Brown and Serve breakfast links

[saw2]

Hi, first of all I’ve made breakfast sausage for patties for years. My new idea is to make a pork Brown and Serve style precooked link using cellulose casings for a caseless precooked link. The wife wants a caseless link. Here is my thoughts and ideas.

I’ll stuff in cellulose casings and put in smoker for only a little while, maybe an hour then take out and finish to temp in sous vide cooker. Cool down remove casing then cut to size and freeze.

One main question I have is since going in smoker for a short while then in sous vide cooker would you recommend using a cure as in cure #1? And if I skipped smoker and went directly to sous vide would you use cure?

I have never used a sous vide cooker but have a new one being delivered tomorow.

Please let me know what you think of this idea and add any info you might have on this.

Thanks.

 

[mr mac]

I would think that since you are going to precook and then freeze (hopefully in vacuum sealed bags), there would be no need for any cure at all. Perhaps someone else will have a different perspective.

 

[zwiller]

Agree, no cure needed. LOVE the stripable casings and my SV but they will turn out much like a hot dog and be kinda off for BFast links IMO. Lot of work too. chopsaw Totally nailed the B&S but forget how he did them. I would shoot some links using my jerky gun on some qmatz and bake low temp until 150F or so. Crash cool then cut to size/package. Undecided if a trip in the smoker would be good or bad for these.

 

[mike243]

I would use my jerky gun and shoot onto a mat and either cold smoke or hot smoke, with the cool temps starting here I would opt for cold smoking a few hours ,then vac pack, no cure needed if temps kept under 40 imo

 

[chopsaw]

Please let me know what you think of this idea and add any info you might have on this.

It's a great idea , but I never did go back for a second try . Doesn't really take that long to fry from raw .
Mine did wash out some in the water bath . I didn't bag them and went by time for 26mm , when these were smaller . I talk about that at the end of the thread .
If your wife wants a skinless link , this works great . Just watch the cooking times .

One main question I have is since going in smoker for a short while then in sous vide cooker would you recommend using a cure as in cure #1? And if I skipped smoker and went directly to sous vide would you use cure?

As said already , you won't need cure , but you can . It will have an effect on the flavor .
I used to do " fresh " brats with cure .

Look through this , then let me know if you need anything .

Brown n serve Breakfast links .

Just something I wanted to try . I normally use TSM hot pork sausage seasoning for breakfast sausage and stuff in sheep casings , but wanted to try something different . So I used the " breakfast links " recipe from Len Poli . It's a good one . The fry test was great . So this is what I did for...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[saw2]

Thanks for reply’s, I made some using 24mm cellulose casings. Only cold smoked for about and hour then finished off in bag in SV.

My experience was just about the same as the link chopsaw listed above ( Thanks chopsaw for the link). They were good but a little dense for breakfast links and not really that much faster cooking than raw links. Just want to try this.

At same time I made a batch of my tried and true breakfast sausage that I always use for patties and put in my jerky gun with a bit larger round tip I made I’d say it’s 3/4 inch and made long sticks. Put them on parchment paper on cookie sheet and froze a bit. Took out of freezer and cut to length. Vac packed in packs of a dozen.

They cooked up great and wife is very happy with the skinless link. They thaw in just a few minutes. Just need to poke the bag before thawing so they don’t flatten out. I will do this from now on and scrap the precook SV method for breakfast links.

I will add thought I tried some regular snack sticks using the 21mm cellulose cases. Put in smoker and used step up temp smoking schedule. When sticks were about 130-135 degrees I took out of smoker, bagged in ziplock freezer bags and finished to 153 in SV.

Myself I thought they turned out great for a skinless stick. First time I’d tried cellulose casing. I will be using them more for certain items. Were easy to stuff and very easy to peel off when finished.

Thanks for the reply’s and help.

 

[chopsaw]

I love the cellulose casings , like you say for certain things .

I was going to mention just doing the sausage skinless . I use the next size up tube when I do this . Keeps the size where it should be if it was cased .

It's a great way to do sticks .

 

[saw2]

I gave my 85 year old mother a pack of the skinless links yesterday. She called me this a.m. and said “ I really like those link sausages and from now on when you bring me sausage I’d much rather have the links than the pack for patties” So mother has spoken and in other words she need more and in link form.

Will definitely be making more and a bigger batch of these. Might even try my 10lb. stuffer instead of jerky gun. Gun worked well but will have to reload multiple times for a big batch.