A bad plan and bad results

[pineywoods]

Awhile back I built a smokehouse without much planing and haven't gotten much of a chance to try it out. I decided to smoke some bacon and things went pretty well with that. The drum I'm using for a heat and smoke source is 10' from the smokehouse with a 6" stove pipe coming out of the side of the drum and into the bottom of the smokehouse. While smoking the bacon I noticed the temps stayed quite low with it being over 100 degrees outside that day my temps never got over 130 and that only for a few minutes. Well I saved a bunch of venison to make summer sausage and decided now was the time so my brother in law and I made up 75 lbs of it and did 25 lbs of brats to smoke too. So today after getting everything done and ready I knew I'd need a bigger fire so I built it I couldn't get the temps past about 120 even tho it was about 96 here today. I decided I had to move the drum closer so I removed a 5' section of stove pipe and got the drum closer. I struggled for awhile but finally got decent temps and kept stepping them up. Well the weather started changing and I knew storms were on the way soon so I gathered some more wood and put it under the pole barn and then it hit the sausage temps were about 110 by this time. We got a very bad storm with lots of thunder and lightning and rain sideways well the fire went out. As soon as it was safe I went out and got the wood under the pole barn which was now wet. Sausage temps had fallen to about 105 at this point and I got out my weed burner and went to work trying to get the fire going again by the time I got it going decent the sausage temps were down around 100. I struggled with the fire and never did get the smokehouse above 150 again and sausage temps at 12 hours into the smoke were still in the low 120's. I finally took the brats out and let them cool and put them in the fridge I'll just hot smoke them or take them to temp when I grill them. I now have part of the summer sausage in the oven and have another batch to get in when this batch finishes. I think I have figured out I really don't have good draft in the smokehouse and the drum really isn't a great heat source. I'm hoping to save the summer sausage but am not sure if I can or not. Lesson learned I should have taken the time to fully test the smokehouse before trying to use it and especially for such a large amount. This smokehouse will now be used only for bacon until I can figure it out or build a better one with more planning. Sorry for the long post but hopefully somebody can learn from my mistake and at this time I got nothing better to do except maybe throw it all away and have a total loss

 

[rodinbangkok]

Are you cold smoking or hot smoking? Your setup sounds like a cold smoke house, but the temperatures your striving for are above 100, which would put you out of the cold smoking range. I cold smoke at 90, never going above 95. Your describing bacon and summer sausage, which are cold smoked normally and should include nitrates/nitrites, it sounds to me like your looking for something in between cold and hot smoking. If you do not have the minimal ppm levels of nitrate/nitrites in your meats, then you should most likely toss the bunch.

 

[pineywoods]

It was cured using Prague #1/Instacure and I was looking for a final temp of 152. What I was looking for in the smokehouse was to raise the temps slowly with a final smoker temp of about 170.

Since it was cured properly do ya'll think I will be ok with it?

 

[rodinbangkok]

If this happens again and you pull it just pop in an oven till the internal temp is up. A lot of factors involved in saying is it ok, the proper level of cure and minimum internal temp reached. I'm from the old school which says try it, use it yourself smell, etc. But would never serve suspect processed product to anyone but myself. If its been refrigerated since you pulled it, you can take it back up to min temp in an oven, but again I'd use it only for personal use.

Smoking meats takes time and patience, your smokehouse is about 80% there, now you just need to play with it and map out the internal temps and different setups. Smoking at higher temps takes a lot more energy and you may want to put an internal heat source in the house for higher temps, while using your cold smoke source to provide the smoke.

 

[alblancher]

Hi Piney

Did you think about adding a small propane or electric stove to the smokehouse. Use the barrel for the smoke and build your temps with the extra heating.

Al

 

[pineywoods]

Heres what happened I put them in and had the sausage up to 110 when the storm hit by the time I got temps back up they had fallen to 100 this was in an hour and a half I of course don't know exactly how long the fire was out but had to be less than that. Once I got the fire going again I could not get it over 150 so at 3 am I pulled some out and stuck it in the oven at 175 and kept the smokehouse going as well when the internal sausage temps hit 152 I pulled them and put the ones that were in the smoker into the oven. The sausage was cured with Prague #1 at 1 ounce per 25 lbs I did 3 batches. So given this info do you think there is any problem with the sausage as far as safety concerns since it was cured I think it should be fine but would like to hear from somebody with more experience curing and smoking sausage

 

[erain]

jerry, being you did have the proper amount of cure in the sausage... at least the summer. not sure if you had cure in the brats... but the summer stuff should be fine, basically chemically cooked by the cure. the idea of having an additional heat source really seems like the ideal solution to your smoker prob. whether elec or gas elements are used just shield them from possibly dripping grease to prevent a flareup. and just leave the drum be and basically consider it as a smoke generator only. you may want to ck into the draft situation just so you are not holding stale smoke inside the smoke chamber but have a constant supply of smoke with enough draft to keep it moving on through. just my opinion bud.

 

[grouper sandwich]

Jerry, don't you have a propane burner that you were going to use as an internal heat source? And you know WAAAAAY more about the cure and smoke process of meats than I do, but my understanding was if it's been cured properly, which I can't belive it wasn't, it should be fine for storage and just take up to temp before serving.

 

[DanMcG]

Sorry to hear you had troubles Jerry. The SS should be fine if they were cured.

 

[pineywoods]

Thanks ya'll I did cure all the sausage including the brats so I think it will be fine.

As far as an additional heat source that will take some mods so it doesn't get dripped on or catch the smokehouse on fire

 

[travcoman45]

Keep workin at it jerry, ya get that figured out, just takes a bit a time is all.

 

[div]

the bacon sure did look good !!

 

[sumosmoke]

I've seen the smokehouse in person and it appeared to be a pretty neat setup. Looks like it would work based on the pure design but .. sorry to hear it did not turn out that way.

Sounds as if your SS isn't a total loss, from the cure-ators ..

 

[countrysmoked]

It sounds like you got it all covered. the cure and cooking should have all you sausage edible. for the smokehouse I would maybe check into a bigger pipe between the drum and the smokehouse and so you have a chimney on the smokehouse? more draft will pull more heat and smoke into the house. A damper in the pipe between the drum and the house could let you cold smoke (below 95) or hot smoke (250) by opening or closing the damper. Just some ideas, hope they help.