Curing Question?

[mnrookie]

This past weekend I made up about 10lbs of venison brats.  After mixing, and getting ready to case them, I realized I didn't look far enough in the recipe to add cure to smoke it (stupid mistake).  I was only going to smoke them for a short period of time to get some color on them, and add some smoke flavor.  However not cook it to the 152 internal.  I was planning on fully cooking them when I was ready to eat them.  Can I still smoke them without the cure for a few hours on low temps?  It will be in the "danger zone" for a bit, but is that ok if I fully cook them through when they're ready to eat?

 

[ol' smokey]

Yes you can still go ahead and smoke your brats. However I would fully cook them and then freeze and reheat as you need to use them. A couple of hours of smoke at around 225° will get it done for you. Hope this helps?

 

[Bearcarver]

This past weekend I made up about 10lbs of venison brats.  After mixing, and getting ready to case them, I realized I didn't look far enough in the recipe to add cure to smoke it (stupid mistake).  I was only going to smoke them for a short period of time to get some color on them, and add some smoke flavor.  However not cook it to the 152 internal.  I was planning on fully cooking them when I was ready to eat them.  Can I still smoke them without the cure for a few hours on low temps?  It will be in the "danger zone" for a bit, but is that ok if I fully cook them through when they're ready to eat?

I'm going to give my opinion on this, but don't take it as fact. BBally or somebody else could give a more accurate answer to this one.

I would say, without the cure, as long as your total time is less than 4 hours you'd be OK, but that would include the total time above 40˚, from the time it crosses that line in or out of the smoker, until you take it out, and including the time it takes to go back below 40˚ again while packaging & freezing. To shorten that time, you could put it right in the freezer from the smoker. Then once it gets below 40˚---then package it & freeze it. Then just make sure you take it to 152 fast when you make it (I prefer 160˚ myself).

Bear

That's my best "GUESS", because I'm just using my thought here, and not any known information.

 

[pineywoods]

Personally I would go ahead and hot smoke it to 155-160 internal then freeze it and reheat it when you are ready to eat it.

 

[rbranstner]

This past weekend I made up about 10lbs of venison brats.  After mixing, and getting ready to case them, I realized I didn't look far enough in the recipe to add cure to smoke it (stupid mistake).  I was only going to smoke them for a short period of time to get some color on them, and add some smoke flavor.  However not cook it to the 152 internal.  I was planning on fully cooking them when I was ready to eat them.  Can I still smoke them without the cure for a few hours on low temps?  It will be in the "danger zone" for a bit, but is that ok if I fully cook them through when they're ready to eat?

I'm going to give my opinion on this, but don't take it as fact. BBally or somebody else could give a more accurate answer to this one.

I would say, without the cure, as long as your total time is less than 4 hours you'd be OK, but that would include the total time above 40˚, from the time it crosses that line in or out of the smoker, until you take it out, and including the time it takes to go back below 40˚ again while packaging & freezing. To shorten that time, you could put it right in the freezer from the smoker. Then once it gets below 40˚---then package it & freeze it. Then just make sure you take it to 152 fast when you make it (I prefer 160˚ myself).

Bear

That's my best "GUESS", because I'm just using my thought here, and not any known information.

This is what we use to always do for years before I built my smoke shack. We would have to do 10-15 loads of sausage on our little smokers and we didn't have the time to let them cook all the way. We would smoke them for around an hour to give them a little color and flavor and then we would package and freeze them right away. We always did this in the winter so it was really cold out and it was easy to get the sausage out of the smoker and back down below 40 degrees. But then again we always had cure it the mix so my situation is a bit different.

 

[mnrookie]

Thanks for the great replies.  I'm glad to hear I can still throw it in the smoker.  I'll plan on doing that this weekend.

 

[Bearcarver]

Thanks for the great replies.  I'm glad to hear I can still throw it in the smoker.  I'll plan on doing that this weekend.

MNRookie,

Just so you know, if it were me, I would do what Pineywoods said, but I was trying to just answer your question the best I could.

Bear

 

[mnrookie]

Thanks bear