- Aug 10, 2008
- 11
- 10
No pics to post, as the wife took both digital cameras out of town with her for the weekend somehow, but...
Stuffed a 10# batch of Spicy German sausage links last night in some 35mm casings. Ended up making 6 full links, and 2 half links.
So I put some S-hooks on the top rack of the MES, and hung the 8 links from them. Spaced out so that none were touching, or if they spun to touch, very little surface would have been touching.
Heated at 140F with no smoke on for about 30min to dry out the casings a bit and get them tacky. Then bumped MES up to 165F and loaded up with pecan chips and a few hickory chips. Let it smoke away for about 3hrs. Internal temp was at 132F at that point. Raised set point a bit and let it keep going for another 45min or so till bed time. Pulled at 136F internal or so.
These have cure in them and will receive a final smoke/cook in the other smoker prior to eating. The will be vac sealed and frozen for later.
Top vent was open about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way for the first 3hrs. Nice blue smoke coming out the top. Added more chips a couple times during smoke to keep the blue line going.
So the issue...
When I pulled the links, several had one side that was nicely smoked, other sides were kinda pinkish, but nothing like a nice heavy smoke. Some links only got nice n smoky near the top 1/3 or so.
So not sure where my problem lays:
* Vent open too much?
* Too much drying time up front?
* Uneven smokiness inside MES?
Would love to figure out what went wrong to make sure I get a nice even smoke on everything.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
sean
Stuffed a 10# batch of Spicy German sausage links last night in some 35mm casings. Ended up making 6 full links, and 2 half links.
So I put some S-hooks on the top rack of the MES, and hung the 8 links from them. Spaced out so that none were touching, or if they spun to touch, very little surface would have been touching.
Heated at 140F with no smoke on for about 30min to dry out the casings a bit and get them tacky. Then bumped MES up to 165F and loaded up with pecan chips and a few hickory chips. Let it smoke away for about 3hrs. Internal temp was at 132F at that point. Raised set point a bit and let it keep going for another 45min or so till bed time. Pulled at 136F internal or so.
These have cure in them and will receive a final smoke/cook in the other smoker prior to eating. The will be vac sealed and frozen for later.
Top vent was open about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way for the first 3hrs. Nice blue smoke coming out the top. Added more chips a couple times during smoke to keep the blue line going.
So the issue...
When I pulled the links, several had one side that was nicely smoked, other sides were kinda pinkish, but nothing like a nice heavy smoke. Some links only got nice n smoky near the top 1/3 or so.
So not sure where my problem lays:
* Vent open too much?
* Too much drying time up front?
* Uneven smokiness inside MES?
Would love to figure out what went wrong to make sure I get a nice even smoke on everything.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
sean