minutes. Then bumped temp up to 180 degrees till the sausages reached 153 degrees internal temp. Took them out & showered till cool & hung in the kitchen for a couple more hours to allow to bloom.

They are all very good. I'll probably increase the citric acid a bit to make them a bit more tangy, but overall very tasty.

Nice One. Thanks.