Sous Vide Summer Sausage

[glen]

Dr_Pain Agreed I may try that next time
At least I make small batches!

[glen]

processhead Thank you Paul

[processhead]

I am a little unclear about the 1 tablespoon of liquid lost during the cook. Was this liquid that sweated through the casing into the bag while cooking?

[glen]

processhead Yes that was moisture sweated out during the cook.
I was trying to point out how little product weight was lost, although I never weighed before and after smoking to know what was lost doing it that way

Also note that I added a minimal amount of water during mixing, so in my case I started out with less moisture than when I smoke or oven process

[marzig20]

I’ve used sous vide to finish sausage after smoking to finish with great success many times. A couple weeks ago tried straight sous vide with beef summer. After stuffing it went into vac bags and into the water. After temp came back up to 152 held for 3 hours. When it came out bags were full of water and casings wrinkled bad. Sampled next day and fat had not rendered. It was a little dry but not bad. Flavor was bland though. I thought that losing the water took a lot of seasoning with it.

The two things I thought that went wrong was since it was only five pounds I mixed by hand and might not have gotten full protein extraction. The second was that not stepping temp might of not allowed carrot fiber binder to work.

[processhead]

marzig20
You need to remember that smoking is a drying process as well as a cooking process. When smoking you are also removing moisture from the product.

With sous vide where the product is sealed in plastic, the heat is going to drive some of the moisture out of the product and it has no where to go and will be trapped in the bag.

[marzig20]

processhead I totally agree, but I’ve never had smoked sausage shrink so bad that I had casings wrinkle like this. I’m utterly not opposed to experimenting with this more in small batches.

[processhead]

The times I have had casings shrink is when I smoked sausages and then failed to do a rapid chill in cold water after pulling them from the smoker.

[glen]

When doing total sous vide I try to cut down on added water and never go above 155 F then immediate Ice bath

[marzig20]

processhead I must have had a brain fart. I bet that’s it, I took them out of the vac bags and put them straight into the fridge.

[marzig20]

glen That totally makes sense too. How much do you reduce water?

[glen]

marzig20 I try to add just enough water to get a good mix and protein extraction.
Don’t mean to be vague but it varies per batch depending on the moisture in the meat load
Also I don’t process above 155F. That extends the overdone window somewhat.

[smokinbubba]

I am a big fan of the step up slow method. To me, the meat cost , labor, and time is too valuable to risk a fat out. Been there, done that. I cook a LOT with SV from bambi dogs to bambi bologna. All to 160degF. I do use hickory powder since I like that flavor profile. I don’t care for my dogs or sandwich bologna to have the “rind” that a smoker puts on them. Only like that on my trail. I also bloom for a couple hours after the ice bath.