Sausage not coming up to temp.

[hvhunter]

Bradley Original Smoker. Modified with dual heating element. Auberins PID controller.

I've had this unit for years. Worked like a charm, but falling apart. A few weeks ago I picked up a brand new Bradley Original on c/l for $110, still wrapped in the box. I moved my modifications over: second element - wired it up exactly the same. Fan in the bottom. Cabinet prob in the exact same spot. Turned it, and with no load, verified both elements were working, and it seemed to work fine. Turned it up to 150 and let it bake; held the temp. Took it up to 245 and let it rip for an hour. All seemed well. The only thing different between my new BOS and old BOS, is what I used for smoke. I've haven't used the smoke generator in years. I removed it, plugged the old with an aluminum fan with a few small holes, and put an Amazin 8" tube in the bottom pan. With my new unit, I took apart the old smoke generator, rigged up a 4" pipe to it, so the Amazin tube is sitting off the side. I will try to attach a pic.

Every time I make summer sausage or keilbasa, I use the same recipe. I put in 10 lbs at a time, 2" casings, that were cut to 13.5" before being tied off. Never more than 8 sticks.  I programmed my auberins as follows: heat up to 240, put the sticks in; the meat probe in one of the front sticks.
1) 130F until IT is 110F
2) 150F until IT is 130F
3) 180F until IT is 152F
4) 152F for 30 min  - done. 

This morning I had it pre heated to 240. Put in 8 sticks at 6:15am; the IT was 43 on the stick. Lit the Amazin tube and put in the pipe. Got in from work at 3pm, and found the unit still on step 1. Cabinet read 130, but the IT was only 93. Nine hours and I stuck there? That's all?  At 4pm, I put in a separate dig probe to measure the cabinet and IT of the same sausage. I cranked it up to 150. As of now, 7:45pm, it is stuck at 118F IT. The second probes are reading withing 3 deg of each other. I never had this happen before. Never.

So I have two questions:.

One, does anyone know what could have gone wrong for me? 

Two, can I pull the sausage now, vacuum seal, and sous vide them at 152F for a couple hours to finish them up?

Thanks in advance for reading and helping out

[hvhunter]

My Amazin tube sits inside that pipe.

[GusRobin]

Don't know why it is doing temp wise. But unless you have cure#1in your mixture I would throw out the sausage as it has been in the danger zone too long.

[hvhunter]

Thanks for your reply. Yes,  I have cure in it. Just put in the sous vide. Will let it ride over night at 152. What is undesirable is that I have another 8 chubs slated to go in tomm morning.  I'm going to change it up, and put them in at 150 and let it rip. As soon as I'm home I'll repeat with the sous vide process. 

[CoreyMac]

The only time I had issues with long times to get to IT temp was when I got lazy and used  preground pork and not fresh shoulder butt. It would take 3 times to 4 times as long to get the correct temp. Switched back to shoulder butt and 6 hrs is the norm now. Haven't really figured out why this was happening, maybe it was fat content, not really sure. I can only assume you didn't change anything from what you normally do but figured i would throw it out there.

Corey

[hvhunter]

Thanks Corey. Used the same recipe; 3lb of jowl 7lb of venision for a 10lb batch.  I'll post what happens with today's batch this afternoon once I'm home.  Though the unit seems to be functioning fine, I'm wondering if I should run the tune process on the pid.

[hvhunter]

Checked my second batch at 3pm; 8.5 hours. Cabinet was set to 135 this whole time, meat only at 104F.  Sous vide again shortly. 

[watchdog56]

Just throwing this out there. Did you happen to do a pid  auto tune in your new cabinet with no meat in there? Might want to try that.

[TedEbear]

I've always heard when you do an auto tune to simulate a load of food in the cooking chamber.  I fill the water bowl and put a couple of bricks on the shelves and then initiate the tuning process.

[Salmonsmoker]

I agree with TedEbear. If the probes are working properly, run an auto tune with a simulated load.

[hvhunter]

Correct. I did not do an autotune with my new unit. It's on the agenda, before my next batch. I will update after my next batch. Again, thanks for all the replies.