Sous Vide Summer Sausage

[glen]

My family likes summer sausage with light or no smoke so I have stared to do entirely sous vide

Blooming/drying after cook

Basic heat schedule except heat transfer is so fast with SV I set the finishing water at 155 and then Ice bath
Only change to basic recipe is to lower water Liquid loss in vac bag about a tablespoon
Color is reddish because I cure the farce
Total cook 2 hr.
EDIT
Actual cook was 2.5 hr., I forgot 10 minutes for SV to raise temp for each of the last 3 stages

[twilliams]

glen I started doing very minimal smoke. 1 hour light smoke that’s it, then I pull the pan

[Jonathon]

Looks great glen one thing to consider is that if you are using Encapsulated Citric Acid you need to let it cook at above 130 for an hour to melt all the encapsulation. Looks great though!

[Dr_Pain]

Jonathon said in Sous Vide Summer Sausage:

Looks great glen one thing to consider is that if you are using Encapsulated Citric Acid you need to let it cook at above 130 for an hour to melt all the encapsulation. Looks great though!

That is top notch information I didn’t know. I am so thankful for this site. Burning it in my mental cooking book minimum 130F/1Hr for ECA

[benj11317]

glen this seems like a good recipe to try. To be clear, your recipe is:
-155 degrees for 2 hours
-1 tbsp water in vacuum sealed bag
-Ice bath for how long after 2 hour cook? And how long do you dry/bloom after ice bath?

[glen]

Jonathon This run was cured but I have done the same with ECA and yes, above 130
The internal was 155 when pulled

[PapaSop]

glen
Actually just noticed your signature… Amen!

[glen]

benj11317 Let me clarify

The 1 tablespoon was the approximate liquid lost during the Sous Vide cook (I vac bagged)
I rested the tubes out of the refrigerator at room temp for around 30 min.
With sous vide set at 110 for cook 30 min.
Reset SV to 130 cook for 40 min.
Reset SV to 145 cook for 40 min.
Reset SV to 155 cook 40 min, then ice bath
I forgot to add in the 10 minute time lag for the SV to reach each target temp therefore actual in SV time was 2.5 hrs.
I changed my original post to reflect that

I figured staging temperatures would help set the fat like smoking stages

[glen]

PapaSop Yeah Papa, I still laugh as hard as anyone when I tell that one!

[Dr_Pain]

glen said in Sous Vide Summer Sausage:

benj11317 Let me clarify

The 1 tablespoon was the approximate liquid lost during the Sous Vide cook (I vac bagged)
I rested the tubes out of the refrigerator at room temp for around 30 min.
With sous vide set at 110 for cook 30 min.
Reset SV to 130 cook for 40 min.
Reset SV to 145 cook for 40 min.
Reset SV to 155 cook 40 min, then ice bath
I forgot to add in the 10 minute time lag for the SV to reach each target temp therefore actual in SV time was 2.5 hrs.
I changed my original post to reflect that

I figured staging temperatures would help set the fat like smoking stages

That is a very good schedule but I am wondering if it is necessary. The beauty of sousvide is that you won’t create the an uneven cook in the meat or create a hardening of the exterior which would slow or prevent proper cooking of the middle. It would be a fun experiment to compare side by side

[Grimpuppy]

I tried some sous vide bologna once without stepping up the temps and it rendered out the fat. I would guess the same could happen to summer sausage. Might be OK though since my bologna had higher fat content than typical summer sausage.

[glen]

Dr_Pain You may be correct using a lower temp like 160 and carefully monitoring

But the first time I tried summer sausage totally in sous vide I put them in at 170 for 2.5 hr. and ended up with a lot of tasty broth in my bags and summer sausage the consistency of a sponge LOL
Didn’t want to chance it after that

[processhead]

Looking very good glen.

[Dr_Pain]

glen said in Sous Vide Summer Sausage:

Dr_Pain You may be correct using a lower temp like 160 and carefully monitoring

But the first time I tried summer sausage totally in sous vide I put them in at 170 for 2.5 hr. and ended up with a lot of tasty broth in my bags and summer sausage the consistency of a sponge LOL
Didn’t want to chance it after that

I think since the end temp should be 150F that the sousvide should be set at that temp. That should be safe against fat out

[glen]

Dr_Pain Agreed I may try that next time
At least I make small batches!

[glen]

processhead Thank you Paul

[processhead]

I am a little unclear about the 1 tablespoon of liquid lost during the cook. Was this liquid that sweated through the casing into the bag while cooking?

[glen]

processhead Yes that was moisture sweated out during the cook.
I was trying to point out how little product weight was lost, although I never weighed before and after smoking to know what was lost doing it that way

Also note that I added a minimal amount of water during mixing, so in my case I started out with less moisture than when I smoke or oven process

[marzig20]

I’ve used sous vide to finish sausage after smoking to finish with great success many times. A couple weeks ago tried straight sous vide with beef summer. After stuffing it went into vac bags and into the water. After temp came back up to 152 held for 3 hours. When it came out bags were full of water and casings wrinkled bad. Sampled next day and fat had not rendered. It was a little dry but not bad. Flavor was bland though. I thought that losing the water took a lot of seasoning with it.

The two things I thought that went wrong was since it was only five pounds I mixed by hand and might not have gotten full protein extraction. The second was that not stepping temp might of not allowed carrot fiber binder to work.

[processhead]

marzig20
You need to remember that smoking is a drying process as well as a cooking process. When smoking you are also removing moisture from the product.

With sous vide where the product is sealed in plastic, the heat is going to drive some of the moisture out of the product and it has no where to go and will be trapped in the bag.