How to Make Homemade Summer Sausage - Recipe
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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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gChart Good answer!
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When putting jalapeños in summer sausage how much for 25 lbs and does it matter if there fresh or pickled
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Doug Benton 3-6% of the products weight once they have been rehydrated if they were dehydrated. Pickled can cause problems with the cure and emulsion so I would avoid that and just use fresh. I love the taste of pickle jalapenos but it can cause issues so I avoid.
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Any tips to making this summer sausage in my home oven? Lowest setting on oven is 170 degrees. My thought is to let it go at 170 degrees for about 3 hours, see how it’s doing and if needed bump it up to 175 degrees until internal temp of 160 degrees is reached? Should I also add pan of water to oven to control humidity? All suggestions are welcome.
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srsmith123 So, we had luck propping our oven door open once and could get the top rack to stabilize at 120, which was 30 degrees cooler than the lowest setting that oven will do. That is what I would recommend but failing that then yes, your plan sounds about the only thing you can do. Adding a water pan will add some humidity but not a lot, try adding some large automotive sponges to the water pan to try to raise the humidity even more in there.
Some more info:
https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1099/cured-sausage-205-advanced-thermal-processing
https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1108/cured-sausage-206-advanced-cured-sausage-processing -
Will be making summer sausage next weekend. My pellet smoker does not go below 150. Thoughts on using a dehydrator for a few hours and then transferring to smoker to smoke and finish the cooking? I can adjust the temp on my dehydrator. Thanks for thoughts.
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mbroos I think a few hours is too long, you run the risk of drying out the outside of the sausage and then it won’t be able to pass heat into the center of the sausage. I’d say start at 120ish in your dehydrator for 30 minutes, that will begin to condition the temp of the meat and will dry the outside a little but not too much. Then, I would move to the oven and i would seriously consider finishing it up in water like a lot of users here do. For more information on that check out these two articles/videos
https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1099/cured-sausage-205-advanced-thermal-processing/
https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1108/cured-sausage-206-advanced-cured-sausage-processing -
thank you
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Has anyone ever done all pork summer sausage? I have an abundance of pork butts, and was thinking trying just a cheddar/pork summer sausage. My concern is that missing out on some red meats would change the flavor too much from what we normally think of with summer sausage.
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Never tried it. I always have used some beef. There is always breakfast sausage too.
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I’d be curious to hear of your results of you do try it. Mine is almost always 50/50 venison and pork butt. But sometimes those pork butts are so darn cheap, I’ll likely forgo the venison at some point when I want to do some experimentation.
gChart said in How to Make Homemade Summer Sausage - Recipe:
I’d be curious to hear of your results of you do try it. Mine is almost always 50/50 venison and pork butt. But sometimes those pork butts are so darn cheap, I’ll likely forgo the venison at some point when I want to do some experimentation.
I’m going to try it this week. I’ll let you know. I think I’m also putting some cheddar in it because I have extra high temp cheddar sotto g around I need to probably use.
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Midwest_kc I’d say around 90% of the time my summer sausage is always just pork and I always love the taste of it. Probably not what most people would consider traditional but it is tasty!
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So I made up the pork cheddar summer sausage the other day. It was a bit of a s---- show, with my pellet cooker having issues, so I ended up doing them mostly in the oven and then sous vide. It’s good, but certainly not what I would call summer sausage. More of a ham loaf, or something of the sort. I’ll tell ya though, with some more cheese and some crackers? I ate it up!
So, while I didn’t get what I was necessarily after, I’m calling my first crack at cured/smoked sausage a success. I have some wagyu beef brisket trimmings that I’m going to turn into snack sticks next, and I’m going to work on changing my jalapeno cheddar fresh sausage into a cured one.
Thanks to everyone for all the help I’ve received over the last few months as I’ve gotten into this. You guys rock!
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So I made up the pork cheddar summer sausage the other day. It was a bit of a s---- show, with my pellet cooker having issues, so I ended up doing them mostly in the oven and then sous vide. It’s good, but certainly not what I would call summer sausage. More of a ham loaf, or something of the sort. I’ll tell ya though, with some more cheese and some crackers? I ate it up!
So, while I didn’t get what I was necessarily after, I’m calling my first crack at cured/smoked sausage a success. I have some wagyu beef brisket trimmings that I’m going to turn into snack sticks next, and I’m going to work on changing my jalapeno cheddar fresh sausage into a cured one.
Thanks to everyone for all the help I’ve received over the last few months as I’ve gotten into this. You guys rock!
Midwest_kc
practice makes perfect.
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