SS IT Falling?

[ducksanddogs]

I’ve followed methods I’ve seen on here and started at 120F to dry for 2 hours, increasing temp by 10F every hour until I get to 170F and then planned on letting it ride until IT reached 152F.

Went to bed at 136F and set an alarm to check on it in 4 hours. Just went to have a look at IT is now 131F?

Using an MES40 with no modifications and a separate probe.

Just let it keep going?

 

[smokerjim]

did you use any cure? if yes your fine, if not i'm really not sure so i'll let some of the more knowledgeable people answer. i would keep it going until ya get a answer but it may not be the answer ya want!

 

[ducksanddogs]

Yep, typical jalapeño cheese recipe with cure. Sorry I left that out!

 

[smokerjim]

as long as ya used the right amount of cure your good to go.

 

[chopsaw]

If you're done with smoke , close the top vent . If something caused the sausage to condensate , like opening the door and letting cooler air in , the IT can drop .
Some of the guys go by the pasteurize chart . Size of the meat / sausage , time in the smoker at a certain temp and you're good .

I'll add this link for you .

Summer Sausage Internal Temp

Had a batch of Summer Sausage in the smoker for about 13.5 hours. About half the batch already finished, but the other other half seems to be stalled at 150. My question is, I've seen people talk about final ITs of 152, 155, and in some cases lower but using the pasteurization table. Does this...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[ducksanddogs]

Thanks, all.

I’ll close the top vent and let it keep plugging away.

 

[zwiller]

I am running into this myself and interestingly takes me a long time like you (12hrs+) I'd really like to shorten that. Did you log or monitor temps whole time? Curious what happened. chopsaw has thought this might be do to some case hardening and I definitely have some of that. I plan to bring sausage up to room temp before going into smoker on next run and see if that helps but also plan to close the vent after the smoke is done.

 

[ducksanddogs]

I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t. Was also considering bringing them to room temp before the next batch. These aired out on some racks in the kitchen for 2 hours before going in. I’ve seen stalls and I’m not worried about those - I’ve just never seen the temperature actually drop, so I think there’s some validity to the evaporative cooling concept. Also, I live in a fairly breezy place, and in Alaska, so I’m thinking as the outdoor temp dropped, the cabinet temp dropped, although I wouldn’t have expected it to drop to a point where I’d lose 5 degrees IT in 4 hours.

Regardless, I shut the vent and it has slowly climbed since then. About 4 hours since I checked them and they’re up to 141F, now.

Soon.

70% caribou
30% pork

That put the total at 30lbs. Added 3lbs high temp cheese and went for it.

 

[tallbm]

I’ve followed methods I’ve seen on here and started at 120F to dry for 2 hours, increasing temp by 10F every hour until I get to 170F and then planned on letting it ride until IT reached 152F.

Went to bed at 136F and set an alarm to check on it in 4 hours. Just went to have a look at IT is now 131F?

Using an MES40 with no modifications and a separate probe.

Just let it keep going?

Hi there and welcome!

MES smoker and meat probes are notorious for being incorrect. Are you using an alternate probe to also measure your smoker temp?

My guess is your smoker is really running more at a 150-160F temp than a 170F temp.
The MES doesn't hold a steady temp but instead does temp swings which would make me very nervous on cranking the heat up too much.

It seems that you need about 15F higher smoker temp than the meat IT target you want to hit. But again, the MES does temp swings so if you swing over 180F at the lowest area of the smoker with meat then you will risk the fat melting out causing "fat out".

I would figure out with a 2nd probe what my smoker temp was and then proceed form there. I also like the idea that once smoke is done to just close the top vent down.

Let us know :)

 

[indaswamp]

Evaporation cooling...

Just like when you sweat, and your skin cools as the water vaporizes taking heat with it, so the same happens when sausages begin to sweat...the sausages cool.
As suggested, closing the top vents will increase the RH% inside the smokehouse and this will slowdown moisture evaporation off the surface of the sausage, thus slowing the cooling effect, and the INT will continue to rise.

 

[oberst]

I smoke in my MES until I have the right amount of smoke to my liking, around 6 hours for sticks, then into the convection oven at 170 degrees they go to finish. That takes a half an hour or so. No more fooling around forever with the smoker. Plus oven heat is more even. I put a temp probe in each rack of sausage and follow the FDA tables. So, when a probe hits 146 degrees I hit the timer.