Meat Processing

AndyMan: It may help you to take a look at my post from August “Summer Sausage Nightmare” and the replies from Jonathan and others. Looking back, my problem was a lack of mixing the meat properly. I was not getting enough protein extraction, so the fat in the meat was cooking out during smoking. This left the Summer Sausage tasting dry and with the mouth feel of a sawdust log. I purchased one of the meat mixers from Walton’s and it fixed this problem. My small 20 pound mixer was not expensive and does a great job mixing the meat. It’s well made and easy to clean. Also, by following the smoking times suggested by Waltons and keeping a pan of water in the smoker my sausage was “stalling out” in the last critical hour of the smoke process–never reaching an internal temp of 160F. Of course, your product must be brought up to 160F internal temp if you expect to be safe from food bacteria. We don’t want to make people sick with our sausage. For me, the solution, as suggested by several of the “Old Pros” who follow this site, was to stop smoking after about four hours and transfer the product to a heated water bath to bring the internal temp up to 160F. I was getting to 145F - 150F in the smoker, but couldn’t close the gap to 160F. About 15 min. in a hot water bath (slightly below boiling) did the trick. The sausage comes out of the water fully cooked, casings full and tight, without wrinkles, and the fat is fully emulsified. Best of luck with your sausage. G.

We put the ghost pepper cheese and habanero powder in our sticks and it’s awesome. The pepper jack also has a great flavor, neither are as hot as you’d think when you mix it in. We also use cheddar for our mild stick. Walton’s has a great selection of high temp cheese! I will warn you that if you use a 17mm stick the cheese can stick in the stuffing tube, I gut shot my buddy standing at the end of the table with one, he went down like a soccer player!

@1grinder I always like adding encapsulated citric acid as well. However, as you said if you don’t have a smoker big enough to do the entire batch at one you can’t process it all at once and add ECA. My suggestion would be to just split it into batches that your smoker can handle! Good job planning everything out, that is an important step that a lot of people miss!

@iveryan I would love to hear the results as I used a replacement citric acid and did not know you could not keep and I have a 50 lb. batch I had to hold in fridge overnight, so I’m worried.

@TinCupTom I think you are talking about adding Smoked Meat Stabilizer instead of the Encapsulated Citric Acid? If that is the case then you would not want to use them together, use one or the other. The Smoked Meat Stabilizer will not offer the same level of tanginess that the Citric Acid will, it does contain ascorbic acid but it is not enough to offer a noticeable level of tanginess. There really isn’t anything to use in place of the Encapsulated Citric Acid to offer the same level of tang. I use the Citric Acid in almost everything I do as I also love the taste it adds. So, if you are looking for that I would just go with the Encapsulated Citric Acid instead of the smoked meat stabilizer. Now, if you were talking about Sure Cure instead of Smoked Meat Stabilizer then yes, you want to use them together as the Citric Acid will work as a cure accelerator and also adds the tanginess!

@pramey3 It’s been awhile since I made it but I want to say the recipe called for 2-3 lbs and I used half of that and it came out great.

@DaFish13 Yes, you can leave it in the fridge for a few days before smoking as long as it has already been stuffed. It is not ideal to go too much past 24 hours but it should not hurt anything. The taste might be a little different as the seasoning will have more time to interact with the meat but I don’t think it will be anything detrimental to the quality of your sausage!

@Kentucky-Fisherman The second grind is always going to be slower and this is doubly true when going from a 3/8th plate to a 1/8 plate. By breaking the meat down into a ground product you are making it harder for the grinder to push the meat down to the plate and knife and you are also trying to make it go through a smaller plate. Best thing i can tell you to fight this is to get your meat ICE COLD before grinding, some ice crystal forming on the meat is just about right! This will speed up the process and improve your finished product. With it looking like bologna I have the feeling your 1/8 plate, or the knife you use with it, are in need of sharpening or replacement. What you are describing sounds like your plate and knife are smooshing your meat instead of cutting it cleanly. As for the stuffing, yes, trying to stuff snack sticks off of a stuffer is incredibly difficult, frustrating and annoying! It is much easier to use a stuffer when making any type of sausage but especially when making snack sticks.

Thank you for the great information.i will make it how you said .

@stan I have never tried a chicken summer sausage. We usually do chicken brats or chicken snack sticks. There are a lot of similarities between snack sticks and summer sausage, just a larger diameter though. If anyone else has tried chicken summer sausage, I hope they’ll chime in and let us know their results too! I think we’ll have to add chicken summer sausage to our list of things to try and put out an exact recipe on. You can use approximately 1.6 ounces of carrot fiber for 10 lb of meat (4 oz per 25 lb of meat is normal usage). Biggest change to the cooking cycle would be to cook to 165 degrees since it is poultry. Poultry can also have a bigger tendency to “stall” during smoking, so try to add a water pan if there is room to help keep humidity as high as possible. My only last comments would be to make sure and get good protein extraction while mixing everything. That with a binder or additive like carrot fiber will help bind up as much water as possible to keep a lean meat like chicken as moist as possible. Good luck and let us know if we can help with anything else!

@austin Thanks for the info. I’m not sure what the weight was of the cure because the butcher prepared it for me but it was only about 2 cups worth so I was concerned I was short on cure for the brine. Just guessing but I dont believe the 2 cups weighed out to 1.75lb. I should be close though so I’ll be throwing her on the smoker tomorrow. Thanks again.

Thanks, I figured that would be the case, but wanted get the experts opinion.

@ed_orum Does the meat have less firmness than any other type of “normal” sausage? I wonder if you are comparing stiffness and texture to a dry cured pepperoni…? What some people think of as pepperoni is not processed in the same way as other sausages like brats, summer sausage, snack sticks, etc. It can be a true dried sausage that is fermented and dry cured, but not ever truly cooked or thermally processed. That is a lot of what gives pepperoni it’s hard firmness and specific texture when eating. That is just not something that can be completely replicated in a cooked sausage. I think the dryness is a big key there, but the texture cannot be fully emulated if we are comparing something thermally processed to not. Other than that, what I think is one of the best ways to make pepperoni, without doing the old-world dry cured and fermented sausage, is what we go through in our standard pepperoni recipe shown here: https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/545/how-to-make-homemade-pepperoni-recipe I would check out your process compared to that one, and see if there are things you can change to match it. The last time we made pepperoni here, it was amazing!!

@kb2112 As long as it is not molding and appearance is normal, I would feel comfortable using it. It usually only lasts a few months before molding, or up to 12-18 months in the freezer. If it seems dried out, or any mold growth, then I would discard.

@bevh It is possible to stuff off a grinder, but it isn’t optimal. You get a more consistently stuffed product with a sausage stuffer, it is usually easier, and you get less air pockets, an even fill, and overall better results. Nothing wrong with doing it off a grinder though if that is all you have or just your preference.

@Ed_Orum I think you used the wrong casings. As @joe-hell says, you used “snack stick” casings, but you should use the 21 mm Fresh or Natural Sheep casings for breakfast sausage. If you do that, you’ll be much happier with the result!

The high salt content of “H” may be masking the pepper and/or other seasonings.

I’ve had that happen. It’s due to oxidation before cooking. The meat on the outside will absorb oxygen from the air after stuffing but before cooking when you let them rest in casings that long. I know direction but, I’ve found that a 1 hour stay in the deep freeze is better than over night int he refrigerator, then right to cooking/smoking, then ice bath after. More uniform color that way. Te bicolored stuff is fine to eat, just doesn’t look as pretty on crackers. I don’t use an accelerator, just a good mixing and cold.

I do cured venison hams as well. Very good, nothing like a pork ham, closer to tasting like corned beef than tasting like ham. Same as a pork ham, so I’m curious to see the OP’s recipe.

@jonathon yep, shorter horn makes sense. I am mech. engineer and there are two big things wrong here: the 9.5mm (3/8") stuffer tube and its length. Most of the problem, probably, ALL could be solved by using the diameter stuffer tube for 16 mm casings. There is NO advantage to going smaller, just disadvantages. Pressure drop(in this case back pressure on the cylinder / piston goes up exponentially as diameter is reduced.