i made some sausage yesterday. half is italian and half is sweet and spicy. both are hi mountain. just pulled them out of the fridge. not sure what smoke to try. i have alder, maple, mesquite, hickory, or crown royal. what should i try? its my first kick at the can so im open to trying anything. any other tips would also be great. using a bradley Ds6.
In order from light to strong:
alder
maple
hickory
mesquite
I'd go with the maple.
1st of all I would ask if your mix had cure #1 in it. If your mix did not have the cure #1 then it is considered to be a fresh sausage and I would not try to smoke it at the lower temps. If it has cure then you won't go wrong using Hickory or Maple. I use the Bradley to bake my fresh sausage when I don't put the cure in. Crank it up to 225-240 and let it bake until an IT of 155 is reached. Takes less than an hour. You might be able to apply smoke to it as it bakes but I have never tried that. For smoking I start out at 130 for 1.5 hrs to let the casings dry out and then bump to 140 for 2 to 3 hours of smoke. The bump to 150, 160 and 170 until the IT is 152-155 but I use a cure when I do that.
From what I can tell (from the website) the Hi Mountain kits have cure in them.
they both have cure in them. also they are 50/50 pork/deer
Go with hickory.
Hickory imparts a nice red tint to the sausage. Oak is more brown. Adding paprika will make your sausage also redder. Of course, the longer smoking time, the more pronounced color will be. I always have some oak logs lying around and if I use a larger smoker I simply chop some oak with an ax. In the past in Pacific Northwest they used alder for smoking salmon. It was also very popular in Poland as it grew everywhere. In England oak was very popular. Having wood briquettes makes the job easier.
You can see the list of some common woods which are used for smoking at: http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/meat-smoking/wood