Liquid in summer sausage

[SomeMeatGuy]

Hi,

I made venison summer sausage for the first time in years. After smoking, cooling, and blooming, there is (still) a lot of liquid inside the casings. What did I do wrong?

I assume the meat is still fine to eat. Right now they're cut in half and sitting on a cooling rack (for airflow) so they dry out a bit prior to vacuum sealing and freezing.

Thanks!

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Did you bleed our the meat good?

Too much water in your mix, to high of start off heat made a fat-out

 

[DanMcG]

yeap, I bet you got the smoker to hot and had fat-out.
Share your recipe and cooking process and we could probably nail it down.

 

[SomeMeatGuy]

I absolutely used too much pork fat, but oh well. Lesson leaned. The sausage that I used a thermometer on got to about 170.

The meat was a bit wet but I drained it the best I could. Is there a trick to draining it?

Here's the recipe:

Jalapeño-Cheese Venison Summer Sausage Recipe

Summer sausages — sometimes called dry or hard sausages — are cured meats that are fermented and dried. They will keep for a long time — summer sausage even gets its name from staying preserved during summer months or with little or no refrigeration. Give this Jalapeño-Cheddar Venison Summer...

www.grit.com

Thank you!!

 

[DanMcG]

You need to keep the smoking temp below 170- 175°. and the sausage is done when it's above 154°

 

[archeryrob]

I only cook SS to 145¯ IT and then rest it there for 15 minutes or more. The products stays much more moist, IMO. Even though this is not what you might think you want right now. You have a problem from Fat out or an ice bath probably.

Did you ice bath the SS once done. I did that when I cooked it to 155 - 160 IT and found it gets water all under the casings. This is part of the reason I went to lower temps and just maily make SS when it is cooler out and air cool it. Plus when 145 IT slowly cooling doesn't over cook it.

The recipe you shared says to add pork, not pork fat. Adding as they say with 2# pork to 3# venison will give you a 12% fat recipe assuming the Pork is 30% like pork butt would be. I mix 73% beef with venison 50/50 for 14%. If you just want to use pork fat use 8.5# of venison to 1.5# of pork fat.

 

[SomeMeatGuy]

Thanks. everybody. I probably need to figure out how to drain it better, and then watch out how much fat I add. I was way over on the fat and cooking temp, and that probably is where some of the liquid came from. Hopefully I'll shoot another buck & get more meat to try it again.

I'm glad I found this site. I'm gunna start learning a lot from everybody. Thank you!

 

[archeryrob]

Once it cools fat will congeal under the casing, if that is your problem and then you will know. If it is still wet it is from the ice bath or too much water in the mix, if you added any.

 

[daveomak]

Maybe you used the wrong casing.... One that wouldn't breathe...
I made some awesome salami from left over Hot Italian sausage mix... I used a muslin casing I sewed.... I smoked it at 140-150 ish for about 24 hours.... smoked it until I squeezed it and the texture seemed right.... I used pasteurization tables to insure the salami was thoroughly dooked and safe to eat....

Temperature Time
°F (°C) (Minutes)
130 ..... 112 min
131 ..... 89 min
132 ..... 71 min
133 ..... 56 min
134 ..... 45 min
135 ..... 36 min
136 ..... 28 min
137 ..... 23 min
138 ..... 18 min
139 ..... 15 min
140 ..... 12 min
141 ........ 9 min
142 ....... 8 min
143 ....... 6 min
144 ...... 5 min
145 ...... 4 min
Table C.1: Pasteurization times for
beef, corned beef, lamb, pork
and cured pork (FDA, 2009, 3-401.11.B.2).