Sausage Maiden Voyage

[daveomak]

You are back in business.... that's good news.... Dave

 

[tbrtt1]

Update:

I baked a few batches of pellets and then vac packed em since I recently picked up a Foodsaver and it gave me an excuse use it. We will see how that goes.

I also got in some dust and used it on my batch of cured chicken sausage over the weekend. It worked well at the low temps I was using for the sausage smoke. I did put a small fan on low blowing under the smoker since just in case, but it kept burning even after I pulled the sausage and turned off the fan. So I would say the dust is what I will use for cold smoking. I used if for a hot smoke on some ribs too and the ribs were fantastic. Aside from the length of time of the burn, the dust seems to produce similar results.

 

[rgautheir20420]

Awesome. Glad the dust ended up working for you! You've got many good smokes ahead of you with the stuff. It works really well for warm smoking sausages also (i.e. smoking @ 170 F until proper IT stuff). Keep it up!

I just ordered another 8 lbs of dust also!!!

 

[azbohunter]

I hope my first try at sausage comes out as good as yours appears to have.

Looks great.

 

[chef willie]

 
OK. Update on the pellets. I had some maple pellets that gave me fits when I tried to cold smoke some cheese. Thanks to the suggestions on this thread I did a test run with those same maple pellets. I baked em in the oven at 275 for a little over an hour. When I put them in the maze and lit them immediately noticed a difference. I blew on them a bit and let them burn for 10 minutes and damn near half the row seemed like it was lighting up. Put it in the cold smoker and look what I got:

IMG_0263.JPG

• tbrtt1
• Nov 24, 2014

IMG_0264.JPG

• tbrtt1
• Nov 24, 2014

OK this is too much obviously. This was right after I put it in the smoker.  

I previously drilled a few extra holes in the bottom of my #2 some time back when I got the AMNPS. I usually plug one or more of them with some wadded up foil since I really hadn't needed all 4 of them previous to this weekend. I had all 4 open since the weekend troubles.  I plugged 3 of them to see how things would level out:

IMG_0265.JPG

• tbrtt1
• Nov 24, 2014

3 hours in: 

IMG_0266.JPG

• tbrtt1
• Nov 24, 2014

Keep in mind this is a cold smoke. Not heat at all and it is "chilly" tonight at around 55*. 

Problem solved. Will bake before using. I am considering pre-baking and then vac sealing some to see if that will keep em dry. 

Well, this is timely & informative for me. I've got a #3 and have had a HELL of a time keeping the AMNS lit. Did the microwave bit & the oven bit but not at 275 for an hour ala Dave.....I guess that's my next try. I enlarged the existing air hole to a 1/2 inch but did not drill another one or two as some owners have done. I guess that's gonna be my project today after it warms up a bit here. There was a very old post/thread with Scarbelly (?) and Todd testing out the AMNS in the new SI's at the time and it was decided 2 additional holes were needed, if I recall correctly, for a proper burn. Regardless, I'm drilling more holes ASAP after seeing results like yours. Thanks for posting the pics.....Willie