Hello!
I am a newbie and need some help! I bought a Bradley 6 rack smoker this summer! been trying to smoke stuff off and on. Made some good stuff and made some mistakes.
In any event this weekend I am going back up north with my smoker to make some Venison summer sausage, venison sticks and Jerky. I need to know what equipment other than the smoker I will need, what kinds of pucks I will need, Do I really need the jerky racks? What basic ingredients will I need? and what specific recipe's are the best to use. Lastly, "hot smoke v. cold smoke" what are the pluses and minuses. Thanks for your help
W E L C O M E to the Forum Pirjevec7211!
Instead of the jerky racks, most people use frogmats. You can get them at Yardandpool.com, they are called "high temp jerky screens"
The kind of pucks are up to you, I would try them all and settle in on a couple of favorites.
As far as recipes, Someone will be along shortly.
There is a lot to discuss concerning "hot smoke v. cold smoke" - Are you talking sausage here too?
You will need to make sure that there is cure#1 in your sausage mix.
There's a summer sausage and venison sausage recipe on the recipe site http://www.susanminor.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?180-Our-Time-Tested-and-Proven-Recipes. Take a look.
Or you might want to buy a kit like hi mountain or l.e.m.
As far a wood chips, that's something you'll have to decide for your self. Depends on what you like. I like maple with something, hickory with others. But that's me. Good luck
Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to the forum...Enjoy!
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I am from Minnesota also so welcome. I have used Cabelas seasoning kits and they are ok just a little salty. I have hot smoked mine using oak and that usually turns out pretty good. If you don't have oak you could use hickory. Just remember you need to put cure #1 in mix. Summer sausage usually takes around 10-12 hours and sticks have taken me 6 hours. You don't want to get cook temp over 180 and IT temp around 152-155 then take out and let cool either in ice bath (or maybe snowbank this weekend) or just air cool. If you have a PID (which is a programmable device that controls temp +/- 2 degrees) is very helpful as using the smoker by itself can have 10-20 degree swings. You can either hang your sticks from dowel rods or put on racks. Good Luck.
The other things you might need is a grinder, a stuffer and a thermometer to measure the IT of your sausage. Maybe you have these things. My only other suggestion is to make small batches of sausage so if the recipe you're trying isn't to your liking not much is lost. You'd hate to make a big batch and find you don't like it.