Colouring on sausage

[snowsnake]

I have a Alto Shamm commercial smoker and used to smoke my garlic sausage.
The unit is totally sealed except two small vents in the door.
Unit does a great job smoking sausage but can not get a uniform nice red colour on the casing.
I understand that if there is moisture on the outside of the casing it will not take in the colouring.
Any suggestions on what I can do to remedy the problem?

[Jonathon]

snowsnake What is your smoke schedule? I am going to guess that an initial drying phase of about 10 minutes would fix your issue. Does your unit have an internal fan?

[snowsnake]

Jonathon
140 until sausage IT at 100
155 with 1 Hr smoke.
170 till IT at 140
Then 185 till IT of 155
Unit is completely sealed.
No circulating fan. Only two small vents
2” x 3” in door.
Lots of moisture in pan at bottom.
Unit takes over 12 hours to get to IT of 150+.

[Jonathon]

Without a fan I would recommend you add a 20 minute drying phase before everything else. Set you smoker to about 120°, do not add any water or pans to the bottom and open the vents all the way. This will somewhat uniformly dry the surface of your product. Also, make sure that your sausages aren’t touching eachother or the wall.

Austin do you have any thoughts?

[PapaSop]

snowsnake
Just my two cents worth about drying. Made some snacks sticks yesterday. After stuffing and setting overnight, took them out of fridge to warm up and dry out. Put on the smoker racks and blew a fan across them for an hour. Then put in smoker@122 deg. for another hour, all vents wide open. Went to normal smoking schedule after that.

Ended up using 21mm fresh collagen casings. Was out of the mahogany. Came out pretty well. A bit wrinkly but awesome.

[Jonathon]

PapaSop Good job on laying them instead of hanging them, hanging fresh collagen is a recipe for heartbreak!