Newbie with some ?'s

[Chewbacca]

I have been doing "hobby" sausagemaking for a few years now. I usually am making something that consists mainly of venison. The last two times I have made summer sausage I have ended with two totally different results as far as meat consistency is concerned. The first batch from 2 weeks ago seemed to be a little too "watery" when I sliced into it after completion of smoking/blooming process. Last weeks batch seemed a little too dry and chewy. Is the moisture problem due to the amount of water used or is it the fat content? I changed quantities of each from one batch to the next. I'm not sure which one to alter to find the perfect moisture consistency.

Also, I see you guys always mention the hot water bath to finish the sausage. Can you explain to me the setup and process that is used for this method? I am sure this could cut several hours off the smoking time by using this method but I just need to know the equipment used to do the process.

I'm looking forward to getting to know each one of you on this great and informative site.

[pmmpete]

In order to kill the microbes which can cause food poisoning, the US Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety and Inspection Service recommend that ground beef, pork, and similar ground meat be cooked until it reaches any of the following combinations of internal temperature and time periods:

160 degrees - 1 second
155 degrees - 23 seconds
150 degrees - 72 seconds
145 degrees - 4 minutes
140 degrees - 12 minutes
135 degrees - 37 minutes
130 degrees - 121 minutes

For chicken, the one-second temperature goal is 165 degrees.  An essential step in the process of making cooked sausage is to get the sausage to one of these temperatures for these times.  Because different sausages will cook at different rates, depending on where they are located in a smoker or a pot, it is better to go a bit long on these times.  For example, a good goal to shoot for is 155 degrees for 5-10 minutes.

You can get sausage to these temperatures in a smoker, but it takes a long time, and because the temperature in the smoker may need to be significantly higher than 160 degrees to get the sausages to these temperatures in a reasonable amount of time, you risk melting the fat out of sausages when you cook them in a smoker.  A faster and more controllable way to cook sausages after they have been smoked for a couple of hours is in a water bath, keeping the temperature of the water at or below 160 degrees to avoid cooking fat out of the sausages.   Monitor the temperature of the water and the internal temperature of a sausage with probes from two separate digital thermometers, and stir the water frequently so the sausages heat evenly. You can cook short sausages in water on a stove in a large pot, and longer sausages in water in a turkey roasting pan or a fish poaching pan.  Or you can buy an electric turkey roaster for considerably less than the cost of a large pot.  Wait until after Thanksgiving when they go on sale, and snap up the biggest one you can find at a discount store.  An advantage of an electric turkey roaster is if others in your house object to the sometimes overpowering aroma of poaching sausage, you can earn some domestic tranquility points by cooking the sausage outside or in your garage. 

Here is my turkey roaster.  I made magnetic clamps to hold the thermometer probes.



Or for serious style points, you can make a long stainless steel vat with a sausage rack and water circulation pumps, like Kirby (pikeman_95) did.  He ought to be manufacturing this equipment for sale.

[Chewbacca]

Thanks for the info! I need to investigate Kirby's water bath setup a little farther. How much time do you think the water bath saves? Do you need to buy any type of separate temperature control if you use an electric turkey roaster? It seems to me that it would be hard to keep a turkey roaster below the 180 degree mark. Lastly, what IT do you take the sausage out of the smoker then place in the water bath, and what IT do you remove the sausage from the water bath? 156 degrees has always been my target number for a completed sausage.

[Sailor]

Chewbacca, first question is how much water are you using for your mix per 5 pounds?  Are you using any binder such as non fat dried milk in the mix?  What cabinet temps are you using during the smoke?  What fat content are you using?  80/20, 70/30 etc.  If you can give us an idea of what you are doing I am sure someone will be able to help.

Normally I use 1/2 cup of water for my mix per 5 pounds of meat.  I find that I personally get the texture the way I like my SS just using 1/2 cup of water even if the recipe calls for 1 cup of water. 

[Mr Walleye]

Chewbacca

The inconsistancy in your batches could very well be the fat content. For me I prefer a fat content of around 80/20 but never less than 85/15. I find if I try to get leaner than 85/15 it ends up dry or crumbly or mealy tasting.

Another thing I notice with Summer Sausage is when you freeze it, then thaw it for use, it tends to have a more watery texture. If you take it from the freezer and allow it to defrost in the fridge this seems to help. If you need it faster than that I defrost it in a sink of cold water for about a half hour or a little more. What ever you do, don't use the microwave.

Yet another trick to dry out your summer sausage a little bit more is, once it's done blooming, put it in the fridge, with the fibourus casings still on, for up to a week before packaging and freezing. The fridge if dry and will suck moisture out of the sausage.

The water bath setup works very well. I usually do about 80 to 100 lb batches in my big smoker. Overall I would say it shaves off about 4 hours of time per load. I start my smoke as normal, run for about an hour at 130 to dry the casings, next I start my smoke (I like 3 hours) and begin to ramp the temp up at about 10 degrees per hour. When the smoke is complete (sausage has been in a total time of 4 hours now) I am not that conserned about internal temp as I am about getting that nice mahogony color on the sausage. If they look good I pull them out of the smoker and into the hot water bath. If they are not the color I want I may let them go up to another hour. Tipically when I pull the sausage from the smoker the IT is around 130 or 132. For a hot water bath I use a propane burner and a 64 qt stock pot. I put about 10 gal of water in it and crank it on high until it reaches 160 degrees, then dial it back to an idle and it will maintain it perfectly with very little adjustment. I can get about 30 lbs of sausage at a time in it. Normally, if I finish my sausage in the smoker I like to take the sausage IT up to 152 degrees. When I use the hot water bath method I take it up to 155 degrees simply because it rises much quicker and also for the food safety numbers pmmpete posted above. With average size load in this setup it takes me about 15 to 20 minutes in the hot water bath which is a savings of about 4 hours in the smoker.

On a side note if you try the hat water bath method don't panick when you see the beautiful mahogany color disappear on the sausage after a few minutes. It re-appears during the blooming process. I like to bloom mine for at least 2 hours.

Here's a few pictures of my setup...
















Mike

[pmmpete]

Question:  How much time do you think the water bath saves?

Answer:  How much time you save by cooking sausages in a water bath depends on how hot you are running your smoker, and how big in diameter your sausages are.  If you keep your smoker at a conservatively low temperature to avoid cooking fat out of your sausages, and/or your sausages are thick, it can take a long time to get the sausages to the internal temperature needed for food safety.

Question:  Do you need to buy any type of separate temperature control if you use an electric turkey roaster? It seems to me that it would be hard to keep a turkey roaster below the 180 degree mark.

Answer:  An electric turkey roaster works fine right out of the box.  Load in the water and sausages, crank the dial up fairly high, and monitor the water temperature.  When the water temperature reaches 160, turn the dial down to maintain that temperature.  Then monitor the internal temperature of your sausages, which may be ten or fifteen degrees lower, and will slowly increase.

Question: Lastly, what IT do you take the sausage out of the smoker then place in the water bath, and what IT do you remove the sausage from the water bath? 156 degrees has always been my target number for a completed sausage.

Answer:  I don't bother monitoring the internal temperature of my sausages when they are in the smoker.  I just leave them in the smoker for as long as I want for flavor, perhaps two or three hours.  Then I dump them in the water bath and shoot for an internal temperature of 155 for 5-10 minutes.  If you just take the sausages out of the water after that, the internal temperature will continue to rise somewhat as heat moves from the outside of the sausage to the center.  To prevent this further temperature increase, you can put the sausages into cold water for a couple of minutes.

[Chewbacca]

Thank you all for your input regarding my questions. I learned more from the replies than I have from several years of trial and error  :P

[Chewbacca]

I just wanted you guys to know that I made about 10 lbs. of snack sticks this past weekend. I did not change my fat content but I did add a little more water. They turned out perfect! I also, used the water bath for the first time. Holy cow, this works so incredibly well! Shaved several hours off the time without sacrificing any quality! I am so thankful for all the help and info thus far.