We are new to the forum and to venison summer sausage making. We are using the cold smoking method and would like to have some input from anyone who has made this type of sausage in a Bradley Digital Smoker. We are particularly interested in how many hours of smoke you use to get a good smoke absorbtion. We are only familiar with the farm smokehouse method that takes approximately 30 hours to smoke 2 to 2 1/2 inch casings. We prefer summer sausage where no cooking process is involved.
sausagemakers2
Welcome to the forum. I have not done sausage, but as a general rule, 4 hours of smoke is about the maximum you will ever need on anything in the Bradley. Seems like I read that many of the sausage makers on here do about 2 or 3 hours. Check out the receipe site at the bottom of my post.
Welcome to the forum sausagemakers2
Here is a very good link to cold smoking meat.
http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/smoking-meat.htm
nepas
W E L C O M E to the Forum sausagemakers2!
There are plenty of good folks here to help. I personally have not done the smoked sausage thing, but I plan to someday.
Hi SausageMakers2;
Welcome to the forum.
I've never fully cold smoked suasage in the Bradley, so I can't help you with how many total hours of time to keep the sausage in the smoker.
As for the amount of smoke you should apply using the Bradley, I generally find that 1 1/2 - 2 hours of smoke is sufficient for sausage.
The sticks of sausage were hung last night on a special framework we put together to hold several rows of sticks in a refrigerator downstairs. We ended up cold smoking the sausage for 20 hours because our friend in Missouri sausage country smokes in the smokehouse for 30 hours. There is no cooking involved and the meat stays cold the whole time. It could quite possibly be too smoky a taste, and we will know better next time. We can see that it is beginning to firm up already. It looks good...a really professional job for two Newbies. Now for the taste sensation! We certainly hope it will be good and will report back to let you know whether it worked for us. We are keeping a journal so if it's good we can repeat the process, and if not we can modify it to get a better product. Thanks again for the ideas.
sausagemakers2
I'm in the process of trying to make a dry curing "box"; to make dry cured sausage. The dry curing box will be made from a freezerless refrigerator, with a humidifier to maintain the correct humidity. Surely let us know how it worked out.
Are you making dry cured sausage; is that what you mean you you say uncooked?
Here is a link to a person who uses the Bradley to dry cure his sausage
Making Salami At Home (http://home.pacbell.net/lpoli/page0002.htm)
We went to the "salami making" link and read the details. We don't know if this is the same process because no direct reference was made to any smoking. Since we are dealing with summer sausage, not salami, our process involves a 50/50 mix of pork butt and venison with the addition of spices including flavor, curing and nitrates, specifically mixed for that type of sausage. We consider the aging and drying time in the curing process. We know we have a lot to learn, but similar to the salami maker, we are also keeping a journal. The learning process is so much fun for us, and we thank you for the link. We are looking forward to getting more info on the forum.
sausagemakers2
I now understand. You are making fermented sausage that is going to be fully dry cured.
I'm in the same boat as you; just learning to dry cure and ferment sausage. Let me know how the 12 hour smoke flavor comes out, because I plan only to apply 2-3 hours of smoke, ferment it for a time at 80°F, then continue to dry cure at around 50°F.
As a kid I used to watch my father and uncles make the dry cure sausages in Up state N.Y. I said to my father lets make dry sausage at home, he said "can't make good sausage in Jersey humidity all wrong" then he sat me down and he explained. Always wanted to make it but I'm not going to make a chamber just for that so I can control temp. and humidity. He lives in Upstate now for 35 years and still makes dry cure to this day. Let me tell you, when they make it they were married to it. Checking this and checking that and watching mold grow on some. My favorites were Sopressata and Abbruze.
I have done allot of sausage, bologna, dry sausage ad this type. I used to have pics of them years ago before i learned about backing up and saving files and pics :D
nepas
I don't have a basement, so the humidity is not that good any time of the year. Especially winter, when I'm using hot air to heat the home. I've made semi-dried cure, but it doesn't compare to fully dry cured products.
I'll try to document how I put it together. Right now I've been conferring with Mike (Mr. Walleye), who's given me some good leads. When I make my dry curing box, I am going to make it in a manner that it will still be functional as a refrigerator. There will be times of the year I will concentrate on fermented sausage, and dry cured sausage and meats, but other parts of the year I will use it as a back up refrigerator. With today's humidistats , PIDs, wireless temperature/humidity transmitters; hopefully it should make dry curing a little easier.
Roadking,
If I may ask..., where abouts in Upstate, NY was this sausage made? I'm up near Plattsburgh, and have been thinking about doing some dry-cured, but I've been scared to death because of the weather swings that we have up here.
I've got the equivalent of a root/wine cellar that is in the corner of the foundation under my garage, and now I'm beginning to think that this little room that has gone unused for the twelve years that I've lived here might just be a gold-mine.
Jeff
Your root/wine cellar should be an ideal location, because that should maintain a temperature close to 50°F year round, due to the thermal heat from the earth it shouldn't matter what the outside temperature is. You may need to control the humidity but that can easily be done with a humidifier and a humidistat.
Wow! There are so many really good ideas out there for sausage making. We hadn't heard the term "fermenting" used before. Is it the same as hanging the sausage to cure? Our first batch of venison summer sausage yielded 14 sticks and they have been hanging in a temp controlled refrigerator for the past 17 days. We read that the USDA recommends that the sausage hang for a minimum of 21 days to affect the cure. We have since done a second batch of sausage. This time we used about 16 hours of smoking. It was done when the outdoor temps were in the 30's and we added ice to the smoker and cracked the door to maintain about a 43.6 degree F temp on the inside of the smoker. We have read several articles on making an auxilary "cold smoking" box that uses the Bradley Smoker for the source of smoke, but chose to more closely regulate the interior temp of the smoker instead. Yield was 13 sticks. It has been hanging for 9 days and seems to be curing nicely. This time we did some fine grind and some a little coarser grind and have coded the tie strings with different colors and noted it in the journal so we will know what we are tasting. Yesterday we sliced a stick of venison summer sausage given to us by our friend who does it in a smoke house for 30 hours. It had hung for 4 weeks. It has a smoke ring about a quarter inch deep and is lip smackin' good. We can hardly wait to taste ours. We hope it will be as good! We're looking forward to more comments. :)
Sausagemakers2
Fermentation is part of making some dry cured sausages that requires a starter culture, most commonly Bactoferm F-RM-52 is used as the starter culture. It is an additional step that requires holding the sausage at around 80°F for around 12 hours or longer for the culture to grow. It give the sausage a tangy flavor and helps lower the pH in the sausage, because the fermentation produces an acid. I haven't made any dry cured sausage yet, but have bee doing some reading.
Bactoferm Products (http://www.sausagemaker.com/index.asp?PageAction=PRODSEARCH&txtSearch=bactoferm)
The is a dairy product called Fermento that imitates the flavor, but I don't believe it helps lower the pH.
Fermento (http://www.sausagemaker.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=46)
How was the flavor of the sausage after applying 16 hours of smoke.
Our first batch of sausage has been curing for 24 days. We couldn't resist and had to have a sample on the 21st day. It was not quite firm enough in the center at that time so we decided to wait for another week and sample it again. As to the taste, it was superb. We were so pleased with it. It has had 20 hours of smoke and has a medium smoky taste. The second batch with the 16 hours of smoke is curing nicely as well but has been hanging only 15 days. It has at least another 2 weeks to cure. We are so proud of our first endeavor and can hardly wait to share our product with family and friends. We are still looking at and reading any books or recipes, etc., that will give us more insight into the process. We managed to keep the interior temperature of the smoker on this second batch at about 43.6 F, during the cold smoking process. Details are noted in our journal so we can review or revise or whatever as we go. The casings were very firmly stuffed with very little air in them and the sausage has stayed round instead of denting and creasing like our friend's did. It has been exciting doing the work. We have always wanted to make sausage and at last we are doing it. We will report back when we sample the first batch next week and when the second batch is ready. Then we can let you know if there was much difference in the taste from the 20 hour batch. We welcome replies, as we are happy to share what we do.
sausagemakers2
Thanks for the feedback on the sausage. I'm glad you are have great success.
I'm interested in how you are dry curing. Are you fortunate enough to have a cellar, and/or a room that can maintain proper humidity and temperature; or did you make a "dry curing" box - such as some use a converted refrigerator.
We are doing our dry curing in a used refrigerator that we bought for that purpose. It seems to be taking quite awhile to cure out and we are wondering if the humidity escapes slower this way. The sausage has been curing for 28 days and we didn't cut any of our sample stick today. It still seems a bit soft in the center so we are just letting hang for awhile longer before we check it. All in all it has been a good experience so far. We are learning a lot and hope it will help us to perfect the process. Thank you for your reply.
Sausagemakers2
Depending on the sausage, I have seen many recipes that call for 6 weeks or longer. I've learned from a few failures that humidity is important to keep around 60%. If the humidity is too low the surface of the sausage dry too quickly. When this happens the moisture gets trapped inside and it will spoil. The temperature should also be around 60°F to 70°F. If the temperature is lower it will take longer for the sausage to dry.
I will be using a refrigerator also for dry curing. I'm going to equip it with a humidifier that will be controlled with a humidistat, and a pid or other temperature control device to maintain 60°F. I've been waiting for some one to get rid of a freezerless refrigerator or upright freezer, but so far nothing in my area. I might have to bite the bullet and purchase a new one.
Ya'll have probably seen it, but Poli on his site has an elegant solution to a curing cabinet our of an upright freezer using a PID and a humidifier. Link is http://lpoli.50webs.com/Tips.htm It will be about halfway down the page.
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