How to Make Homemade Summer Sausage - Recipe
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So, I followed the directions to what I thought were a ‘T’, ingredients ( I did sub out for carrot fiber vs the Sure Gel), temperature schedule, the whole thing. Using 80% venison, 20% pork fat a couple of things happened. First, There was a lot of fat rendering, and that led to some loss of volume. I was kind of surprised, the sausage was not adhering to the casing. Second, was the water intrusion during the ice bath. I actually used bagged ice because I had an issue the last time when I made meat sticks, they were waterlogged. So, I put everything in an ice cube bath (no water), for 10 minutes or so, and when it was said and done, I had what I could only call a substantial amount of water inside the casing. The water would have come from the ice melting of course. I hung the sausages from a dowel in my refrigerator for a few days, hoping they would dry out some. I think they have that this point, and the casing seems to have shrunk now, but I am not sure if the sausage has adhered now. Overall the taste is good, consistency is about right, the ECA is a little over powering to me, I would skip that and just let them rest overnight.
Next ice bath gets some sort of a bag or something in between the product and the ice. Waterlogged twice now and mildly infuriated.
Is losing all that fat normal? My final casings looked nothing like the pictures in the recipe.
ihang10 said in How to Make Homemade Summer Sausage - Recipe:
I did sub out for carrot fiber vs the Sure Gel
This might be part of your problem. Unless you have an allergy issue, try using Sure Gel. You’re going to get much better extraction, and that will help with both your fat-out problem and the casing adhering.
Something else to try is to start cooking at around 110F for a good hour or so before moving on to 125F and then stretching out the schedule from there. I did that with my last batch of Summer sausage (pork & beef) and was VERY happy with the results. I don’t have my notes in front of me, but I believe I had steps at 110, 125, 140, 150, 160, 175, and then I finished them in sous vide. The whole cook was close to 14 hours. There was significant weight loss, but it wasn’t from fat-out. There really wasn’t any fat-out to speak of.
I didn’t package them when I put them in the sous vide (which took about 30 minutes), and they were in the water bath for about 10 minutes, and I had no significant water inside the casings. I did let them sit out on a rack at room temperature with a gentle fan on them to dry out the casings a bit before vac-packing them, and that also turned out well.
That’s about the only things I can come up with
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making summer sausage in the oven. Can I use powdered hickory smoke to give it the smoke flavor or liquid smoke.
kroc I’d use that hickory smoke powder. I haven’t used it, yet, but it sure does smell both good and authentic.
I know that liquid smoke actually is made from smoke, but it always strikes me as acrid and just “off” for smoke.
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kroc It’s not 100% the same BUT Hickory Smoke Powder does a great job of replacing the flavor. In fact, there was a while were Austin and I were doing our Will it BBQ videos and we would smoke something and then try that same thing with hickory smoke powder and we often couldn’t tell the difference.
Hmmmm smoked ice cream! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ky17U-ClJI
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I believe you recommend a 3mm plate for your final grind. The smallest one I have is 4.5mm. is that too big for summer/venison sausage.
BRagland1
That will be fine. Have used a 4.5 many many times. -
BRagland1
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it just fine. Good luck. -
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Jonathon Good, because my next question was going to be, why can’t I find any #22 3mm plates on Walton’s sure. Haha
BRagland1
Lol. Yep, got my 3mm plate from a local Fleet Farm. -
BRagland1 So here is some good information that might not be well known, the mm and fraction plates are 2 ways of saying the same thing.
3mm = 1/8
10mm = 3/8
4.5mm = 3/16
5mm = 1/4 (this is a very odd size and you wont see many)Now, depending on your grinder not all plates will fit. You need to take into account how it locks in, do your plates have 1 or 3 holes around the outside? Is one or two sides shaved off? Also, some commercial style plates are too thick to fit on retail grinders (found that out the hard way with PapaSop) but some DO fit. The Weston Pro 22 will take a commercial plate and knife but the #12 and #32 will not. Crazy and I wish it was all more standardized.
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In the how to make summer sausage the ingredients call for 2 quarts of water is that mixed in with the meat and spices or is it used to cool the sausage down after smoking?
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Doug Benton Mixed in with the meat and spices. You may not want / need a full two quarts, especially depending on the type of binder you’re using (assuming you’re using one). Check out the recent Meatgistics livestream for Jonathon’s explanation: https://youtu.be/y9Ffmd873HY?t=1246 This link starts at the water discussion, but it’s worth watching the entire thing.
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Doug Benton What gChart Says is true, 2 qts mixed in the meat but that’s maximum, I generally say 1.5 qt if you are using a binder. It will stuff like a dream with 2 qts but your cook schedule will be longer than it needs to be as the meat cooks off some of that water
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Thanks for clearing that up this is my first time making summer sausage. One more question can you stuff the casings let them set in refrigerator overnight then smoke them the next day? Or do they need to smoked immediately after stuffing.
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Doug Benton If you’re using a cure accelerator like Encapsulated Citric Acid (ECA) then you don’t need to let them cure overnight. Make sure you wait until the last 60 seconds or so of mixing to add the ECA so as not to break down the encapsulation.
If you aren’t using a cure accelerator, then you need to hold them overnight to give the cure time to work.
Note, things like Sure Cure and pink salt are cures, not cure accelerators.
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