Ruined a batch of smoked sausage, can't figure out what happened

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DumasDaddy

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2022
14
29
Update: case closed, all signs point to boar taint. 😢

Hello fine folks 👋 I've made a few batches of sausages so far, and have been feeling confident in the process. I decided to experiment with flavors and ingredients in my latest batch. When the sausages were finished, I went in for a test, and something was off. I'm including a detailed writeup of the process in the hopes that a keen observer can spot where I went wrong! 😅

I used two bone-in cryovac pork butts. I bought them 6 months ago and immediately put them the deep freezer. I moved them to the fridge last week and let them thaw for 4 days before processing them. Upon opening the cryovacs, one of the butts had a stronger sulfur smell than the other. I've cooked dozens and dozens of cryovac'd pork butts and am familiar with the sulfur smell they sometimes have, so I rinsed as usual, didn't think much of it, and continued processing. No discoloration or anything on either of the butts.

For seasonings, I used kosher salt, pink salt, black pepper. I also roasted a few onions and a few heads of garlic. I sent the roasted onions and garlic through the grinder first to make a "mash", then sent the pork through, then mixed the seasonings and pork until tacky. Fried up a test patty, tasted great, stuffed into casings and let rest in the fridge overnight. The casings had been frozen, leftover from a package that I used previously. I thawed them in a bowl of water an hour before I used them.

This morning I smoked for 2 hours cold smoke (pellet smoke tube) then 2 hours warm smoke (160*F pellet smoker), pulled them, poached until cooked through. I used Kirkland brand pellets, the same as I always use, never had any issues with them. I've also done the smoke tube followed by pellet smoker in the past with great results.

When I bit into a sausage, something was off about the taste. I can't totally put my finger on it, it's hard to even describe the flavor. It didn't taste sour or rancid.. perhaps a little.. musty? I had my wife taste and she said the same thing. My kids tried it and they actually liked it! The sausages aren't terrible, but they're bad enough that I'm going to toss the batch and write this one off as a loss, sadly.

Any thoughts on what went wrong here? I suspect it's something to do with the onions. Maybe the roasted onion mash didn't play nicely with the smoke?



 
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When I bit into a sausage, something was off about the taste. I can't totally put my finger on it, it's hard to even describe the flavor. It didn't taste sour or rancid.. perhaps a little.. musty?
I'm gonna say either a tinge of boar taint, or inferior commercial feed that gave the fat an off taste. Cheaper feeds sometimes use ingredients that can cause that off flavor in pork.
 
One thing I will also add....if you did not remove the glands in the pork butt, and ground them in with the meat, sometimes those glands can be real strong and give the flavor you are describing.....always remove the glands when making sausage.
 
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I don't really have much to add other than that if your fry test didn't have any "off" flavors, I'd suspect something farther along in the process.
 
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I have made a lot of sausages with butts that have that cryovac smell without any issues, so I don't think it is that.
 
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Agree with IDS. Most likely boar taint.
Links below to info on taint;

Long read but backed up with references.


Search for boar taint for additional reading
 
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I'm gonna say either a tinge of boar taint, or inferior commercial feed that gave the fat an off taste. Cheaper feeds sometimes use ingredients that can cause that off flavor in pork.

Oh man, I think this is it. I did a bit of reading up on boar taint and it sounds very similar to what I experienced. The off taste was faint, almost like sweat or urine. Not totally disgusting, but just unpleasant enough. I tossed the batch last night, very disappointed after so much work.

On the plus side, I'm relieved that it wasn't spoiled meat. A day later and nobody in the house is sick.

This is a first for me after years of BBQing.. Learned something new, and know what to keep an eye out for in the future.

Thanks indaswamp indaswamp and rjob rjob !
 
I don't have any useful insight to your predicament but I have a question on your smoke process. Do you feel like 2 hours of cold smoke and two hours of hot smoke followed by poaching imparts a smokey enough flavor? I would love to make my sausage this way and avoid any fat outs.
 
I don't have any useful insight to your predicament but I have a question on your smoke process. Do you feel like 2 hours of cold smoke and two hours of hot smoke followed by poaching imparts a smokey enough flavor? I would love to make my sausage this way and avoid any fat outs.
This is part of the process I'm still experimenting with. Last batch I did 4 hours cold smoke + 4 hours warm(hot) smoke, and it came out fantastic, although perhaps almost too smokey for a sausage on a bun. I ended up using that batch for cooking mostly.
 
This is part of the process I'm still experimenting with. Last batch I did 4 hours cold smoke + 4 hours warm(hot) smoke, and it came out fantastic, although perhaps almost too smokey for a sausage on a bun. I ended up using that batch for cooking mostly.
Hi there and welcome!

Just for clarity, is your pink salt Cure#1?

Also something else to think on cold smoking with out proper air flow can cause stale smoke which tastes bad. There might be a chance you are getting some of that.

If smoke lingers and loses oxygen it gets stale so when cold smoking you need the air to keep moving to keep fresh smoke on the meat.

Just something that may be contributing to the off taste :)
 
Hi there and welcome!

Just for clarity, is your pink salt Cure#1?

Also something else to think on cold smoking with out proper air flow can cause stale smoke which tastes bad. There might be a chance you are getting some of that.

If smoke lingers and loses oxygen it gets stale so when cold smoking you need the air to keep moving to keep fresh smoke on the meat.

Just something that may be contributing to the off taste :)

Yep it’s cure #1.

Good call out on the cold smoking. I’ve cold smoked with the pellet tube several times now (bacon and sausage) and this is something I do need to improve on. My setup isn’t ideal, I’ve detected a “dirty smoke” taste before. It’s possible that was a factor here, but I don’t think it was the only thing at play.. the foul flavor was more like sweat than bitter or tarry. Perhaps it could have exacerbated an already unpleasant taste, though!
 
Yep it’s cure #1.

Good call out on the cold smoking. I’ve cold smoked with the pellet tube several times now (bacon and sausage) and this is something I do need to improve on. My setup isn’t ideal, I’ve detected a “dirty smoke” taste before. It’s possible that was a factor here, but I don’t think it was the only thing at play.. the foul flavor was more like sweat than bitter or tarry. Perhaps it could have exacerbated an already unpleasant taste, though!
If you know stale smoke taste and this wasn't it then yeah probably something else. Figured I would bring it up though incase it was something new :)
 
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