Snack stick temps stall.

[indaswamp]

When my sticks or sausages have reached 136*F INT, I stop adding wood chunks for smoke. When the smoke stops, I close down the top dampers to about 85-90% closed. This keeps the humidity extremely high and basically stops evaporative cooling. I time it for 1.5 hours. The final internal temp. might be 142-152*F depending on how loaded up the smoker is, but either way-they are done.

Side note- a lot of commercial sausage makers use a hot water spray bath with liquid smoke and water. Water transfers heat 25X faster than air. And inside the spray oven, the humidity reaches 100%, so no evaporation loss from the sausages. This keeps the weight loss to basically zero. More water weight = more profit.

 

[SmokinEdge]

This has to be an omen....

In order to print that chart, I did a search quick for the document that came from. Right from the FSIS site you can download it, so I did. Literally scrolling down not 2 seconds, I see page 17 and stop, and what do I read?

How does Moisture Ensure Bacteria on the Surface are Killed During Cooking?During cooking, achieving a high oven temperature and internal product temperaturealone are not enough to ensure the final product is free of harmful bacteria.Establishments need to make sure that cooking is done in a moist environment toensure lethality. When relative humidity is low, oven air is dry, and a process calledevaporative cooling increases, which is something we do not want. Evaporativecooling is the same thing that allows humans to keep cool by sweating. When you gettoo hot, you produce sweat, and when that sweat evaporates, it cools you down.Evaporation equals cooling.When you gettoohot……you producesweat.When thatsweatevaporates……it cools you down.Just like on a person’s skin, evaporative cooling cools down the surface of meat andpoultry during cooking. Although the oven is hot, because the surface of the product iscooling down, that moisture evaporation can actually prevent the surface of the productfrom becoming hot enough to kill off harmful bacteria. We can reduce evaporativecooling by keeping the humidity in the oven high. That way the moisture in the productdoes not evaporate as quickly, keeping the meat’s surface moist and hot and resultingin an adequate bacterial kill. Whydoes this work?

Well of course... My efforts to remove the moisture are actually not only a waste of time, they're counterproductive. It does on to give interesting analogs to the process, but suffice to say they want the oven air to be humid in order to prohibit evaporation and kill the bacteria on the surface. So yes, in my smoker I'm better off not waiting for any drying to take place, and just use the room temp or fridge to finish them over a few days. Limit to one diameter casing from now on, and most of the problems will go away.

The link to that document is:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/2021-0014

That temp table is on page 36.

Don’t get into the rabbit holes of sausage or bbq for that matter. Stick with what works.

Ditch YouTube and pay attention to this site specifically for process. There is a collective of 100’s of years Combined experience here and they are willing to share what they know works. This is hands down THE best internet site for smoking, curing and bbq bar none. They really should charge to see the archives alone which are free currently. The index is beyond YouTube and much more correct.

Happy to have you aboard.

 

[Fueling Around]

Stayed out of this thread as I don't make sticks.
I'm mostly a fresh sausage maker either bulk or stuffed in collagen, lamb, or hog casings.
I have cured and smoked whole meat for years.
However this post made me add my 2¢

...
Ditch YouTube and pay attention to this site specifically for process. There is a collective of 100’s of years Combined experience here and they are willing to share what they know works. This is hands down THE best internet site for smoking, curing and bbq bar none. They really should charge to see the archives alone which are free currently. The index is beyond YouTube and much more correct.
...

Well said Eric.
I wish everyone would start here first.