Making salami/summer sausage in natural hog casings

[pikeman_95]

My hunting friends and myself typically did very large batches of sausage, usually salami. [over  500# at a time] in this case we used 2.5"x30 inch mahogany casings. I have started making my summer sausage and salami in natural hog casings and not using the larger casings any more. We would end up with 5 or 6 large coolers full of stuffed sausage and had it professionally smoked. The problem would be we would each end up with so much sausage that we had to store it too long and it would get old in the freezer.
We now do it in natural large hog casings and get a deep smoke on it and finish it to cure temperature [155 for 10 minutes] in my hot water tank. The sausage turns out very moist and flavorful. We each make about 30 # at a time and this way we use it up before it gets old.
When you are looking at time savings!! After stuffing, which does not take very long with my hydraulic stuffer, we then head for the smoker. It then takes us 1.5 hrs in the smoker 20 minutes in the tank and an hour on the table and we are ready to cut and wrap. We are smoking one batch while another is in the cure tank and another is on the table. Four of us will likely do a 120 # day. Each of us doing 30#. I understand that to some this method is unconventional but it works very well and we have made a lot of good sausage this way.
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I will include some pictures of our process.[b/]





I am using my small hydraulic stuffer. At the time of these pictures it was able to do 10# but I have since extended it out to do 15 #. This stuffer is all hydraulic and uses the water pressure from my kitchen sink.[b/]



we stuff it in long lengths and smoke it in an intense smoke. With my smoke generator I can get a solid smoke in 1.5 hours. Notice the density of the smoke.




Here is a batch out of the smoker ready for the cure tank. They have to do this to cut processing time. In commercial operations they will use a steam chest to achieve cure temperature.  But because a steam chest is an expensive venture I have chosen to make a hot water tank with pumps to circulate the water to keep a very constant temperature. Notice the sausage is slightly wrinkled but after the cure tank it will be plump and moist. The IT is only about 90 degrees coming out of the smoker.



In the hot bath [160F] to a IT or 155F for 10 minutes. Then shower or dip in very cold water to cool the sausage fast as possible.




Then onto the counter to bloom for about an hour.





When not finished in the smoker notice the sausage is plump moist and lean. Besides when done in natural hog casings it just fits a Ritz cracker.




We then cut our sausages into storage lengths and then individually wrap with plastic wrap. We then use a heat gut to shrink the wrap tight against the sausage. Then into zip lock bags. This keeps them from freezer burning.



Finished product.[b/]

[NePaSmoKer]

Oh yeah

Thats nice.

[pensrock]

Looks great, nice job.

[Habanero Smoker]

Very impressive. I have a water stuffer, but don't use it too often. Have your every thought about converting it to using air pressure. I'll have to look through some old posts, but we had a member that converted his Dakota water stuffer to work off his air compressor.

[Tenpoint5]

Very Nice Kirby. I dont have the water tank but I may just give this a try with some of my Summer Sausage this year.

[pikeman_95]

The reason that I use water is that it is a non compressable medium. I used air for a while but it is hard to deal with. When you shut of the water the sausage stops coming and my stuffer has a venturie which retracts the stuffer ram with the same water pressure. I just switch the valves and the ram returns to the back of the stuffer.

[Habanero Smoker]

The reason that I use water is that it is a non compressable medium. I used air for a while but it is hard to deal with. When you shut of the water the sausage stops coming and my stuffer has a venturie which retracts the stuffer ram with the same water pressure. I just switch the valves and the ram returns to the back of the stuffer.

Thanks. I'll continue to hold off from making this conversion.

[SouthernSmoked]

Heck Yeah...

Very Nice!!

[Sailor]

I agree with the 160 degree water bath to finish the sausage.  The last two times that I have made my Jalapeno and Cheddar sausage I have smoked them for 2 hrs and then brought them in the house and placed them in a big pot of water that I have going at 160 degrees.  I bring them up to 155 and the wrinkles are gone.  It used to take me forever to do a 10 pound batch in the Bradley.  1.5 hours of dry time at 130 then bump to 140 for the smoke then ramping the temp to 150, 160 and 170 just took forever to get the 155 IT.  Since I have been taking them out of the Bradley after the smoke and giving them a hot bath my time has been cut down to almost nothing and I am finished.  I think the product comes out a lot better and as a bonus you don't have to worry about a fat out.

PS  Very nice stuffer.

[Mr Walleye]

Great looking sausage Kirby!  ;)

If you get a chance I would be very interested in details regarding your hot water tank. I'm interested in how you designed the heating and control systems.

Thanks

Mike

[pikeman_95]

I have been on the road all day [1000 miles] so tomorrow I will take some better pictures of the water tank and how I built the circulation pumps. I will throw in a better picture of the stuffer also.

Kirby

[pikeman_95]

This is my sausage hot water curing tank. These pictures are from when I finished it last winter. It was built long for heating longer sausages. It sits on top of a three burner stove and has a set of water pump on either end to circulate the water.



On the bottom I have placed a screen that spaces the sausages off the bottom by ½ inch.




The tank has a drain at one end to give you a way to drain the water.



I have installed two pumps in both ends that circulate the water to avoid hot spots.



Each pump is capable of pumping quite a bit of water.





The pumps are designed out of PVC pipe fittings with pump motors that I got out of screwed up vacuum packers. The have quite powerful motors.



The pumps have the motor mounted in the top with a aluminum heat sink built around them and a small computer fan to provide air flow. This is so that they can run for hours with out getting hot. To pump the water there is a long shaft attached to the motor shaft and goes full length of the pump and drives a brass propeller in the bottom of the pump. The shaft is steadied with a piece of plastic screwed to the bottom of the tubing.

[Habanero Smoker]

Great work. I really admire you ingenuity.

[Mr Walleye]

Thanks for sharing all the details Kirby. I may have to think about building something similar.

Mike

[RAF128]

One quick question.   How do you measure the IT of the sausage while it's in the bath?