Smoking 4" sausage chubs...

[PossumPie]

So I just had a strange idea. I make deer bologna (more precisely deer sausage) in 4" diameter rolls which I hang in the smoker for 8 hours. Anything less won't penetrate to the center. I got thinking, If I took the raw sausage and put it on cookie sheets in the smoker, there would be exponentially more surface area. Cold smoke it for say 3hrs, then stuff it into the casings wouldn't that be more efficient? I could then heat the chubs to internal 155 F in the smoker or oven, saving hours of long smoke and $$ on saved pellets. Is there a problem here that I am overlooking?

 

[Timber II]

More smarter people will chime in I’m sure but for starters I’m thinking this:

-gonna dry out

-long time for meat to be in the danger zone maybe

-not a significant savings on pellets

- why not stuff thinner chubs?

Those are just some thoughts from my feeble mind. I love making deer sausage and learned everything I know from the good folks on here

 

[PossumPie]

Thanks, Timber II. This time of year, my fridge is about 37 F, and in the morning it's about the same temp outside so pathogens isn't an issue. Drying out may be a problem. From my long experience with smoking things, I've cold smoked a pound of butter in 30 min. and hot smoked a whole ham in 4 days so thickness of the product definitely affects smoking time. I did a test of this new recipe making a 1 lb stick using sheep casings which gave a stick with about 1" diameter and 6hrs was about perfect smoke time so for the large batch which are 4" diameter, it's going to take a much longer time. I smoke small items/batches of stuff in my grill using a smoke tube but I have a large smokehouse the size of an oldfashioned outhouse that I can build a fire and smoke with logs rather than pellets. It's just a pain to maintain the proper amount of smoke that way but that may be the best answer. I wish I could afford a proper smoker that I could regulate the temps exactly.