Mission accomplished….my first summer sausage batch is completed! I want to thank everyone on the forum that answered my unending first timer questions which really helped make this a fun effort. As promised, here’s how it went.
Not being sure of what spices or recipes are close to our taste in summer sausage, I ended up using a spice mix from Excalibur. I believe it was the H Summer mix. I also decided, with input from the forum, to use 80/20 ground chuck instead of grinding my own beef. I am looking forward to putting the old Universal grinder to work one of these times as I got a number of new plates for it.
I mixed up the spices and Sure Cure using the proportions recommended by Excalibur into ¼ cup of cold water and then mixed in with the ground chuck.
I wasn’t sure whether to cure the mixture overnight in a covered bowl, or stuff it first and let the stuffed sausages cure overnight, ready to go. After more questions to the forum, I ended up letting the beef cure in a covered bowl in the fridge.
The next morning after at least 20 hours curing, I soaked the fibrous casings I got in water for about 30 minutes, prepared the smoker (MES30), and got the stuffer out. After a number of tries figuring out the best way to secure the stuffer (can’t use the wife’s granite countertop!), I started stuffing the 5 pounds of meat into 12” 2 ½ casings. The stuffing went fairly well except my first one I overstuffed and didn’t have enough end to twist. Getting that resolved, and fumbling with the hog ring pliers I got (which ended up being a ring size too big) I got them done. Worked out to 4 sausages and a little left over. I saw a post on the forum where a guy just wraps the mixture with cheese cloth and bakes for 4 hours. Might try that with the leftover.
The next decision was whether to hang the sausages at room temp for a couple hours or put them in the smoker at 120° without smoke for an hour. Both ways have been presented on the forum. I chose to put them in the smoker.
After an hour at 120°, I brought the temp of the smoker up to 150° and got the AMNPS fired up. The one issue I continue to fight is getting the AMNPS to stay lit even with the MES chip loader removed but that’s another story!
As I’ve seen on a number of posts, I brought the temp up to 170° over the next hour or two and continued to work on keeping the smoke up. It took a while, longer than I had expected for some reason, but I kept the smoker going until the summer sausages got to an IT of 153°. I’ve seen anywhere from 150° to 155° IT so I split the difference. I immediately put the sausages in ice water and brought the IT down to 100° which took about 30 minutes. The casings looked just a bit wrinkly but not bad. I’ve seen store bought summer sausage look worse.
Once at the 100° mark, I dried the sausages and hung them at room temp for about 2 ½ hours. I was happy to see that after the blooming period, the casings smoothed out and the sausages looked and felt like I thought they should.
At that point, I put them in the fridge and finally got to bed. This morning, I couldn’t wait so I took one and sliced it up. The moment of truth and I was really happy to see the perfect color and firmness.
The casing came off the sausage cleanly and my first taste told me I had succeeded!!
While the flavor was very good, it was a bit too salty for my taste and missing the tangy flavor I’m used to from the summer sausage I got in Wisconsin…The smoke flavor was just about right on. I like my summer sausage a little courser, so I think my next try I’m gonna grind my own beef, once I figure out the best cut to use. I think I may look at more recipes for spices here on the forum as well to see what might be a bit closer to what I’m used to.
Bottom line, I’m very happy with my first effort with many more to come!
Not being sure of what spices or recipes are close to our taste in summer sausage, I ended up using a spice mix from Excalibur. I believe it was the H Summer mix. I also decided, with input from the forum, to use 80/20 ground chuck instead of grinding my own beef. I am looking forward to putting the old Universal grinder to work one of these times as I got a number of new plates for it.
I mixed up the spices and Sure Cure using the proportions recommended by Excalibur into ¼ cup of cold water and then mixed in with the ground chuck.
I wasn’t sure whether to cure the mixture overnight in a covered bowl, or stuff it first and let the stuffed sausages cure overnight, ready to go. After more questions to the forum, I ended up letting the beef cure in a covered bowl in the fridge.
The next morning after at least 20 hours curing, I soaked the fibrous casings I got in water for about 30 minutes, prepared the smoker (MES30), and got the stuffer out. After a number of tries figuring out the best way to secure the stuffer (can’t use the wife’s granite countertop!), I started stuffing the 5 pounds of meat into 12” 2 ½ casings. The stuffing went fairly well except my first one I overstuffed and didn’t have enough end to twist. Getting that resolved, and fumbling with the hog ring pliers I got (which ended up being a ring size too big) I got them done. Worked out to 4 sausages and a little left over. I saw a post on the forum where a guy just wraps the mixture with cheese cloth and bakes for 4 hours. Might try that with the leftover.
The next decision was whether to hang the sausages at room temp for a couple hours or put them in the smoker at 120° without smoke for an hour. Both ways have been presented on the forum. I chose to put them in the smoker.
After an hour at 120°, I brought the temp of the smoker up to 150° and got the AMNPS fired up. The one issue I continue to fight is getting the AMNPS to stay lit even with the MES chip loader removed but that’s another story!
As I’ve seen on a number of posts, I brought the temp up to 170° over the next hour or two and continued to work on keeping the smoke up. It took a while, longer than I had expected for some reason, but I kept the smoker going until the summer sausages got to an IT of 153°. I’ve seen anywhere from 150° to 155° IT so I split the difference. I immediately put the sausages in ice water and brought the IT down to 100° which took about 30 minutes. The casings looked just a bit wrinkly but not bad. I’ve seen store bought summer sausage look worse.
Once at the 100° mark, I dried the sausages and hung them at room temp for about 2 ½ hours. I was happy to see that after the blooming period, the casings smoothed out and the sausages looked and felt like I thought they should.
At that point, I put them in the fridge and finally got to bed. This morning, I couldn’t wait so I took one and sliced it up. The moment of truth and I was really happy to see the perfect color and firmness.
The casing came off the sausage cleanly and my first taste told me I had succeeded!!
While the flavor was very good, it was a bit too salty for my taste and missing the tangy flavor I’m used to from the summer sausage I got in Wisconsin…The smoke flavor was just about right on. I like my summer sausage a little courser, so I think my next try I’m gonna grind my own beef, once I figure out the best cut to use. I think I may look at more recipes for spices here on the forum as well to see what might be a bit closer to what I’m used to.
Bottom line, I’m very happy with my first effort with many more to come!
