Summer sausage question

micdelbo · December 23, 2009, 05:54:49 AM

New to this, this is my first attempt at summer sausage.

Used a Hi Mountain Sausage kit. Followed instructions:

1. Stuff mixture into 2.5 inch casings the length of the racks.
2. Dried sauage at 120F for an hour.
3. Started smoke and increased temperature to 130F for one hour.
4. Next increase temperature to 150F for the next hour.
5. Final temperature adjustment is 180F for 4 hours or to the sausage's internal temp of 152F.
6. Let smoke on for 2 hours.

Except for the last smoke of 2 hours.

I rotated the 3 sausages, each 3 lbs., front to back and top to bottom half way through and used a Polder probe thermometer set to record max temp. I went to bed with 3 hours of the final cook left which means it was done cooking around 4 am this morning. The Polder showed a max temp of 156, so that worked okay.

When I cut one in half (just had to see what it was like), the consistency is a little soft, too much moisture. When you go to cut it, it is difficult to slice, not impossible with a serrated knife, but mushy. The taste is mild, my wife says it could use more smoke flavor.

Question is, can I do a 2nd smoke?

I am thinking I can, but am unsure exactly how. My guess would be to just re-smoke for 1-3 hours at 140-150 with smoke on. The meat is already cooked, so I am safe there. Does this sound correct?

Also, I would like to put the already cut sausage back in as well. Is this a problem? It is just cut in half, so there are the open ends.

Any input is appreciated and I thank you in advance for your replies.

Mike.

Habanero Smoker · December 24, 2009, 03:20:22 AM

You can attempt a second smoke. As far as safety it will be alright; the meat is fully cooked and the temperature of your cabinet seem alright. I believe you won't see much improvement, because it not likely there will be any smoke penetration. You will have more smoke adhesion to the surface, but depending on what type of casing you used, the surface will probably be discarded and not eaten.

What you are doing is safe (either re-smoking whole or cut in half), so if you want to give it a try it may work.

micdelbo · December 24, 2009, 05:57:29 AM

Thanks HS...

I did re-smoke...1 hour at 120-130 to dry and bring to temp...2 hours of smoke at 130-140...and pretty much exactly like you said, there wasn't much difference.

I believe the casing is the problem. It is a thicker colored casing, and unlike thin collagen or natural casing does not allow for smoke penetration.

The consistency was the main issue and I thought a re-smoke would help with that but it didn't.

I believe the main issue is the venison to pork ratio. I used 1/3 pork butt and 2/3 venison. There isn't enough binding fat in the pork butt to make the whole mixture firm. I beilieve I need to add more pork fat, not just pork butt, which contains 50-60% pork meat.

The sausage has a good mild flavor, mostly from the seasoning and cure.

Overall, I don't believe the smoke is a big contributing factor to the flavor, due to the casing.

I am fairly pleased with the results, but am now anxious to make more in a colllagen/natural casing to get some real smoke flavoring.

Merry Christmas and thanks for the reply.

Mike

watchdog56 · December 24, 2009, 09:56:01 AM

It sounds like the same casing type I used with Cabela's seasoning kit. My texture was nice and firm inside. What might be a problem and someone I gave a taste of my sausage to said he never had homemade sausage that was that firm is that when I packed it I put a little more pressure as the sausage was going into the casing. It sounds to me like you miight have not had enough pressure loading the tubes.

Tenpoint5 · December 24, 2009, 10:16:02 AM

I am going to go with the same thing Watchdog said. The sausage could be mushy from the way that it was stuffed. Might not have been packed in real tight. Another thing might be the grind. I have had some sausages that where very soft almost to the mushy stage as you have stated because I didn't do a second grind on the meat and the particles where too big.

micdelbo · December 24, 2009, 12:50:38 PM

WD56 and 10.5,

The sausage was double ground and packed as tight as I possibly could. I use the 3/4 horse Cabela's grinder and the largest stuffing tube it had. I then twisted the loading end as tight as it would go and tied it off.

The raw sausage in the casings were prettty hard, and even after smoking were stiff, but nothing like the nice firm stuff I have had from a butcher. When you go to cut it, it kind of oozes juice. This leads me to believe there may have been too much water in the recipe, and the casings did not let enough cook off.

I am not really disappointed, it does taste great, just trying to figure what not to do next time.

Thanks for the input.

Mike

watchdog56 · December 25, 2009, 03:02:19 AM

I am not sure here maybe some with more sausage experience will chime in, but when you took it out of the smoker did you put the sausage in a cooler with ice to bring the internal temp down and then let it hang to dry for a couple of hours? This is called blooming. Like I said I am not sure if this would help or not,looking for answer myself from someone with more sausage experience.

Tenpoint5 · December 25, 2009, 05:35:26 AM

It could be too much added moisture in the mix. I myself do not use the kits for my summer sausage. So I dont know how much water you add and usually don't think about that first.

josbocc · December 26, 2009, 10:30:33 AM

Mike,

I used 1 oz. of liquid for each lb. of meat in my summer sausages, and it turned out great. I used the LEM casings (2 1/2 inch diameter) which are pretty thick, and didn't experience the same issues that you did.

Watchdog may be on to the solution. The first time I did Summer Sausage, I didn't do the "Ice Bath." They came out alright, but not the consistency that I was looking for. This year I did 50 lbs. of them, with the Ice Bath, and everyone that tried them said they were better than anything commercial that was out there.

Keep plugging away.

Jeff

mow_delon · January 06, 2010, 12:02:13 PM

I have made many batches of summer sausage (usually hi-Mountain, but have used LEM) and have never had a consistancy problem like you have described. On my first batch ever, I used 1/2 ground pork to 1/2 venison and I thought that it was too moist (but it was firm) so I have used ground beef insted of pork ever since. This makes a drier sausage, but is very good. Also, I quit using any water in the seasoning mix, I just pour the dry seasoning into the meat and mix by hand thouroughly. I was also wondering if maybe the meat mixture was not mixed well enough and the stiffeners in the seasoning mix were not everywhere (I doubt this, however, since you seem to have uniform flavor). Anyway, good luck on the next batch and let us know how it turns out!

micdelbo · January 06, 2010, 02:17:46 PM

To all,

I have since made another batch, and this time I performed the quenching or blooming procedure. That took care of the shrinking I had.

The consistency was the same as the first batch, which did firm up very nicely once refrigerated.

Mike

missourismoker · March 31, 2010, 08:36:10 PM

i just did my second smoke in a digital 4 rack, 15 pounds of deer sausage, 12 pounds deer 3 pounds ground pork,no water, with the cracked black pepper and garlic from high mountain with the 3 inch red casings, but i didnt follow the directions in the box, left out for one hour to room temp and i hit it with smoke for 3 hours at 220 and about 2 hours with the smoke off just like in the oven to internal temp of 165 and it has great smoke flavor and texture. wife took it to work and got rave reviews on it.