Couldn't get the color I wanted on Kielbasa, any advice?


 
R

Ryan Taylor

New member
I made Kielbasa sausage this weekend. Used a 6 lb, boneless butt and a "Hi Mountain" sausage kit that came with seasoning, cure and casings.

I have an STX turbo grinder and I ran the meat through on the coursest setting and then the finest setting for stuffing. Smoked them on the grates at 140-170 degrees for about 2.5 hours with some apple and pecan and then moved them inside to the oven to finish them at 160. I let them go about another 2 hours until they got up to an internal temp of 150 or so. I then threw them in a cold water bath to bring the temp down to avoid shrivelling and then set them out to let them rest which I'm told is when they take on a darker color but the result was pretty pale and not the nice deep dark brown I see when I get sausage at a bbq joint.

What step am I missing or what did I do wrong?
 
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I would hazard a guess its just not enough time in the smoker for adsorbtion. Using a mild wood as you did, you could give it the full time in the smoker instead of splitting time in the oven. Think of how dark a butt gets with (a much extended) longer times.
 
I did about a chimney to a chimney and a half full of unlit with half a chimeny of lit on top and I had about 5 or 6 chunks of wood. It was a little too much smoke for my liking to be honest. The sausage really picked it up. I don't think I want to do any more smoke than what I did.
 
I would say that that was too much wood. Course, "chunks" is a suggestive word so who knows.

Other's will pipe in pretty soon though.
 
I don't know how the color change after shocking in cold water will work, but I generally don't do that step. I'd think longer time or a different wood might make a darker color, like maybe cherry or hickory.

Is it possible the sausage wasn't dry when it went in the smoke?

Don't worry if the smoke taste seems too strong now, it should mellow out.
 
Could be the ones your used to seeing had paprika added (giving a darker color) and the mix you used didn’t. Kielbasa has kind of become a generic term for a sausage with a heavy or strong garlic flavor, other spices after garlic vary greatly depending on who you buy it from. The recipe I use doesn’t contain any “dark” colored spices and the final product has a dark reddish hue. They spend ~ 4 hours in the WSM, I use lump charcoal and ~2 fist size pieces of alder or pecan depending on what I have (alders free so I’m using it more often). I keep the temp below 150 for the first three hours then crank it up to 200 finish them to an internal temp of 160. Never heard (or seen) that the ice/water bath will darken them. Mine always spend ~ 24 hours in the fridge after stuffing to dry the exterior of the casing out before smoking.


This is the color after stuffing




Here they are after smoking and in water bath to cool down
 
Ryan,
Looks like you did everything right, but I've found that Kielbasa doesn't darken much until it's air-dried in the fridge after smoking.

My batch of Kielbasa, here:
http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?36846-Kielbasa-Krakowska-Krajana&p=368420&viewfull=1#post368420
got a lot darker after a day or two in the fridge.

My guess is that "commercially made" kielbasa have "stuff" added to their casings to make them darken during processing.

So, I think it's the drying that tends to darken them, not so much an overabundance of smoke.
And you're right, too much smoke isn't a good thing for Kielbasa.
HTH,
Bruce
 
Rytek Kutas says that properly drying the sausages around 130* before smoking is very important for color. He also says that letting the sausage bloom at room temp after they've cooled off will add color. The longer you allow it to hang, the darker it will become.
 
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