Summer Sausage Cook Time

I think you should have put the smoker on 200* from the start with the door closed and smoked until done. Just me. If it was me, which it ain't I understand, I would be afraid of the bacteria you speak of setting in when the smoker was set on 100* with the door left open and then turned off for 2 hours. When I do jerky, it dries out perfectly well with the door closed, it's just that it has to stay in and hot enough for long enough.

9am update:

The sausage has been in a 180F CS since 11 pm. The internal temperature is still 140F

It has been cooking for 10 hrs and the temperature has not moved.

I checked all the threads found with a search of "summer sausage". Some folks talk about a 2-3 hour cook time at the final 180F setpoint.

So what do folks think?
Is this just a long plateau?
Is something wrong with my sausage mixture?
Is something wrong with my CS?

When you ask "is something wrong with the CS?" you need to just validate the temperature. Use a thermometer you KNOW has valid temp settings (by testing).

I'd up the temp about 180. that's only a 40 degree difference between the sausage and the oven temp and that will make for a slow, slow increase in temp.

I am real curious to know too. I have never made summer sausage but have watched it get made and would love to try it myself. I don't recall that it was all that wet when the casing was stuffed though.

I have had the jalapeno and cheese summer sausage made with deer meat and it is very lean. I have had it twice, one time it was way too dry and the other time it was perfect. I believe they add pork fat to it, to moisten.

That said.....did you need to add the ground pork to the mix? Wild duck and goose has always been greasy to me. I have found that you can cut up the duck or goose and make stew or gumbo out of it. In New Orleans, that has always been one of my favorites at the Gumbo House.

What directions did the Hi Mountain mix come with. I would have probably modified those directions to meet the cookshack's desirable uses.

Smokin'

I didn't calibrate my temperature probe. But when I checked the CS empty, The CS and the probe seemed to agree. The CS was set at 225 and the probe temperature cycled between 200 and 250.

Now, I'm not sure I understand your temperature recommendation. The CS is currently set at 180F. Are you recommending a different setpoint?


As an update, it is now 11am. The internal temp of the sausage is still 140F. It has been 12 hours since I set the CS up to 180F. I'm still planning on letting it run as long as it takes to get to about 160F...

As another update:

I just checked another sausage. It was about 143F. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't an issue with just one sausage. The first sausage with next to the door. The second one was inside a bit more.

There is also more water/blood in the drain pan.

I'd guess that this sausage is just going to take a long time to drain/dry enough for the temperature to go up.

Can you post a picture of the sausage when it gets done?

Temperature's rising...

At 2pm (15 hrs), the temp was 152F
At 3pm (16 hrs), the temp was 154F

I'll take pictures when they get done. Hopefully, that will be today...

How is the summer sausage coming so far?

The sausage turned out great.

It stayed around 152-154 until about 5pm.
At 6pm, it was 156F
At 7pm, it was 159F and I finally ended it.

It took 20 hrs to get there. I'm not sure why. But I guess "it'll be done when it's done"

I'll post pictures in a bit...

Sorry didn't get back to you.

Suspicion tells me that there was a LOT of moisture in the mix and it needed that long to get out.

Turning up the temp would get you to the point faster when you've got a wet sausage like it sounds you had.

Key is that it came out great.

I'd look at reducing the moisture if the cook was too long for you.

Smokin'

I just cut open a second sausage and it was very dry.

I have a lot of conflicting information about what temperature to cook to:
- The CS recipe page talks about only cooking to 145F with an oven temp of 165F
- The CS recipe book that came with the smoker says to cook for 2 hours with an oven temp of 180F. No mention is made of an internal temperature.
- The Hi Mountain recipe says to cook to an internal temperature of 156F. They recommend a smoker temp of 180F

What do y'all recommend/use?

I recommend 200* with the door shut until the sausage is done. 4oz hickory wood for a full load.

Mad Angler, scroll down on this forum and raed deer summer sausage question, i share Qeiyser Qs method.(i like 120 to start,just my likeing) at the low temp and door ajar you will be driveing out some moisture, to high a temp and you will end up with slopy greesy casings. with a summer sausage casing in 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inch dia. it will take some time.i dont like the idea of shutting it down a starting over, safty and longer cook. glad to see people trying somthing new, good luck to your sausage venture. paul

Never set the temp higher than 180 when making summer sausage or salami.If you open the smoker and see fat on the bottom,you had the temp to high.With all the fat dripped out the sausage will be dry and crumble.

It takes a long time to cook SS and you are right the temp stays at 140 for a long time.

You used pork and need to get the SS temp to 155 or so.Which is why I use beef instead....temp only has to get to 145.Plus beef makes for firmer SS than pork does when you slice it.

Here are the pictures:


Shot of cut open sausage:



Shot of full Smokette:



I took three sticks to work. Folks wolfed them down and raved about them. One was little dry but they all had good flavor.

They look good to me!

Man O Man they look great to me.

As an added tip, they are hanging from chop sticks...

Ahhhh, I like the asian influences.

I made my first batch of Hi Mountain Summer sausage (70% venison & 30% pork) in the oven and it turned out OK but not great. I felt it was missing something. I since bought a SM025 smoker and made a batch yesterday and my venison summer sausage turned out awesome. Here is what I did and how long it took me to make three 2 1/2" x 20" sticks using 9 lbs of meat total.

6 lbs ground venison (3/8" plate one time)
3 lbs ground pork (ground at store)
Hi Mountain Seasoning kit.

I followed the directions exactly as they want you to. Filled the casing tight and let sit overnight in frig. I took them out the next morning for 2 hrs to warm up to room temp. Wiped them off and proceeded to smoke them with no wood at 140 degrees for 1 hr lying on the top screen since I can’t hang them in my SM025. I Wish I would have left door open slightly to get rid of moisture on this step. I then added 4 oz of hickory and moved temp to 160 degrees for 30 min and then up to 180 degrees to finish it off. One problem I had is that I didn't get much smoke at 180 at all. at around 5 hrs I opened the smoker and noticed a lot of moisture in the smoker. Closed it back up and set the temp to 200 for about 15 min to reheat the smoker up again and the smoke started to generate nicely. I moved it back down to 180 and my smoke was gone but my meat temps slowly rose. My temp stopped at around 140 and would not come back up and was actually dropping so I went up to 190. At this temp I still didn't get much smoke but after 11 hrs my sausage hit 165 internally. I removed my three 2 1/2" logs and dropped them in very cold water for about 5 min to stop cooking. I then dried them off and hung them between two chairs in the kitchen for two hours to Bloom. After that I placed them into the frig overnight since it was now midnight. The next day I preceded to cut them into chunks and vacuum seal them and did a taste test. The only word I can say is AWESOME! I wish I had a bit more smoke flavor but the consistency was better than my first batch and the taste was much much better. I think this is because of the smoke but also the fact I rinsed them right away and stopped the cooking process rather than let them site on the counter to cool by themselves as well as letting them hang for several hours to Bloom.

I got an email into Cookshack to find out why I am not getting sufficient smoke at the lower temps but other than the summer sausage I have done a pork butt (excellent), ribs (excellent) and even a brisket which even turned out pretty darn good. Thanks for all the tips in the forum which really make using the smoker a breeze.


FYI..Stop by One Stop Jerky Shop for some great seasonings and rubs. I actually bought my SM025 smoker, Hi Mountain Summer Sausage kit from them as well as a Hickory Rub and chicken rub that are awesome on the grill.