First time smoking sausage

[smokin lewie]

Hey! I'm looking for some advice on making sausage for the first time. I bought a grinder with a stuffing tube from cabelas and went ahead and bought the colagen casings they had for sale there also. What I have at home is a pork butt and a London broil I thought I could grind up together for my first try. The pork butt is 8lbs and the broil is 1lb. My thought is to grind it all up and let it sit over night and put them on the smoker the next day. My main questions are how long to cook them and what would be a good smoking temp? Also should I precook them and finish smoke? I honestly would rather do all the cooking on the smoker. I use a Oklahoma Joes highland and have had a lot of good cooks on it. Thank you for any advice!

 

[crankybuzzard]

What kind of sausage do you wanto to make?  That will determine a lot of things.

Also, do you have any cure #1 to use?  In order to determine the cook temps and time, we need to know if this will be cured sausage or fresh.

The pork butt will work great for sausage, but the LB will be too lean, and that small amount of beef added to that amount of pork won't do much for you.  

 

[smokin lewie]

My thought was making fresh sausage not cured. I figured whatever we don't use right away I would freeze. Please feel free to tell me if I'm on track because I'm trying to learn. Basically I was going to use black pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper and see how it turns out. What kind of meat and how much do you think would work well? Or maybe just pork butt and no meat?

 

[SmokyMose]

Sounds like you have a lot going on, lewie. Throw the London Broil back in the freezer for another time. Why are you smoking the butt for sausage?

 

[smokin lewie]

I didn't know exactly what to get to make sausage so I thought a butt was a good amount of meat with fat to try out

 

[pc farmer]

Butts are great to grind for sausage.

The real question is what kinda sausage do you want to make

 

[SmokinAl]

There are lots of sausage recipes on here, but like the rest said, you need to know what you are making. For fresh sausage, good start would be breakfast, or Italian sausage. Use the search bar & read a few recipes until you find one you like.

Al

 

[tropics]

My thought was making fresh sausage not cured. I figured whatever we don't use right away I would freeze. Please feel free to tell me if I'm on track because I'm trying to learn. Basically I was going to use black pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper and see how it turns out. What kind of meat and how much do you think would work well? Or maybe just pork butt and no meat?

Fresh Kielbasi

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/240692/kielbasa-smoked-and-fresh

Chicken Italian Style 

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/201583/chicken-sausage-italian

You can use Pork in place of Chicken 

Hope this helps.

Richie

 

[smokin lewie]

Tropics thanks for the links I learned a lot from them! And thank the rest of you for the great advice. I didn't realize how little I knew until I started reading! I'm leaning towards making fresh Italian and seeing how it goes for my first try. I will keep you all posted.

 

[worktogthr]

Tropics thanks for the links I learned a lot from them! And thank the rest of you for the great advice. I didn't realize how little I knew until I started reading! I'm leaning towards making fresh Italian and seeing how it goes for my first try. I will keep you all posted.

Use his Italian chicken sausage recipe with chicken or pork. It's top notch!

 

[smokin lewie]

I ended up using the fresh Italian sausage recipe that tropics had posted. I used it with an 8 lb pork butt and the links look good for my first time. They are in the frig for the night then I'm planning on putting them on the smoker tomorrow at 225 until I get an internal temp of 165. That's what I've read seems to be the way to go. Thanks again everyone for all the tips and advice. I will let you know how they turn out.

 

[smokin lewie]

3 hours at 225 and they turned out great. The colagen casings were a little tough but the flavor was good. Internal temp was 171 when I pulled them off the smoker. I will use natural casings next time. Thanks everyone for all the good advice!

 

[crankybuzzard]

3 hours at 225 and they turned out great. The colagen casings were a little tough but the flavor was good. Internal temp was 171 when I pulled them off the smoker. I will use natural casings next time. Thanks everyone for all the good advice!

Don't leave us hanging! Surely you took a pic or 4

 

[el ducko]

One trick to remember when smoking sausages is to keep the temperature below 170 degF so you don't render the fat. You're trying to smoke, not cook. (...although you can do that later.)

There's a temperature window:

---Start off drying your sausage. Smoke on wet sausage causes a bitter taste, "they say." Vent wide open, 100 degF until it dries and a sticky pellicle forms.

---You did use cure #1, right? (Don't smoke without it.) Set the temperature above 140 degF while smoking, high enough to reduce the chance of botulism but cool enough for good smoke uptake. Smoke for the desired length of time (2 to 4 hours). I use an Amazin' tubular smoke generator. Works great. I had poor luck with chips.

---Then raise the smoker temperature to at most 170 and monitor internal meat temperature until it hits 150 - 155, to kill any possible trichanae. However, if you are using an electric smoker, be aware that the temperature control usually isn't that good. Mine cycled between 2 degrees below and 10 above the setpoint, so keep the setpoint lower. If you have to, finish heating in your kitchen oven. (...but check it, too. Some ovens also are lousy at temperature control.)

I recently bought an Auber PID controller, which controls to a much tighter range than the usual off/on control. At $180, it cost more than  the original smoker (!), but it's worth it to me.

One more trick for tender casings: keep a pan of water in the smoker, to keep the heat moist.

Best of luck,

el Ducko

SausagesWest.com

 

[dirtsailor2003]

 
One trick to remember when smoking sausages is to keep the temperature below 170 degF so you don't render the fat. You're trying to smoke, not cook. (...although you can do that later.)

There's a temperature window:

---Start off drying your sausage. Smoke on wet sausage causes a bitter taste, "they say." Vent wide open, 100 degF until it dries and a sticky pellicle forms.

---You did use cure #1, right? (Don't smoke without it.) Set the temperature above 140 degF while smoking, high enough to reduce the chance of botulism but cool enough for good smoke uptake. Smoke for the desired length of time (2 to 4 hours). I use an Amazin' tubular smoke generator. Works great. I had poor luck with chips.

---Then raise the smoker temperature to at most 170 and monitor internal meat temperature until it hits 150 - 155, to kill any possible trichanae. However, if you are using an electric smoker, be aware that the temperature control usually isn't that good. Mine cycled between 2 degrees below and 10 above the setpoint, so keep the setpoint lower. If you have to, finish heating in your kitchen oven. (...but check it, too. Some ovens also are lousy at temperature control.)

I recently bought an Auber PID controller, which controls to a much tighter range than the usual off/on control. At $180, it cost more than  the original smoker (!), but it's worth it to me.

One more trick for tender casings: keep a pan of water in the smoker, to keep the heat moist.

Best of luck,

el Ducko

SausagesWest.com

The OP made fresh sausage, not cured and smoked. Go back and read the tread...

 

[smokin lewie]

Sorry buzzard I didn't get good pictures. But I did learn a lot and am looking forward to trying it again,

 

[smokin lewie]

And this time with good pictures! Thanks for the info El duck I will use it!