Cured Sausage: 206 Advanced Cured Sausage Processing
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Screamin Yeah, the suggestion by bocephus will fix your problem. All summer sausage I make now gets pulled at 130° and finished in water that is 179° or there about. it should be done in an hour, but if you used |Encapsulated-Citric-Acid, you will want to make sure it stays in there for a full hour regardless of the IT of the sausage to allow the encapsulation to melt. If you hit 160° quickly, you might consider reducing the temp of water to around 160 to prevent overcooking.
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Screamin Yeah, the suggestion by bocephus will fix your problem. All summer sausage I make now gets pulled at 130° and finished in water that is 179° or there about. it should be done in an hour, but if you used |Encapsulated-Citric-Acid, you will want to make sure it stays in there for a full hour regardless of the IT of the sausage to allow the encapsulation to melt. If you hit 160° quickly, you might consider reducing the temp of water to around 160 to prevent overcooking.
Jonathon You always explain things in a lot better detail than I do, thanks for all the info you share.
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Screamin Yeah, the suggestion by bocephus will fix your problem. All summer sausage I make now gets pulled at 130° and finished in water that is 179° or there about. it should be done in an hour, but if you used |Encapsulated-Citric-Acid, you will want to make sure it stays in there for a full hour regardless of the IT of the sausage to allow the encapsulation to melt. If you hit 160° quickly, you might consider reducing the temp of water to around 160 to prevent overcooking.
Jonathon Thanks for your time. I am in the process of rigging up a method to monitor the temp of the water. I think I can use a probe from my Maverick meat temp. This will fix the problem, and also greatly cut down on my temp monitoring at the smoker. Thanks again.
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Screamin You might want to finish them in water after getting them to about 130. Water temp would be consistent around all and if one got to the temp you wanted with a probe they should all be there.
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The problem you are describing is pretty common for smokers that do not have temperature controls or when the smoker is designed for high temperature smoking/cooking of things like briskets, ribs, or pork butts.
Cured, cooked sausages require lower processing temperatures and if you don’t have the right smoker, sometimes it is hard to get the exact temperatures called for in a recipe. What kind of smoker are you using?
processhead You are right on target. I have a Weber kettle and am using a Slow 'N Sear from SnS grills. A found a rotisserie setup which includes a ring about 6 inches high. I have mounted the grate on top of that which gives me a little more height and if I use the “snake” method in the Slow N Sear, actually doesn’t do too bad, but with this setup you can only refine so far. Hard to seal the smoke in. Anyway, given that my setup is a little primitive and with input from patient people like you and the others, I get along OK. Thanks again for your input, I really appreciate your time.
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Blaker25 Most are using sous vide.
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bocephus okay I figured out what that is. So if I don’t have that option. Just stick with the smoker and it may take 10 hours?? Also if I do choose to buy one. How do you know the internal meat temp if they are suppose to be vacuum sealed?
Blaker25 I have never done it this way but plan to give it a try with an electric roaster, don’t have a sous vide yet. You probably want to look at Jonathan’s post earlier in this thread and also search on sous vide, there is a lot of information from people that have done it.
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Are you able to grind and mix the sticks and let it sit for 24 hours without stuffing it!?!!
Blaker25 I stuff and then let sit 24 hours. It is hard to stuff after 24 hours, especially snack sticks
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Blaker25 I use a turkey roaster.

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cdavis That is what I am going to try next time I make snack sticks or summer sausage.
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bocephus it works great. I’ve had no problems. It sure saves some long smoker time.
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I’ve had snack sticks in my Bradley smoker now for 10 hours and they are stalled out at 120 degrees. Not budging nothing. Im not even sure why they take this long. Does everyone else’s take that long? Does anyone know how to speed up the process? Am I doing something wrong?
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I’ve had snack sticks in my Bradley smoker now for 10 hours and they are stalled out at 120 degrees. Not budging nothing. Im not even sure why they take this long. Does everyone else’s take that long? Does anyone know how to speed up the process? Am I doing something wrong?
Blaker25 mine usually stall at 135 to 140 that’s when I pull them out of the smoker and put them in the turkey roaster. Then they’re finished usually in 30 minutes or less.
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Blaker25 mine usually stall at 135 to 140 that’s when I pull them out of the smoker and put them in the turkey roaster. Then they’re finished usually in 30 minutes or less.
cdavis Blaker25 I switched to finishing with sous vide after seeing so many posts on here about them. I am happy with the ease of use and even more happy with the final product. There are several sous vide machines on the market. I picked up an Anova at a decent price on line last year. There are several great posts on here on making a container for a sous vide cooker. My unit was a kit and had a tank with it. Like cdavis has pointed out a roaster will also work as long as you monitor your water temp and do not overcook or under cook with the water. I have a roaster and have used it in the past with great results. The sous vide is just a little easier and allows me to control the water temp a little better. It also circulates the water constantly, which gives an even cooking temp all over. Good luck with you next batch.
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cdavis said in Cured Sausage: 206 Advanced Cured Sausage Processing:
Blaker25 I use a turkey roaster.

What kind of amazing witchcraft is this? I use my sousvide (with naked snack sticks) but always afraid I would mess it up. This could be the ticket
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cdavis I never thought of that and have one sitting on shelf that never gets used much. Thanks for the tip!
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