Pellet grill vs electric smoker for venison?

[qwerty11]

Hi all. I recently have gotten into making venison sausage.. My question is, would a pellet grill such as a Green Mountain, or a smoker such as a Masterbuilt model be better for my needs?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[fullsmoke]

The green mountain temp won't go low enough for sausage and doesn't produce enough smoke that's my thoughts

 

[crankybuzzard]

Hi all. I recently have gotten into making venison sausage.. My question is, would a pellet grill such as a Green Mountain, or a smoker such as a Masterbuilt model be better for my needs?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Sausage with cure or no cure?

How do you want to smoke your sausage? Low and slow or hot?

 

[qwerty11]

Sausage with cure or no cure?

How do you want to smoke your sausage? Low and slow or hot?

I honestly do not have a clue. I am a total noob at this. I just smoked my first 25lb batch. I used a kit from Cabelas and a friends smoker. I haven't llearned anything about the pros/cons of cure vs no cure and low/slow vs hot. I would be grateful for any guidance.

 

[sunerylander]

Both propane and charcoal briquets pollute the taste of your meat. That’s why serious barbecuers use either pellets made from select hardwoods or natural lump charcoal, containing only hardwood. Those two approaches are epitomized by Traeger and Big Green Egg, respectively. But, is one better than the other? The answer surprised us. 

 

[ammaturesmoker]

look into the smoke Vault by camp chef. It has low temp you need and is much cheaper than a pellet unit.

 

[browneyesvictim]

It seems you have more than one question hidden in your post. If you stuffed ground meat (doesn't matter what kind) into links and cooked them for a couple of hours until done with some smoke in a grill, does that make them "smoked sausage"? Many would argue yes, but fundamentally there is a difference between "grilling" and "smoking". Grilling is more associated with higher temps and searing. Smoking is lower temps for longer time. Most electric smokers aren't meant for higher temps (300+ degrees) I believe as Cranky was eluding to, what you asked and how you asked it is kind of a loaded question. You could technically make smoked sausage in just about anything- including a cardboard box!

The second part of your loaded question that you must educate yourself on is how food safety is critically important when slow smoking in the danger zone temperatures where foodborne pathogens multiply exponentially. Therein, where a precise amount of cure is added to kill deadly botulism bacteria. Congratulation on coming here to SMF to read and learn about these safe methods! There is so much more to learn besides "which smoker is best", and you find the answer to this question more appropriately as it applies to your needs rather than someone else's opinion. There's  more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to smoking one. but there are some safety gloves to put on first.

 

[ammaturesmoker]

are you adding any beef to this sausage?

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!

If you are going to smoke sausage low and slow you should end up using cure because you don't generally go over 165F or too much higher in order to keep the fat in your sausage from melting out of of your sausage.  This means smoking the sausage takes a long time in danger temp zones for botulism.  The cure added to the sausage will solve the botulism problem.

Now with that said, the user fullsmoke mentions above that the Green Mountain pellet smoker will NOT do low temps for smoking sausage so that seems to eliminate pellet grills or at least that pellet grill.

The Masterbuilt Electric Smokers (MES) can do low temps... BUT it has been widely reported (search and you can see) that their built in mechanism for producing smoke with chips or pellets does not work well enough to produce smoke at low temperatures. The heating element just does not get hot enough for long enough to cause the wood to smoke.   So you get the heat but not the smoke. 

It seems that most MES owners move to using the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMPNS) tray to produce the best smoke results using pellets in their MES anyhow.  They also seem to move on to adding the Mailbox Modification when doing this to make applying the smoke a total "Set and forget" operation with no hassle.  See my MES with mailbox mod and AMNPS tray with pellets below.

If you want to talk venison sausage making itself, I do about 100 pounds of fresh Venison sausage a year and hope to begin smoking some soon and in the future!  I have some killer tips that ensure you easily make great the most consistent Venison sausage year in and year out.

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• tallbm
• Jan 8, 2017

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• tallbm
• Jan 8, 2017

 

[fullsmoke]

I use pellets for some as well works great and has a long smoke time

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• fullsmoke
• Mar 16, 2017