22 pounds of venison/pork jalapeno cheddar sausage

[uncle eddie]

This was my first ever big batch of sausage in my MES40. Lessons learned:

• Mixing this by hand was a chore and a good workout
• It took a long time...I put it in the smoker at 10:30 AM and pulled it at midnight
• The moisture load was far greater than expected. I should have cracked the door and run the smoker at a higher temp (to account for the cracked open door) for the drying.
• I should have walked the temperature up a bit faster - BUT
• It was absolutely delicious and worth doing again.

Thanks to all for all the pointers I received before I tried this. I think I ate another pound today when I was packaging it.

My recipe:

• 21 lbs - 50/50 venison/pork butt
• 1 lb high heat cheddar (~5% of meat weight)
• 24 oz. (drained) Mt. Olive Jalapenos (a little over an oz./lb of meat)
• Apple smoked
• fibrous casing for the 1.25" sausage and collogen for the 33mm casings

The cheddar was about right (for me) and the heat from the jalapenos was mild to medium depending on the bite...but mostly on the mild side. I will bump the jalapenos up to 1.5 oz. (drained) per pound of meat next batch.

Here are the pictures:

Grinding & adding spices/cheese/jalapenos

test patty's were spot-on

stuffed

loaded in the MES40 at 10:30. I was too tired, and didn't care, to take a "done pic" at midnight.

done pic - 40 hours later - let them mellow in the fridge during that time

sliced and ready to package

Packaged and headed to friends and the deep freeze

 

[SmokinEdge]

Labor of love for sure. Nice dang job man, and lessons learned. That’s awesome. Looks delicious btw.

 

[indaswamp]

Yep. Good lookin links uncle eddie. One tip- if you can allow for 1" of air space between links, it will speed up the cooking. Will also give more even smoke on the links. When I was running my MES GEN 1, the max I could successfully smoke without it taking forever was 12.5#....so as I started doing larger batches, I had to do 2-3 smoke sessions. That quickly got old and so I build my current smokehouse 2.5'x2.5'x6.5' tall. Now I can do large batches no problem.....

 

[uncle eddie]

Yep. Good lookin links uncle eddie. One tip- if you can allow for 1" of air space between links, it will speed up the cooking. Will also give more even smoke on the links. When I was running my MES GEN 1, the max I could successfully smoke without it taking forever was 12.5#....so as I started doing larger batches, I had to do 2-3 smoke sessions. That quickly got old and so I build my current smokehouse 2.5'x2.5'x6.5' tall. Now I can do large batches no problem.....

I agree with you on every point.
==> FWIW - The links were not touching - but they were very close together.
==> My new max weight of sausage loaded in the MES40 is now in the 10 +/- pound range.

 

[chopsaw]

That was an undertaking . The sliced results look great . My max weight for my MES 30 is 10 lbs. I'll hang it at room temp the night before . I've gone to a smoke then cook method . Hang at 120 to get the color I like . Then bump to 140 for 30 minutes , then bump to 160 to finish . This time of year I just shut it down when it gets to temp and let it hang in the smoker if it's late .
Yours looks great . Love the cut pics . I used to do mine 50/50 deer pork . Nice work bud .

 

[zwiller]

Looks great! Yep, agree a labor of love and been there done that. I REALLY liked the related threads we had and all the killer info and this one is no exception with the max weight for smoker info.

I'll hang it at room temp the night before .

^THIS helped me big time and hoping PID helps even more.

 

[WI Smoker77]

Great looking sausages. A lot of work for sure, but the results speak for themselves. Job well done.

 

[SmokinAl]

Nice job Eddie!
You sure filled that MES up, that’s for sure!
Al

 

[smokerjim]

Looks good

 

[pushok2018]

Great looking sausage, Eddie! Nice color and what I see from "sliced" pic - nice texture. Definitely a lot of work but it was worth it!!!

 

[jcam222]

Looks great!! Do you need my address?? Haha kidding. Seriously I’ll bet those are quite tasty.

 

[sawhorseray]

A ton of fine work there Eddie, looks like you're all set for awhile! RAY

 

[tallbm]

Great job and great looking sausage!

If you do the sausage hanging "mod" you can hang 20 pounds no problem in an MES 40.

The mod is to cut some wood that slides behind the rack holders at the top. The wood presses against the left wall and right wall and slides down to be held in place by the rack holder bars.

This wood has 4 little "V" shaped notches cut into it and you place little wooden towels in the notches.

Hang the sausage from the wooden dowels.

Here's an example (not my pic), I use the thinner dowel but you can move up to the thicker ones like in the pic

 

[indaswamp]

tallbm ....
What are the dimensions of the smokebox on a MES 40? How much bigger is it than the original GEN1 MES? I know with the smaller original GEN1 MES the most I could smoke was 12.5#...

 

[uncle eddie]

Great job and great looking sausage!

If you do the sausage hanging "mod" you can hang 20 pounds no problem in an MES 40.

The mod is to cut some wood that slides behind the rack holders at the top. The wood presses against the left wall and right wall and slides down to be held in place by the rack holder bars.

This wood has 4 little "V" shaped notches cut into it and you place little wooden towels in the notches.

Hang the sausage from the wooden dowels.

Here's an example (not my pic), I use the thinner dowel but you can move up to the thicker ones like in the pic
View attachment 517853

Time for a mod…thanks for posting this!

 

[yankee2bbq]

Man oh man great work!
Well worth it!

LIKE!

 

[tallbm]

tallbm ....
What are the dimensions of the smokebox on a MES 40? How much bigger is it than the original GEN1 MES? I know with the smaller original GEN1 MES the most I could smoke was 12.5#...

Internal Dimentions:

13 in Deep
20in Wide
34.5 in Tall
24 in from Bottom Rack to Top

Mine's an MES40 Gen 1

 

[indaswamp]

A lot more room than the old original MES GEN1......

 

[tallbm]

A lot more room than the old original MES GEN1......

Bought it in like 2016 or 2017, cant remember :)

 

[uncle eddie]

I got feedback from several people doing taste tests at work and with friends/family.

• The sausage in the 1.25 inch fibrous casing is a hit. Only suggestion is to add a bit more jalapeno or leave it exactly as is.
• The sausage in the 33mm collogen casings tastes a bit oversmoked as compared to the 1.25 inch casing...but are still good. I ran out of 1.25" casing so I used 33mm collogen to finish the batch.

Live and learn. Next batch I will make sure all casings are the same size.

Next try is hard salami (no jalpeno, no cheese).