Smoking fresh sausages on WSM


 
G

G Dechaine

TVWBB Pro
I've done it before, and they've come out pretty good. But i'm wondering if anyone has some pointers on smoking fresh sausages.

I'm making some homemade chicken sausages for a party this weekend. Like I said, I've done this before, but since it's a party I want to minimize risks. If any fellow WSM'ers have some dos and don'ts, no matter how obvious, I'm all ears.

Here's a picture of a past smoked sausage results. These are Andouille (pork).
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I'm going to take more pics of the upcoming sausage cook.
 
I have done it before as well, usually after a butt cook or something like that. Cant give you many pointers, but always enjoyed them too.
 
I only did fresh sausage once before.

Larry Wolfe suggested..... "Normal smoking temperatures work fine (245º-260º) dome temp. They generally take 1.5-2 hours to finish."

The ones I did turned out great. Here is a little info I found when I did mine.

Thermal processing
"Sausage is smoked and heated in order to pasteurize it and extend its shelf life, as well as to impart a smoky flavor and improve its appearance. Smoking and heating also fixes the color and causes protein to move to the surface of the sausage so it will hold its shape when the casing is removed.

A few products, such as mettwurst, are smoked with a minimum of heating and are designed to be cooked at the time of consumption. Others, such as liver sausage, are cooked but not smoked.

Procedure for smoking polish sausage: After stuffing in hog casings (pre-flushed), let hang and dry. Smoke at 120 F for one hour, 150 F for one more hour, then at 170 F for two hours or until an internal temperature of 141 F is reached. Remove from smokehouse and spray with hot water for 15 to 30 seconds. Follow with cold shower or dip in a slush tank until internal temperature reaches 100 F. Let dry for one to two hours. Place in a cooler.

Procedure for smoking summer sausage: After stuffing in casing, smoke at 140 F for one hour, 160 F for one more hour, then at 180 F for two hours or until the internal temperatures reach 155 F. Remove from the smokehouse and follow the same procedure as for polish sausage.

Procedure for making cooked sausage: After stuffing the ground ingredients into an impermeable casing, put the sausage into a pan of water. Heat water to 170 F and hold it there until the sausage reaches 155 F. A thermometer is essential for obtaining proper temperature. The water should not boil, as this will ruin the product. If you are making a sausage product using cooked meat, be sure the meat was cooked with low heat."



I have a chuck roast on right now and sausage sounds good.
 
45-60 minutes does a real nice job with temp somewhere between 250-325. You'll know you pushed it too far if they wrinkle, but they're still good. Upper rack of WSM, empty water pan as a heat shield. Nice smoke ring. I'd say roughly 3/4 chimney.

HTH
 
Hey G, those Andouille look great!
How do you "hang them" in your WSM?

As a fellow Canuck Sausage Smoker, a couple of my recent "learning" experiences might be of some help.

Several months ago I made Italian sausages from scratch, threw them on the WSM and smoked them for several hours at ~225°-250°.
They tasted like sawdust and had the same texture. They ended up in some rather forgettable spaghetti sauce.
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So I did some research on how to make good sausages and a number of important things kept popping up:
1. Fat content is important - between 20 - 30%, or the sausages will end up dry (back fat is the best).
2. Using a binder like skim milk powder helps the sausages retain moisture during cooking.
3. Get everything cold (including the grinder) before and while grinding the meat and fat (add ice water or cold milk instead of tap water).
4. Carefully control the temperature of the smoker to keep it ~160°- 170°.
5. Pull the sausages off as soon as their internal temp reaches 152° and plunge them into cold/ice water. Cool them to 120°, then air dry for a couple of hours to allow the bloom to happen ( bloom is when the skins dry and darken).
6. Store them in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze.

This past weekend, I found pork shoulder on sale for $.88/lb just across the border in Washington State, so...
I ended up buying 85lbs.
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Some of that became an 11lb batch of kielbasa that I made on Monday.

To grind the shoulder, I use a #5 manual grinder. Half the lean pork was ground with a 3/8" plate. All the fat and the other half of the lean pork was ground with a 1/4" plate. I mixed the spices and ice water with the ground pork and stuffed it into 38mm hog casings using my new Grizzly 5 Lb stuffer (notice the condensation on the stuffer):
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I followed the directions above regarding temperature, using a Maverick ET-7 with one probe in a kielbasa on the perimeter of the top grate, and the other just at top grate level.
At first I wasn't entirely successful in keeping the temperature stable and it ran too high (up to 180°), but then it settled down after about an hour.
For smoke I used small chunks of local Red Alder and kept adding them throughout the cook.

After about 3 hours the probe alarm set for 152° went off, so I removed the outer ring of sausages from the top rack and chilled them.
Then I moved the kielbasa from the bottom rack up to the top and in 30 minutes they all had reached the magical 152° mark.

To cool the kielbasa I used a bucket with cold water running continuously from the hose and just plopped the sausages in as I took them off the smoker.

The result? Kielbasa with a rich Alder-Smoke flavor that carries through to the moist and succulent interior.
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I'm confident now that the effort to be vigilant about temperature when smoking sausage really pays off...big time.

Note: if you want to have nice crunchy, edible casings, use ~18mm sheep casings. They're a little more fragile than hog casings to use, but far more tender when eating. That's what I use when making Bratwürste.

Here's a link for what seems to be some pretty good sausage-making information:
http://www.lets-make-sausage.com/index.html

For Canadians, this is a good source for sausage-making supplies (and it's local for me):
http://www.stuffers.com/

HTH, Bruce
 
Wow. Just...wow. If there was a beauty contest for sausage, those links would surely win first prize. Outstanding work there, Bruce.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Hey G, those Andouille look great!
How do you "hang them" in your WSM? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks. I found these S-hooks. I hook two connected links to the top grate, so they're hanging below, above the bottom grate. It's great because you don't get the grate dimples on the one side of the sausage.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Using a binder like skim milk powder helps the sausages retain moisture during cooking. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's what I've been reading. Gotta pick some of that up.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">At first I wasn't entirely successful in keeping the temperature stable and it ran too high (up to 180°) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

What strategy did you use to maintain that temp?

I've got a new vertical sausage stuffer ready to go this weekend for a party. I'll take pics of the whole process...smoking AND grilling and post them.

Thanks everyone for the help. A few extra pointers are always good to add to the repertoire.
 
Hey Bruce...are you on a forum called sausagemaking.org?

That's another good one. I haven't joined it, but there's a lot of info. Guys from all over. A lot from the UK.
 
Thanks for the compliments on the Kielbasa. Actually, credit should to to all those who share their successes and failures, making the road easier for those of us who follow.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">sausagemaking.org </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
G, Thanks for the link - looks quite interesting.
Figured it was from the UK when the first two sausage spice mixes were haggis and Black Pudding.
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I adjusted the temp (after it ran up to 180°) by shutting the bottom vents completely and left the top one about 25% open until the temp dropped to ~165°.
Then I opened the top vent and two of the bottom ones just a sliver to maintain temp.

I think you're going to appreciate how easy it is to use a vertical sausage stuffer. Running everything through the manual grinder to stuff casings was a slow, onerous PITA with the chunks of lean meat & fat tending to get mashed-up by the auger/spacer.

If your vertical stuffer is the same design as mine (some OEM in China is pumping them out under a number of different brand names) you'll be very happy.

TIP: If the gears are nylon, just be sure to stop cranking when the piston reaches the bottom of the cylinder. Apparently, most of the stripped pinion gears are a direct result of over-cranking when the piston is already "there".

I have some 3/16" round SS stock and I'm thinking of having something like this Smoke EZ dome rack welded-up to fit in my 18.5" WSM.

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Maybe even add another ring halfway between the top one and the base.

Whaddya think?
 
I'm looking forward to using the stuffer. I like the KitchenAid for grinding, but it's pretty crappy as a stuffer.

I bought the LEM from Cabela's Canada. It has the metal gears. Still, don't want to over crank the thing.

I'm going to post pictures of my grinding/stuffing/grilling & smoking weeekend.
 
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