Bit off a little more than I could chew... how long....

[ExpatCanadian]

....can I hold sausage in the fridge before smoking?

My first effort at sausage making today, finally took the plunge and bought an electric grinder and 5 litre stuffer last week.  Ground up around 14 pounds of pork shoulder today, mixed up and stuffed 7 pounds each of Polish Kielbasa and Hungarian Paprika (both Kutas recipes).  Unfortunately, I didn't take into account NOT being able to fit it all into my 4 rack DBS at once! Here's a photo of the Kielbasa smoking...  sitting at around 132^oF IT at the moment, a good few hours to go I should think.  I'm sure with experience I can fit more in, but it's difficult getting it hanging, not touching and all at relatively the same level in the smoker to minimize temperature variations...



The Hungarian is sitting in the fridge at the moment, stuffed, but not exactly drying as I have no space to hang it.  My question is this:  Will it be ok for another 24 hours sitting there "fresh" in the fridge before I am able to get it into the smoker?  I'm not that keen to start it late tonight and not be able to babysit it overnight...

[KevinG]

Although I usually smoke mine relatively soon after stuffing, I've heard you should be ok as long as they are stuffed, there are many recipes that call for it sitting before smoking. If they aren't stuffed, you'll probably have a hard time getting them in the casings, and might need to add some more water to get them in.

[marauder11]

If it is stuffed and ready for the smoker i would say you are ok. I have had to do this before with snack sticks. I am still alive and so is everyone that ate them.

[pikeman_95]

It won't hurt sitting in the fridge. But you will want to take it out early and warm it to room temperature [this can include dipping them in some warm water then drying them.]dry the casings well before hanging  and lay on the smoke. Cold sausage exposed to the smoke will sweat and seem to pull the carbon out of the smoke. This is a less then desirable coating on your sausage. As for what you have in the smoker, we finish our sausage in a hot water bath after it has all the smoke it needs. Have the water at 160 degrees and bring the sausage up to 155 of ten minutes to kill bring it to cure temperature. Finishing it this way will keep is moist and tender. I have a stainless finishing tank that we use to bring our sausages to cure temperature.



cure tank with pumps to keep the temperature constant and a batch in the tank

[NePaSmoKer]

Expat

Mix, stuff, Fridge, smoke and you will be fine.

[ExpatCanadian]

Thanks for the responses... Got up early this morning and hung the sausages in the smoker with my dual-probe Auber set as follows:

No heat - 1hour
120^oF - 2 hours
130^oF - 1 hour
140^oF - 1 hour
150^oF - 1 hour
160^oF - to IT 152^oF

Rolling the smoke from the 3rd hour (130^oF) to give it plenty of time to dry. My wife is home all morning to supervise, so should be ok I hope, first time I've left baby unattended with the Mrs.  ;D

What are your opinions on the ramping up the temperature approach? Kutas recommends it, but Ruhlman doesn't really... Also Ruhlman smokes at 180-200 whereas Kutas says don't go over 160...

[3rensho]

I routinely leave my sausages in the refer overnight after stuffing and they turn out fine.  Gotta get me one of those dual probe Aubers.

[RAF128]

All the sausage I make has a cure in it and I've read that it should stay in the fridge over night.   I think that allows the cure to work.
I'm guessing the Hungarian Paprika has a cure.    I used to buy Hungarian paprika and Hungarian pepperoni and a local butcher shop and it was delicious.   I'd like to hear
how it turns out.

[ExpatCanadian]

RAF: Both my batches had Cure#1 in the recommended amounts.  We had some of the Kielbasa for dinner last night, everything was perfect EXCEPT it is too salty.  It's edible, the flavours are right, smoke level is great (used 4 hours of a mix of leftovers from various boxes, Crown Royal, Pecan and Alder I think), but just a bit too much salt for us to really give it the 100% thumbs up.  But, I'm thinking that Rytek's recipes are just too salty to start with!  I know salt is essential along with Cure#1 to keep the bacteria counts down, but I think if I were to cut the salt in half next time it would be just about right.  Had a similar problem with his honey cured bacon a few months back.

Don't have the recipe in front of me right now, but if I recall, the Paprika sausage has less salt in it, plus some Dextrose, which should hopefully offset some of the saltiness. Recipe called for 6 TBSP paprika/10lb meat... I used 1/2 Sweet and 1/2 Hot Hungarian Paprika powder that I bought in Budapest earlier this year....  can't wait to try it!  It's in the smoker as we speak so I'll be trying it this evening.  I'll report back with a pic or 2.

3rensho: The dual-probe Auber is wonderful, my only slight bugbear is that I can't control my Smoke Gen start time with it, as I have a DBS, but that's nothing to do with the PID.

[ExpatCanadian]

Ok..  as promised, a few pics of the Hungarian Smoked Paprika a la Kutas....

Blooming:


The money shot:


All I can say is WOW...  I am so happy with this one...  everything has come together perfectly, tastes almost like a good Spanish Chorizo...  even though it's supposed to be Hungarian!