Venison Summer Sausage

[smokeitall]

I made a 25 lb batch, same as last year.  I used 1-1/2" diameter 1 lb chubs this year instead of the 2-1/2" 3 lb fibrous casings.  I ended up not having enough chubs so I did have to make two short of the 2-1/2" casings that I had left from a previous batch.  I used curleyssausagekitchen.com summer sausage kit and followed the directions exactly and only added some extra mustard seed.  I didn't have time to take pics when I was smoking these so this is just a pic of the finished product, well whats left after my kids and the guys at work got done with about 6 lbs of it.

[Smoking Duck]

That's what I like......someone who goes all out......really nice couple of posts, SIA.

SD

[Caribou]

Those look so good!
Thanks for sharing them with us.
Looks very professional with the vacuum packing, too.
Carolyn

[MRH]

Looks good!  I made some salami this year too and used LEM's salami mix which is good too. The 1=1/2 inch 1 lbs casings seem to be just the right length when You hang the off the top rack on dowels.  I need to make some more as the first  2 batches are getting low.

Mark

[smokeitall]

Looks good!  I made some salami this year too and used LEM's salami mix which is good too. The 1=1/2 inch 1 lbs casings seem to be just the right length when You hang the off the top rack on dowels.  I need to make some more as the first  2 batches are getting low.

Mark

When I hung the summer sausage I used an original rack upside down on the top position and put a dowel on top of the rack so they would hang about 3/4" higher.  I still had a few sausages get to done on the bottom and I have a fan installed.  I guess next time I will just have to make them a little shorter.

[drano]

smokeitall,
That looks awsome!  I've got my summer sausage in the smoker right now.  Hope it looks as good as yours when I'm done!

How many pounds meat did you have in the smoker at one time?  And how many hours did it take to get it done?

I do 12.5 lb batches, stuffed into the 3 lb casings (but not filled full so they lay on the racks side to side--5 casings so ~2.5 lb each).  I smoke 3 of them, then do the other 2 the next day.  I'd get way too impatient with all 12.5 lb in the smoker at once.  But my new Auber PID and fan may help things by keeping the temp more stable. 

drano

[smokeitall]

I made a 25 lb batch which turns out to be around 27 with spices and water.  I hung half in at a time.  They took around 7 hours I think, but I had a nice 50 degree day to work with also.  The next day when I did snack sticks it went down in the single digits, that took a lot longer.

[MRH]

Actually when I did my first batch about a year ago, I used a couple 2x4 that I notched to hold the dowels and that puts it right near the top of the smoker.  Here is the link to the post, I have pictures ;D

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=6753.msg65975#msg65975

How did the snack sticks come out?

Mark

[Smoking Duck]

Nice idea, MRH!

SD

[drano]

Here's my post-Christmas smoke.
12.5 lb batch of summer sausage in five 2.75 lb sticks. 
Smoked 3 on the racks Saturday. 
Then I saw MRH's post above, so I did sorta the same thing.  I used a 2.5" wide board with the corners knocked off to make the strings slide on easier.  The wide board keeps them hung higher in the cabinet. 
The board is 14.5" long, and notched 1" in on each end to .5" remaining thickness.  These are some notstandard table saw cuts, so carefull with the fingers . . .  My 2x4s were narrowed up to 3.125" so the hanging boards would slide in on top of them.  Your BS may need slightly different sizes. 
I've also got a narrow board, about 1.5" wide cut the same as the hanging boards--it holds the 2x4s in place so they don't fall off the shelf support while I'm loading the sausage.  The narrow board gets pushed way to the back as I slide the board with the sausage into the OBS. 


So how did it work?  The Auber PID and fan kept temps nice and even. 
1 hour of 140 deg for drying, 1 hour of 160 deg w/ Hickory smoke, 170 deg w/ 2 more hours of smoke, then continued at 170. 
Once the sausage got to 150 (10 hours), it didn't get any hotter for over the next 1.5 hrs.  So I pushed the PID to 180, and hit 155 on the Maverick probe in about 1.5 hours.  My Thermopen (man they are nice, but spendy) said 155 at the top, 157 at the bottom of the casing, and about 152 in the middle.  So the bottom only got 2 deg hotter than the top. 

Yep, we all like pics, so here ya go.




Lesson learned, I can't do 2.5" sausage with 170 deg.  Need 175 or 180.  Maybe I'll use the 1 lb casings next time so I don't need to spend 10 hours smoking them. 
drano

[smokeitall]

Looks very tasty Drano.  I am just about out of the sausage I made.  I have a lotta family and friends up here in WI and have given some away and everybody has been eating the rest.  The snack sticks were a huge hit, I am already planning another batch. 

I love my hobby.....