It's taking longer than expected to reach temp

[Brshooter]

Doing my first batch of smoked sausage links in my Masterbuilt electric. Using the temp/timetable from the Best Practices thread.

1. Preheat your smoker to 120° with no smoke
2. Place the sausages into the preheated smoker and allow them to “dry out” for at least one hour at this temperature.
3. Then, if the exterior of the sausage is fairly dry, add smoke and raise the temperature 10° to 130. Allow the sausages to smoke at this temperature for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, raise the temperature 10° to 140°.
5. Each 30 minutes, raise the temperature 10° until you hit 170°. Don’t go much higher than this or you risk the fat rendering out of your sausage. That’s a bad thing.
6. Continue cooking until the internal temperature of the sausage is 152°.

They have been in for over 6 hours and still only about 130 degrees internal. I put an oven thermometer in and what I thought was 170 degrees was only reading about 150. I bumped it up and will watch the oven thermometer vs the smoker. How long do your sausages usually take to reach the 152 temp? Any thoughts or comments appreciated. These are hot links 32-35mm.

 

[oberst]

I never finish in the smoker; takes too long. I smoke sticks usually for 6 hours with final heat at 165. IT usually around 130. Then they go in the oven on 165 convection. Much more steady heat and they come up to 147-150 pretty fast. I don’t bother worrying about a finishing temp. They can finish at 147 just fine, IF you time them using the USDA tables. Or at 150 etc.

 

[Brshooter]

Just moved to the oven. I'll finish them off there. Seems like the thermometer on the Masterbuilt electric smoker is not accurate. I may have overloaded the smoker as well. I'm guessing that could have cut down on the air flow. Appreciate the feedback.

 

[DougE]

I smoke my sausages until I get the color I want, then finish to 151~152° in sous vide. I don't bag them or anything, just put the sausages right in the water. Once they hit temp, they get a cold water bath, then hung at room temp to bloom.

 

[Brshooter]

That sounds like a great way. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[DougE]

That sounds like a great way. Thanks for the suggestion.

It's not my original idea. I know of several members in the forum who finish their sausage in SV. That's where I got the idea to do it that way.

 

[tallbm]

Just moved to the oven. I'll finish them off there. Seems like the thermometer on the Masterbuilt electric smoker is not accurate. I may have overloaded the smoker as well. I'm guessing that could have cut down on the air flow. Appreciate the feedback.

Hi there and welcome!

Yeah MES thermometers are trash and are never correct. Good that u moved it to the oven.

 

[mike243]

While I agree highly with using a SV to finish my sausages aint going into the water without being bagged, I don't want my sausage waterlogged or the smoke washed off, also don't want the oils ect on my SV. whatever works for ya though. Taste and finished product is what your after and there's more ways to get than 1 so don't be afraid to try new methods.

 

[DougE]

Lots of sausage recipes call for poaching directly in a pot of water on the stovetop to finish. Using sous vide is just a more precise way of doing it. As far as grease/oils and SV circulators, it's a non-issue. A simple wash off when done is all it takes. Ever had a bag of non-sausage meat spring a leak in SV? It's no different than cleaning it up after that happens.

 

[processhead]

Trying to hit the upper IT in a small electric smoker can be tough to achieve if they are loaded with too much product. Too much cold meat soaking up all the heat from a too small of a heat source.

How many pounds of sausage are you loading in your smoker?

 

[Brshooter]

Trying to hit the upper IT in a small electric smoker can be tough to achieve if they are loaded with too much product. Too much cold meat soaking up all the heat from a too small of a heat source.

How many pounds of sausage are you loading in your smoker?

I had about 12 pounds. I think that was part of my problem. I think 6-8 pounds would work better. Always learning. End product turned out pretty good. May have oversmoked a bit, but still pleased.

 

[processhead]

IMO some smoker manufacturers will make unrealistic claims of their smoker's capacity. Best to start out with less lbs of sausage and work your way up.

 

[tallbm]

I had about 12 pounds. I think that was part of my problem. I think 6-8 pounds would work better. Always learning. End product turned out pretty good. May have oversmoked a bit, but still pleased.

An MES can do it, but there are problems.
As mentioned the temp probes are always off.
Then another big problem is that the MES swings the temps so if you want 170F it will go a good bit above 170F and drop below 170F to maybe give you an average.
These overshoots are horrible for sausage as they can cause the fat to render and seep out.

I do sausage whenever I want in my MES, but I also rewired it and use a PID controller to hit and hold the exact set temp. It performs like a champ... nothing like a stock MES performs.
I did the rewire and the PID controller especially for scenarios like this where I wanted to do sausage and other precise temp smokes.

Also closing the vent at the top of the MES helps once you are done rolling smoke.

Anyhow I hope all this info helps.

 

[indaswamp]

I may have overloaded the smoker as well. I'm guessing that could have cut down on the air flow.

I had about 12 pounds. I think that was part of my problem. I think 6-8 pounds would work better. Always learning. End product turned out pretty good. May have oversmoked a bit, but still pleased.

Yeah, 12.5# was the absolute MAX. that I could smoke efficiently when I had a MES gen1.... and it took a good 12 hours to finish them. I had to stuff the casing and make long links to get good airflow. minimum of 1" air space between the sausages.

 

[keahunter]

I am so happy to read this as i thought it was just me! I made 8 pounds of summer sausage last weekend and it took 11 hours to get to temp. I got extremely frustrated with the MES as the temp would fluctuate so much, like 20 degrees in either direction. Next time i will close the vents after rolling smoke to try and help.

 

[tallbm]

I am so happy to read this as i thought it was just me! I made 8 pounds of summer sausage last weekend and it took 11 hours to get to temp. I got extremely frustrated with the MES as the temp would fluctuate so much, like 20 degrees in either direction. Next time i will close the vents after rolling smoke to try and help.

Hi there and welcome!
Yeah the MES temp swing behavior is there by design. It makes sausage and bacon making a little tough since those are smokes that can be ruined by high temp spikes that melt the fat causing "fat out".

Closing the vent should help a lot once you are done with smoke.
If you are going to be doing a ton of sausage and/or bacon there is a way to upgrade your smoker by doing a simple rewire and using a PID controller which will then hold temps dead on or with in 1 degree of what you set.
The controller cost a little bit of money but you really have to think of it as though you are buying a brand new high performance smoker when you do this.
Its like turning a golf cart into a Ferrari when it comes to performance. Those 2 things are not apples to apples :)

 

[keahunter]

Thanks Tallbm, I appreciate it. I

 

[bill1]

Air flow is minimal in an all-electric cooker. After all, when the heat all comes from electricity you don't need airflow or draft like you do when burning fuel such as wood or propane.
And flow counts for a lot in transferring heat to a cooler object. Especially at lower temperatures where nothing is really red-hot enough to give a sizable infrared heating effect.