Water-bath after smoking

[pikeman_95]

that's the idea I am just going to go a little further and get PID control hooked up. I get busy when I am smoking and finishing things in the hot water bath and I want to have it take care of itself. You sure can screw up some sausage by letting it get too hot.

[Mr Walleye]

Like Kirby said a large turkey fryer style pot or stock pot works perfectly. I use a cooling rack on the bottom of the pot to keep the sausage from touching it and to allow the water to move around. I simply move the sausage around a bit during the process with one of the sausage sticks as demonstrated by my lovely assistant below (my Brother-in-law)  ;D .

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 about 2 hours) and begin to ramp the temp up at about 10 degrees per hour to a max of 160 or 165. When the smoke is complete (sausage has been in a total time of 4 hours now) I am not that concerned about internal temp as I am about getting that nice mahogany 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. typically 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 at about 160 degrees 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. 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 panic 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

[dirt1008]

What kind of time does it take to get to the IT you want with 90lbs of meat? I'm looking at buying an immersion circulator (http://anovaculinary.com) but it says a maximum of six gallons. I'm worried about how many sausages (2"x19") I could get in a container, how much room I need around them to get proper circulation, and if this way is really that much faster.

Hey dirt, I am starting to think that with the immersion circulator it would be better to get a tall pot like container instead of a low basin type container. That way the chubs would stand up instead of laying on top of each other. I have an old wine juice pail (5gals) that I am going to try on my next batch of sausages.

Are you going to try and hang them, or just stick them in standing up? How tightly do you think you can get away with and still have enough circulation around the chubs? I have a turkey fryer I could pull out and use! I'm excited

[renoman]

What kind of time does it take to get to the IT you want with 90lbs of meat? I'm looking at buying an immersion circulator (http://anovaculinary.com) but it says a maximum of six gallons. I'm worried about how many sausages (2"x19") I could get in a container, how much room I need around them to get proper circulation, and if this way is really that much faster.

Hey dirt, I am starting to think that with the immersion circulator it would be better to get a tall pot like container instead of a low basin type container. That way the chubs would stand up instead of laying on top of each other. I have an old wine juice pail (5gals) that I am going to try on my next batch of sausages.

Are you going to try and hang them, or just stick them in standing up? How tightly do you think you can get away with and still have enough circulation around the chubs? I have a turkey fryer I could pull out and use! I'm excited

I don't think I would hang them and I wouldn't worry about the circulation That Anova circulator really stirs up the water. It has a small propeller on the bottom under the heating element.

[dirt1008]

Appreciate the help renoman