New Masterbuilt temperature spike on my Summer Sausage!

[Hunting.kit]

I upgraded from a barely utilized gas smoker (didn’t do a lot of smoking as temp was so hard to regulate) to a Masterbuilt Electric. I gave it its maiden voyage last night smoking some pork chops and they turned out fantastic. Fast forward to today where the real test was to begin with some SS I got ready and cured yesterday. I put a cookie sheet of sand on the lowest rack to help let the temp disperse more evenly. After I hung the SS I started it out at 120 for an hour with no smoke to help dry up the casings. Moved it up to 130 for an 45 minutes (attempting to get the smoke rolling) and when I saw there was no smoke I spiked it up to 175 it only (the actual temp readout for the smoker was at 140 don’t worry)for just a couple minutes to get the smoke going. I turned it back down to 140 and kept it at that for another 45 minutes. I turned it up to 160 for another hour and then pushed it up to 180 to get my target temp of 156. I literally waited on the temp for 6 hours before I decided to turn it up another 5 degrees from 180 (meat temp at 142) to try to help it along. Fast forward another hour and I step outside, the smokers temp readout said 192 and my alarm was going off for meat temp. The temp had spiked to 204(don’t know how it’s possible) it said. Any insight? Sorry about the lengthy read, just wanted to give you guys as much info as possible.

 

[chef jimmyj]

The smoker temp can be off 20° easily. That would give the high IT. Check the grate temp with a known accurate therm...JJ

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

Yes what jimmy said. The masterbuilts thermos are known to be off as much as 40-50 degrees at times. Look into a maverick 732 or something comparable to get accurate temps of your smoker & meat.

Also when doing game sticks about a year ago I had the same issue in a electric smoker. Almost 10 hours in and I couldn’t get it up to my final temp. I didn’t want to boost it to high so I took it all inside, vacusealed it all, and finished it in the sous vide. Came out perfect. Probably use the sv for all sticks and summer sausage finishing in the future.

Good luck,
Scott

 

[Hunting.kit]

After it’s ice bath I couldn’t help myself and cut into it to see my creation. I honestly don’t know if I rendered any fat off or not. It taste great, looks like it has a consistency of about bologna, but firmer. I can still see fat pieces inside so I know it didn’t render it all out. Thanks for the insight and quick replies!

 

[Braz]

hillbillyrkstr, not to hijack the thread, but what temp and time did you s/v the sticks?

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

It was last January so I might not be 100 correct but I believe we started at 140 with no smoke for 2 hours to dry out the casings and then went up 10 degrees every hour after that with smoke up to 170. The smoker was as full as it can be and it’s an old proofing cabinet for a school. Probably near 100 pounds of meat in it.

As not happy as I was that day it turned out to be a great day the next day when I finished everything in the sv cooler. From now on I think I’m going to smoke for a few hours and then finish with the sv.

Scott

Edit: sorry Braz just reread your question and realized you wanted the sv temp. I think I used the finish temp I was shooting for of 160 degrees. And I believe I used the inch per hour rule. I winged it.

Had some big 2 inch summer sausage logs as well. Think I did them for about 2 1/2 hours. Did the logs in two batches and the sticks in a different sv for an hour.