I have done a test run and have my recipe pretty well tweaked regarding ingredients. I'm going to be doing a run of 50/50 (roughly) deer meat and pork shoulder using natural casings.
My test run of a few pounds turned out pretty good. I plan to tweak the recipe a bit flavor-wise but it’s otherwise really good. The recipe does in fact have some cure #1 in it, but I’m not really trying to cold smoke.
My test run was sharing the box (MES30) with a couple pork loins that were later sliced for sandwich meat so the temps and time was not ideal, and the sausages got done fast…but they still took on some really good smoke….in fact I would say enough…just in a short time. I like to taste the meat, not just smoke...a balance.
I just ground the meat, mixed everything per my recipe tweaked from somewhere online, pretty standard I’m sure, and stuffed natural casings…and in to the smoker. Can’t remember but they may have sat in a bag for a day in the fridge.
The only complaint I had was the casing was a bit chewy. Fully edible and sliceable but chewy and sliced disks or rounds really curled up in a pan more than most store-bought sausage (I was making gumbo with it).
So what I think I need to do is:
1-Do a smoker run for just the sausage and start low on the temps, gradually increasing, to slow the cooking time down. And I think I recall the best finish internal temp is 155F?
2-I think I may need to air dry a while after stuffing and before smoking to help the casing tighten up a little and reduce the chewiness. I can do this on wire rack in a garage fridge with a fan blowing just like I have done for salmon.
3-Allow the sausages to rest for a day or two in the fridge after smoking.
Any info or links to info is welcome to help me cut through the fog of info out there and get to the right conclusion. Only so much deer meat on hand and I want to get it right. I've done some reading obviously and looking for opinions.
My test run of a few pounds turned out pretty good. I plan to tweak the recipe a bit flavor-wise but it’s otherwise really good. The recipe does in fact have some cure #1 in it, but I’m not really trying to cold smoke.
My test run was sharing the box (MES30) with a couple pork loins that were later sliced for sandwich meat so the temps and time was not ideal, and the sausages got done fast…but they still took on some really good smoke….in fact I would say enough…just in a short time. I like to taste the meat, not just smoke...a balance.
I just ground the meat, mixed everything per my recipe tweaked from somewhere online, pretty standard I’m sure, and stuffed natural casings…and in to the smoker. Can’t remember but they may have sat in a bag for a day in the fridge.
The only complaint I had was the casing was a bit chewy. Fully edible and sliceable but chewy and sliced disks or rounds really curled up in a pan more than most store-bought sausage (I was making gumbo with it).
So what I think I need to do is:
1-Do a smoker run for just the sausage and start low on the temps, gradually increasing, to slow the cooking time down. And I think I recall the best finish internal temp is 155F?
2-I think I may need to air dry a while after stuffing and before smoking to help the casing tighten up a little and reduce the chewiness. I can do this on wire rack in a garage fridge with a fan blowing just like I have done for salmon.
3-Allow the sausages to rest for a day or two in the fridge after smoking.
Any info or links to info is welcome to help me cut through the fog of info out there and get to the right conclusion. Only so much deer meat on hand and I want to get it right. I've done some reading obviously and looking for opinions.
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