Italian smoked sausage but made my way

[Chris_in_SoCal]

I love Italian sausage but wanted to make my own a little different. I have watched many videos on how to make them the right way and I took a little bit from each to make my own. Normally they are not smoked but I thought they should be. I also took in the many ingredients suggested and came out with my own.

I started with a 4.6 Lb pork picnic and .8 Lb of beef burger.

For the spices I started with:

5.45 Lb Picnic Roast
.8 Lb beef burger
1.5 Tablespoons Fennel Seeds
1 Tablespoon Anise Seeds
1 Tablespoon Coriander
1.5 Tablespoons Dry Basil
1 Tablespoon Dry pepper Flakes
2 Tablespoons Sea Salt
1 Tablespoon Black pepper
1.5 Tablespoons Smoked Paprika
.5 Teaspoon ground Nutmeg
Zest from one whole Orange
4 Garlic cloves
1 whole cilantro bunch
2 oz Red Wine Vinegar
2 oz water

I ground the meat with a medium wheel.

I was about to start stuffing then decided to add cheese. I used about 10 oz of Tillamook White Charp Cheddar cut into 1/4" cubes. I put them in the freezer and the meat in the fridge for 3 hours. I added cure #1 to the meat at this point.

Casing the sausages was so much easier with my new LEM 5Lb sausage caser. This was so much easier to do by myself than the mixer attachment. It was definitely worth buying.

Into the smoker at 9:40pm. It will be a late night.

Luckily I now have a Thermopro with 4 probes and a remote that does not need a phone to work. I can watch the smoker as I sit on the computer.

P1 was the smoker temp. P2 was in a sausage.

4 1/2 hours smoking and they were done.

They were put into an ice bath to stop the cooking process and set the casings.

They look and smell so good I can't wait to try them out. At 2:45am it is too late for now.

 

[smokerjim]

They look really good

 

[gmc2003]

Wow those sausages look and sound great Chris. I see a nice Italian sausage sub in your future. Now to get the sweet peppers, onions and hot mustard - ummmm

Point for sure
Chris

 

[DRKsmoking]

Look great and sound great,
I'm with Chris, Italian sausage sub sandwich coming your way soon.

David

 

[Oceantoad]

Those look fantastic. A few years ago I learned an important lesson while making Italian Sausage. The importance of the test patty. I thought it was a waste of time. I was using a recipe that many have used and approved of before, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? I did up a big batch, stuffed them all into links, vacuumed packed all but a few links. I fried them up for breakfast the next day and got the shock of my life. It was at this moment I realized how important it is to have SALT in your recipe. In the process of copying the recipe, I accidently left out the the word and amount of salt. It wasn't until that first bite, after all that work, I realized what I had done. Lesson learned. Enjoy those little buggers.. They look great!

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

Oh yes, they came out as good as I could have expected. I made myself a little breakfast plate.

The cheese stayed in place and the taste was 10/10.

 

[02ebz06]

Terrific job Chris!!! And a nice breakfast...
I have some I made in the freezer, but I didn't put in casings as it is destined for pizza topping.

 

[sawhorseray]

Some fine work there Chris, great looking links! Italian sausage is about all I make anymore, pork, or chicken that the wife loves. I make 25 pounds at a time, too much work right now. RAY

 

[tx smoker]

Very nice Chris!! Those are some tasty looking sausages and that breakfast plate looks outstanding. Very well done sir....and this reminds me that I need to get some Italian sausage going.

Robert

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

One thing I did not mention in my post was that I tried a cheaper sausage casing. I only used about 1/3 of them and every one worked perfectly. I had no blowouts or any problems with them.

I bought them from Amazon. $10.80 for 25 feet. I thought that should be added.

 

[Danblacksher]

look fantastic going to try some next time I make sausage. How do you think these would do sliced on a pizza? Also noticed you didn't use any curing salt, or if you did you did not list it on the recipe.

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

look fantastic going to try some next time I make sausage. How do you think these would do sliced on a pizza? Also noticed you didn't use any curing salt, or if you did you did not list it on the recipe.

Actually I did add cure #1 when I decided to add the cheese and put it in the fridge. I guess it got lost in the details. I'm sure it would go great on pizza.