Slowly Increasing Temps

[reinhard]

The sausage looks real good. personaly i have never used collegen casings, but it depends on what a person likes. With natural casings you can twist the links, where in collegen you cant.  i know a few guys who use collegen casings for beef or venison sticks but not for sausage links [especialy fresh]. Again it's personal preference as far as casings. Before i got my smoker i "cooked" my kielbasa or any other sausage in the oven [with cure]. I set the temp at 225 deg and kept it at that temp the whole time and the sausage had great color and was done with good results. I had very little to almost no leakage from the casings. I think that was because i used one cup of dry milk as a binder per 5 pounds of meat mix. I use this in fresh and smoked sausage.

As far as the smoker i also do the slow temp rise now after learning that method on this forum.  Primarily for additional drying during the first hour or so with no smoke and then smoke during half the cooking time until finishing the sausage off at around 200 deg. I have learned where my hot spots are in my electric smoker [Masterbuilt 30 inch digital] so i arrange the sausage accordingly and rotate half way through. When i opperated a commercial smoker in my working days the smoker was set up to gradualy rise temps to a final temp of 225 and then had a automatic cold water rinse when done. The smoke was automaticly loaded with very small wood chips as i recal [also for half the time in the smoking proccess]. It's a lot more fun with a smoker at home. Reinhard

 

[mabrandt]

The sausage looks real good. personaly i have never used collegen casings, but it depends on what a person likes. With natural casings you can twist the links, where in collegen you cant.

Yes, I I know I am in the minority here with the collagen. I have been using it on fresh sausage for the last 2 years. I personally like the ease of use. No washing, no smell, no blowouts. All in all, just easier to use. I sacrifice the "pop" you get with natural casings. I do not detect any taste or visual difference other than the string I remove after cooking. Your sausage is in your spice mix in my opinion. Funny thing tho. For the smoker, I purchased a clear collagen casing designed for smoking. For my fresh, I have always used fresh collagen that, due to it's thickness, won't hold up in the smoker. I had a thread on this last summer. I had 1 very short link that was by itself at the end of the stuffing process, so I roasted it in the oven to taste my mixture. Believe it or not, it had that "pop" everyone raves about. The next fresh batch I'm going to use these casings and see what happens. I have had other minor complaints with the fresh collagen holding up to the rigors of cooking, while no big deal, might be solved with the regular clear casing. Still no plan on natural. Tried them once, didn't care for it after using the collagen.

 

[DanMcG]

they sure look good,

 

[reinhard]

Making sausage and smoking is all an adventure. The most important thing is that you are happy with what you make and it sure looks good. i'm actualy making fresh polish today [25 lbs]. i'll start a thread on it when i get the pics ready. Reinhard