Temperatures dropping on summer sausage

[Arod2015]

I am fairly new to smoking summer sausage. I am smoking 1lb chubs. The internal temperature got up to 151 then dropped to 147. Is that normal and when should I pull them. Thanks!

[twilliams]

Arod2015 i pull mine at 157° internal temp. Some say 160°. Did you open the smoker door to check on them? How well insulated is your smokehouse compared to outside temps if your using an outside smokehouse. If you are done with your smoking process and increased your temp as well as closed your dampers to do your final cook and still not reaching your final temp you can either boil water and put a pan of water in the bottom of smokehouse or Jonathan has had good success with soaking big carwash sponges with water putting in pan and in smokehouse. What is your smokehouse temp currently?

[Arod2015]

twilliams it is a masterbuilt electric smoker at 180 degrees. I didn’t open the door. Are temp drops normal?

[twilliams]

Arod2015 i dont believe so, however if you didnt have enough water in the batch and it cooked out you may need to add a pan of water to make steam for it to get back up there again. Advice from others would also help as i have not had this issue

[Arod2015]

twilliams noticed the damper was just slightly open. Closed it tight and temp is rising. Thanks!

[Arod2015]

Arod2015 ok. So I pulled them out, threw them in an ice bath and they are all wrinkled. How do you prevent this?

[twilliams]

Arod2015 you will get slight wrinkling, even with the best process. I just dont think home processors have the capability to get them like store bought commercial plants. Perhaps your batch was too lean with meat/fat ratio and/or water content was light. Also perhaps you didnt stuff the casing tight enough. Collagen casings are very tuff and can take alot of pressure. Just make sure you soak the casings in water for 30 minutes prior to stuffing. Some people say soaking them in 90° water but i just use cool tap water as you are trying to keep the meat as cool as possible doesnt make sense to me to put them in heated casings

[Jonathon]

Arod2015 We have covered summer sausage wrinkling a good amount recently here so I’ll just recap what people have said recently.

• Make sure you are stuffing them VERY tight
• Ice bath, not water bath but ice water
• Make sure you have humidity in your smoker
• Make sure you are soaking them in hot water before you use them

Hope that helped!

twilliams thank you for your help!

[akdave]

twilliams I have turned out picture perfect products and if you follow a graduated heat schedule and don’t exceed 180-190 degrees and be patient as it takes me 10-12 hours to get larger 73 mm sausage to reach internal temp and follow Jonathons recap you should be able to get the desired results… bottom line is I have turned out many batches with wrinkles and still never have had complaints about the taste or texture