Smoking Summer Sausage

[jbarrone]

I feel pretty confident about mixing and casing summer sausage - I am less confident about smoking it. What are most of you using for smokers? I have a Green Mountain Pellet grill that creates plenty of smoke but the lowest temperature is 150. It also feels a bit strange to just lay the summer sausage on the rack rather than hanging it. Am I better off getting a different type of smoker? if so, any recommendations?

[stan]

jbarrone

I also own a GMG and smoked summer sausage with great results
I hung my sausage vertically and also used a smoke daddy smoke generator

[Rusty]

jbarrone I smoke a LOT of summer Sausage on my Masterbuilt electric smoker , it goes as low as 100* , digital , perfect every time vertical or horizontal .

[mikeihuntr]

jbarrone I have a GMG also and have used it twice to smoke sausage. First time bad results…2 time a lot better I bought the 3 tier jerky racks from C*****s and it made it easier to rotate the sausages around. And I propped the lid open on it and let it smoke for about 2 hours. Then I turned up temperature by 20 degrees at a time (about every 15-20) Until internal temperature reached 165. I’m also about done with my home built smoker, just under 6ft tall and 26 wide 5 racks. Made it out of 1/2 plywood. Needed more space to hang meat and cold smoke… good luck!!)

[sstory]

Rusty I use the same smoker - the 40". I have the sausage hooks that lay on a shelf and create hooks below the shelf to hang meat from.

[okkipp]

Rusty said in Smoking Summer Sausage:

jbarrone I smoke a LOT of summer Sausage on my Masterbuilt electric smoker , it goes as low as 100* , digital , perfect every time vertical or horizontal .

I have the masterbuilt smoker as well and am doing summer sausage for the first time using the 125/140/155/175 schedule, once I increase the temp to 175 about how many approx. hours did it take before hitting internal temp of 160

[Jonathon]

okkipp Obviously I am not Rusty but I thought I’d chime in here, that answer is going to depend a lot on what the diameter of his casing was as well. So what sized casings was he using vs what you are using would be good information as well!

[sstory]

okkipp I just made my first batch of summer sausage over New Years. I used the 2.4" fib casings. Doing the same 125/140/155/170 schedule using my Dad’s 30" Masterbuilt, it took almost 10 hours to get to 160 internal temp. But I think I may have had a little too much water in the mix, which meant longer time time evaporate it out of the summer sausage and allow the meat to get to temp. But, just like smoking any meat — It’s Done When It’s Done. You want to go by internal temp of the meat, not the time.

Another thing that may have lead to such a long time to get to temp, I had 21 summer sausages hanging in that 30" smoker. So there wasn’t a lot of empty space. I have the 40" Masterbuilt and I think with the extra room, I would have had a little more space between sausages, which might have helped with getting them to temp quicker.

[butch]

okkipp I have a masterbuilt smoker also. I made summer sausage for Christmas, it took about 7 hours Tikal time in the smoker.

[okkipp]

Thanks for your reply, my first batch ended up taking 13 hours I think since my smoker was on back patio and cold out it took longer. The internal temp remained in the 140s for 5 to 6 hours before finally pushing through, didn’t get done till 3am, guess I need to plan better as to when to start to smoke, I was one tired chick when it was all done. lol Thanks for your help.

[okkipp]

butch would like to know what your cooking schedule is, your 7 hours to my 13 sounds better

[Rusty]

okkipp That’s another exact question l myself had , 2 or 3 hours into my 175* cycle the product was only gaining about 1 degree per hour and l simply had no intention of smoking another 8 hours ………Since then , l run my first , second and third cycle as directed , 1 hour at 175 , 30 min at 180 , 30 min at 185 . At the end of the 185* period l am at 160 consistently. I make batches of snacksticks at 19mm , 23mm , and 32mm and always make at least 1 one foot long 1 1/2" dia " summer sausage " and keep my temp probe in the summer sausage . My major problem PRIOR to learning about Waltons was my processor was very poorly mixing my sausage and l ran over 250 lbs of summer sausage with EVERY 25# batch totally " fatting out ". Now l have the knowledge l attained through watching Jonathon and Austins videos along with the equipment available @ Waltons and ALL my previous issues are a distant memory…

[Jonathon]

For anyone who is having issues getting their summer sausage, salami, pepperoni or anything else up to temp what Rusty does is a good way to handle that. Small increases up to 185 is fine if it is going to cut hours off of your smoking process.

Another option and one that Parksider uses often is to smoke for the first few hours and then move it to water to finish it off. I used a Sous Vide cooker to finish off my Lebanon bologna and I recently did some experimenting with when to pull it and I even tried adding hickory smoke powder and starting and finishing off in a sous vide cooker. It seemed that pulling it around 140 and moving it to the water was the best time, at 120 it just did not seem to have the correct consistency. Using water the entire way is not a good idea! It cooks fine and is safe to eat but it is very mushy!

[KansasDad]

Jonathon It is ‘mushy’ because with sous vide you don’t have the chance to dehydrate the meat.

[Jonathon]

KansasDad Absolutely, it needs at bare minimum a full hour of drying time and even that is too little but it will at least give it a better texture. We have found that leaving it in the smoker or oven until it is around 120-135° will give you the best results, anything below that will not be as good.

[macsinsac]

jbarrone I use my Rec Tec 680 with a lowest temp of 180 all the time for sausage. I put mine on the second rack & they turn out great.

[mikehoots]

okkipp Don’t feel too bad, I also had a 13 hour smoke last week in my MES smoker. I was doing 25# of venison summer sausage. It was a brisk 25 Degree day, and I "Stalled out " at 140 degrees for 3 hours. I did start bumping up the temperature the last hour. I also wasn’t using a water pan, would this have anything to do with it Johnathan ?

[twilliams]

mikehoots im not Jonathon but yes some sort of humidity would help your temp increase. Whether it be hot boiled water or saturated sponges in a pan

[mikehoots]

twilliams THANKS

[Jonathon]

mikehoots Yes, like twilliams said increased relative humidity will absolutely speed up your cooking process, even small amounts of added humidity will help a little!