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dj54

dj54

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jan 1, 2012
52
11
Southwest Louisiana
I am on my second batch of sausage and need some advice. My first batch I smoked on my pit and it did fairly well. Yesterday I made about 15 pounds of jalapeno and cheese venison and pork sausage and am attempting to smoke it in my Cajun Chef electric smoker. Started the temp out at 180 degrees for 8 hours addind smoke pellets. After the time expired didn't look right to me so I kicked the temp up to 200 degrees for 10 more hours adding some more pellets. Checked it this morning and it still didn't look like it smoked enough so I raised the temp to 275 degrees thinking the wood would not smoke at the lower temps. I going to take it out after two hours regardless of what it looks like. Any tips or advice on using my electric smoker to do sausage, temps and times ?
 
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   Glad to have you with us!

Would you please update your profile info to include your location, then go over to roll call & introduce yourself, so we can all give you a proper SMF welcome.

At that high a temp your going to render the fat out of the sausage. You may want to try a A-MAZE-N smoker to get smoke at low temps.
 
Hey dj45, welcome to the forum!

As for your questions, Al is dead spot on.  You really don't want to smoke sausage at that high of a temp.  As Al points out, the fat just renders out and the sausage loses most of it's life.

If you're using a cure in your sausage you can try the ramp method of smoking. 

After air drying the sausage in the fridge overnight (this allows the casings to dry and get better smoke penetration) start them out at about 130 for around 2 hours.  Then after that ramp the temp up to about 165 for roughly 2 1/2 hours until the IT is around 150 or 152.  Then pull the sausage.  You can dunk it into an ice bath or hit it with a cold water spray at that point to stop the cooking and also to 'bloom' the sausage.

-Salt
 
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Yeah start at a low temp of like 130-140 range and ramp up. Try not to exceed 180 or you will Fat-Out the sausage and cause fat cavitation between the meat and casing. I also dont use a meat probe, fat will surround the probe and give you false reading.

Welcome to the SMF.
 
dj54, It sounds like you are cooking at too hi of a temperature to long, like the others said. It took me a while to understand what it means by Low and Slow.....Keep your temperature down and go by the IT; it is safer method and will allow you to retain the fat that is needed when making sausage..... Nice to meet another member from S. Louisiana
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Didn't get much smoke at 180 degrees this is why i raised the temp. Any suggestions on getting the smoke ?
 
dj54 said:
Didn't get much smoke at 180 degrees this is why i raised the temp. Any suggestions on getting the smoke ?
Click to expand...


Raising the temp will not increase the smoke. You need to smoke longer at a lower temp. My last batch was at 150 with smoke and took like 19 hours. This intensifies the smoke.

Experiment and if your not sure do like your doing and ask for some tips.
 
dj, I'm not real familiar with your specific smoker but I imagine it's like an MES.  A lot of folks here use the AMNPS with pellets or dust to generate smoke in an electric smoker.  I'm sure someone will be along shortly that knows more about your smoker.  By the way, the AMNPS can work in just about any type of smoker.  I just got one and really like that thing!

The other thing I might add is, the smoke you're looking for is almost invisible, we call it Thin Blue Smoke.  That's all you really want or need for smoking meat or anything else for that matter.  If you're looking for billowing white smoke....that is bad juju!  Definitely not what you want for smoking food. 

-Salt
 
With my MES, it's hard to get smoke at lower temps. I use an A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker to get the smoke needed on lower temp smokes. Shoot, I use it for smoke in ALL my smokes, now! I haven't tried sausage (yet!), but will soon.

Later,
B.
 
hey dj. first off we need to know if you used cure or are these fresh sausages. Second, Internal temp must reach 142 to be safe to eat. I usually go to 160. At 180 degree smoker temp  the sausages should have reached desired temp in 4 to 5 hrs so if your smoker temps were correct the sausages were over cooked at 8 hrs. Make sure you check your smoker temps with a calibrated thermometer. dont go by the dummy guage.......sounds like your having problems with the smoker if the first batch went well. You need to verify the sausage was smoked or cooked to the I.T, of 142 or I would not eat it. Do you have pics. it would greatly help us solve your problem

Joe
 
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