Sausage Temp HELP!!!!!

[doz759]

I have 75 pounds of summer sausage in the smoker and can't get the IT above 142. Smoker temps at 170 and the sausage has been in for 14 hours. Guess I will try to water bath. Any ideas of why it wont come on up temp?

[KyNola]

If you have 75 pounds of summer sausage in a Bradley, the sheer volume of meat is the primary reason it's not coming up to your target temp as quickly as you would like.

What are you using to measure temp in the tower and the sausage?

[watchdog56]

I have a six rack and could not get that much in there. What is your secret? If you have that much in there I am guessing that may be most of your problem. You might want to cut back to 20# per batch then water bath and then put next 20 in and so on.

[doz759]

I have a homemade smoker that I have used for a couple years with smaller batches. I use a ramp up PID and another probe for my meat temp. It will hold the temp within a couple degree of it's setting in the smoker. Good even temp throughout the smoker itself. Checked the temps against each other and they seem to be the same on all probes. The sausage is coming up to temp in about 30 min in the water bath. This is the first time I have tried to finish the sausage in the smoker itself. Maybe a fan in the smoker is what I need. The locker here said they take about 10 hours to get it up to temp but they have a fan in the smoker to circulate the air.  Thanks for the help and ideas!!!

[watchdog56]

What are the dimensions of your smoker? Also what is the outside temp? Maybe it is a case of the weather trying to heat a big area is just to tough to keep up.

[doz759]

The smoker is 4'x4'x6'. Made it out of cooler panels and the outside temp was about 30 degrees. Worked great for snack sticks when I made them. I am really thinking I need to ad a fan to circulate the air inside. The temp from top to bottom does not seem to vary over a degree or two when running. The PID barely kicks the heating coils on when running. Seems to heat very easy. I did notice that if I put a pan of water on the one coil the steam seemed to bring the internal temp of the sausage up better " only used when I was done with the smoking stage". I have a blower fan that I am thinking of hooking up to try and circulate the air just not sure. Opened the vents and it seemed to really cool down the IT of the sausage so I closed them back off. Sausage turned out great after the water bath. Had some fat out on only one type of casing all the others seemed fine. I think the guy that made the sausage had allot of pork fat in those. After it was done he thought it was great sausage.... guess maybe I'm just to picky...LOL    Thanks for the input any is appreciated!!!!   Wish I knew how to post picks on here I would show the smoker.

[Bugnut]

I have a large electric home built smoker just a bit smaller than yours. I'm running a 5000 watt PID control heating element and have a convection fan installed. A 50# to 100# batch will take around 10 to 14 hours and I never go over 168 degrees for a set temp. I normally only use the fan for snack sticks and can finish 75# in 6 hours. I've tried hot water bath on summer sausage but everyone likes the start to finished from the smoker way better than the water bath sausage. There are many different things that I have found that effect the amount of time it takes to finish. I find that when the humidity is high or if I don't hang them at room temp for 3 or 4 hours it seems to take a couple hours longer. If you install a fan you have to really watch or you'll get a really heavy rind. I find the best method is just let it roll and it's done when it's done. Make a log and note everything, it'll be a great resource. Good luck! 

[watchdog56]

It may sound weird but if you keep your vents open all the way it actually gets hotter(at least in the Bradley) because the moist air gets a chance to escape. Keeping moisture in the cabinet with the vent close keeps cooler air in there and it usually causes black drippings or black rain.

[Sailor]

The smoker is 4'x4'x6'. Made it out of cooler panels and the outside temp was about 30 degrees. Worked great for snack sticks when I made them. I am really thinking I need to ad a fan to circulate the air inside. The temp from top to bottom does not seem to vary over a degree or two when running. The PID barely kicks the heating coils on when running. Seems to heat very easy. I did notice that if I put a pan of water on the one coil the steam seemed to bring the internal temp of the sausage up better " only used when I was done with the smoking stage". I have a blower fan that I am thinking of hooking up to try and circulate the air just not sure. Opened the vents and it seemed to really cool down the IT of the sausage so I closed them back off. Sausage turned out great after the water bath. Had some fat out on only one type of casing all the others seemed fine. I think the guy that made the sausage had allot of pork fat in those. After it was done he thought it was great sausage.... guess maybe I'm just to picky...LOL    Thanks for the input any is appreciated!!!!   Wish I knew how to post picks on here I would show the smoker.

Sounds like your problem is the vents.  Meat contains moisture and when you smoke you are going to extract moisture from the meat.  During the smoking process the moisture created in the smoker is going to cool the meat.  Think of it like fighting a fire.  The water does not put a fire out, it is the small droplets of water that is turned into steam that cools the fire to put it out.  You said you had 75 pounds of summer sausage.  Normally you are going to lose 20% to 30% of weight in the finished product because that is water that is being taken out of the meat.  20% of 75 pounds is 15 pounds of water that has to escape from the smoker.  Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon so you are trying to get rid of about 2 gallons of water.  Closing off the vent will not allow the moisture to escape the smoker and will cool the sausage.  Installing a fan in the smoker without allowing the moisture to escape is not going to help you out very much with bringing the IT up.  You said you gave them a hot water bath and finished in about 30 mins which is very normal.  Hot water bath vs finishing is a smoker are 2 entirely different ways of getting the IT to the finished temp.  Finishing the sausage in the smoker will extract more water and cause the finished product to shrink up a bit.  If you smoke and then transfer the sausage to a hot water bath will keep them plump and retain most of the moisture and finish them up a heck of a lot faster.  Different physics are involved in each of the processes.  The vent is not just to vent the smoke out, it is also needed to vent the moisture out.  Just keep in mind that if you are hot water bathing, you don't want the water temp to get over 165 degrees as you will then start to fat the sausage out.  165 cabinet temp vs 165 water temp are again 2 different types of physics. 

[doz759]

Thanks for all the info on here. Next time I will keep the vents open longer and see what happens. Don't no what the element wattage is for sure. I used the bottom element from a stove oven and the two large top elements. I think that I should have moved the temp prob for the PID closer to the same level as the sausage "I had it in the middle of the smoker under the sausage." With the vents open that probably let the air temp stay cooler towards the top at the sausage level. Going to keep logs and try a few things. Thanks for the info on the fan making for heavy rind. Should have let the sausage hang at room temp, went straight from the fridge to the smoker, just seemed to really stall at 142 IT.

[dave01]

If you leave the vents open at the top it should get warmer----heat rises

[watchdog56]

Definitely let meat come to room temp. That much meat at frig temp(usually 40 degree) is a lot of cool air going into a smoker that is trying to warm it up to 152.