Wrinkles in my summer sausage!

[hotkarl]

WildWest I would agree with Parksider sausage HAS to be stuffed tight. Pretty sure I’ve pissed off multiple members of my family that want to help when making sausage when I get after them for not getting casings or tying the ends extremely tight.

Also, I will most likely never take any meat past 140 on the smoker anymore. Finishing in a hot water bath is the ticket! You can get roasters at Walmart for $30

[Jonathon]

First great catch AdamCA ! Using cold phosphate and citric acid together isn’t necessarily a harmful thing but they DO cancel each other out, so you probably had meat that was very close to it’s original pH and most likely the cure wasn’t activated all the way.

However, I don’t see how that would be the problem with the casing. I think it is a combination of what Parksider and hotkarl said. Most likely it is a combination of them not being stuffed tightly enough and lack of humidity in your smoker. For stuffing, these casings are tough, really hold that casing on the tube and stuff them tight as you can, don’t worry about a blowout, I’ve never had one with mahogany casings.

Also, are you soaking them long enough in hot enough water? Fibrous casings can do this if they are not soaked in hot water for 30 minutes right before stuffing.

Lastly, if you want to introduce humidity check out this video/article from the Meatgistics University Cured Sausage 205-Advanced Thermal Processing

[Parksider]

WildWest Another thought about the casings being tight. You can always twist them to tighten and use zip ties to seal them, it can be hard to tie them. I have zip tie loops that I zip tie to the sticks so it makes them easy to hang and reuse them.

[mcherbies]

Had this problem last weekend with 30 lbs of sticks. Smoked for 3-4 hours. Started at 125, 140, 155 after each hour. Then vac sealed and placed in Soux Vide . Water cooked at 162 for 1 hour. There was a lot of juice in bags. Casing looked fine until the ice water bath. Now they all look like a frightened turtle. Sausage taste is good…presentation is awful! I can not give them away as Christmas gifts unless I want to hear a bunch of jokes. Ideas? Not stuffed tight enough? Not smoked until internal temp was hot enough? Don’t water bath in bags? Other ideas?? Thanks.

[twilliams]

mcherbies as a home processor i just dont think you will get away from wrinkling. If it tastes great dont let the appearance bother you. If friends and family are gonna make jokes of your hard work then they dont need any in my opinion. Good luck

[mcherbies]

twilliams I agree with your comments. Like it or leave it! I am a small business owner. I tend to give sausage bundles to clients as gifts at end of the year. I also donate meat to the local Optimist Club for a basketball tournament. I bring the sticks and summer sausage to our local Pheasants Forever meetings. No one complains about the flavor…EVER! I am just somewhat of a perfectionist. I want the investment in time, hard work, and money to look great when it is finished. I am just asking if there is a simple adjustment I can make to take it from just ok to WOW!

[hotkarl]

mcherbies what internal temp are the sticks when you pull them? I religiously pull them at 140 IT and go straight to the hot water bath shown in my pictures a few posts above. I had a ton of issues in the past with casings wrinkling before I changed to this process. However, this can also be caused from under stuffing. There is definitely a fine line when stuffing snack sticks. For me I’d rather deal with a blow out when stuffing than have my sticks look wrinkled.

[Parksider]

mcherbies I agree with hotkarl, I think it’s an issue of understuffing, and lack of humidity. Even when mine get a bit wrinkly they come back when I put them in the hot water bath, no bags. I’d encourage you to so some testing, just try a few sticks in/out of bags, you may be surprised. And if they don’t like the wrinkles tell them to make their own!!

[Jonathon]

mcherbies Do you have any photos we can look at? How much water did you use when mixing in your seasoning and did you use a binder? The fact that there was a lot of water in vacuum-sealed bags means that this was almost certainly “purge” (though not the bad kind!) from the meat and that shouldn’t be happening at that phase of the cooking process.

Some wrinkling is often going to happen but you should be able to make a product at home that doesn’t wrinkle as much as the top picture.

[mcherbies]

I will need to take a photo sometime.

I add a lot of water to the product. 10lb batch, maybe 2 quarts of water?!? I don’t measure it. It has to be wet to go through my 30lb stuffer. Even then, it tries to bust my stuffer from the pressure. (need to get a 11lb for the smaller casing stuff).

I don’t know the internal temp when I pulled from smoker.

It is likely due to understuffing as mentioned above. Hope to make more in a coming weeks.

[Jonathon]

mcherbies Yeah, 2 quarts of water per 10 lb is going to present a few problems for you for sure. We would recommend 1 qt per 25 lb batch. I’ve done as much as 2 quarts per 25 lb batch and even that was pretty soupy. Now, it DID stuff like a dream, hardly had to turn the crank but it gave me an odd texture…don’t remember if it did anything to the casing or not.

[hotkarl]

mcherbies I find that when I use carrot fiber I like to use 1.5 qt to 25lbs of meat for snack sticks. It is boarder line too much water but the finished product is top notch and everyone raves at how much moisture is still in my sticks.

[twilliams]

Jonathon the water that you prefer to use is what? Spring drinking water? Distilled water? City tap water?

[Jonathon]

twilliams We have distilled water here but I only use that when I am doing a ham, bacon or injecting other large cuts of meat with cure. When I am doing cured sausage (snack sticks, summer, etc.,) I do tap water. Wichita has pretty decent tap water and it’s never caused us any issues.

[akdave]

I use 20 lb lean meat ( venison, elk, moose or caribou) and 5 lb beef fat for my summer sausage, I grind the fat 1/8 and then grind the meat 3/8 then thoroughly mix the two then grind the mixture 1/8 and get great fat distribution and I think that grinding the two together 1/8 also help with protein extraction. I then divide the meat in 2 portions and mix all spices, cures and binders with 2 quarts of water mixing thoroughly and then thoroughly hand mix each portion with half the liquid and then combine them together and mix some more to ensure thorough mixing and protein extraction. I then soak my casings and stuff as tight as possible with stuffer and crimp with Hog ring crimper. I then follow a gradual smoke/ temp schedule with a maximum smoker temp of 180 degrees. It takes me 5-6 hours for 43mm casing and 10-12 hours for 73mm casings. Hot spots in a smoker will give spots of wrinkled appearance that you have in your picture but I find that usually only happens on the end closest to the fire. I have installed a convection fan from a old oven in my smoker and am planning on installing a 2nd one to keep the internal temp in the smoker constant. The convection fan makes a world of difference in maintaining temperature stability.

Dave

[hotkarl]

akdave WildWest the convection oven fans helped my home built smoker as well. I took another step further and added two fireplace fans with motors that are outside of the smoke chamber. Between all of the moving air and the added automotive sponges in water pans anything I smoke comes out almost to the exact minute… my smoker actually keeps temp better then our oven…

[PapaSop]

hotkarl
Awesome!

[Jonathon]

hotkarl That is awesome! Glad you are using the sponges and your set up looks great

[akdave]

hotkarl
Picture perfect

[JPAP]

WildWest