Summer Sausage finishing question

[lothar1974]

Hello all,

Will be doing 25 or 50 pounds of SS this coming weekend. My plan is to smoke for several hours in my MES40 1st gen and in my MES40 2.5 gen, then move to water bath with my sous vide. Have not used it for sausage before, just wondering, I know a few have used sous vide to finish before, do you vacumm seal the SS first or just throw it in the water? Any help is appreciated!! Thanks.

Lothar

 

[johnnyb54]

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• johnnyb54
• Apr 26, 2017

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• johnnyb54
• Apr 26, 2017

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• johnnyb54
• Apr 26, 2017

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• johnnyb54
• Apr 26, 2017

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• johnnyb54
• Apr 26, 2017

I haven’t finished summer sausage in a soup vide bath but I did finish kielbasa in sous vide. I didn’t vacuum seal the sausage, they went straight from the smoker right into tbe sous vide. I got excellent results and plan on doing my summer sausage the same way.

 

[daveomak]

I think it depends on the casing you use... I would slip them into a plastic bag, food grade, and put them in the water.. If you clamp the top of the bag to the edge of the bath container... no need to vac seal... Although, vac sealing does provide insurance... thick bags... sausage won't get wet.....

 

[patty q]

Never did that process but I have done a steam chamber in the smoker . I set them out room temp and place in smoker with a internal probe in one sausage set temp at 140 No Chips until casing dry then bump temp to 155 and add chips for 2 hours at this point. Place a small pot of boiling water in smoker and bump temp to 220 , cook until internal temp in 156 (153 Safe) . Remove and ice bath . I don’t know if you wanted an alternative method or just a a souv vide method .
Hope this helps

 

[lothar1974]

Will be in a fiberous casing. Thought was to smoke for a few hours then finish in water, figured sous vide just because temp is spot on with this method (3 hours at 155). Figured vacuum sealing to finish in water would be best and then they are ready for cold water bath and the freezer after.

 

[bfelgar]

I got a joule and the first thing I did was call them to see if out was ok to put sausage directly in the water. They said that it was not recommended and would void the warranty but I'm going to do it anyway. I usually do 50+ #s at a time and I'm not going to vac seal to cook and store.

 

[dward51]

I've used sous vide to finish my summer sausage several times. It works great. Smoke like normal and get the internal temp to 140-145*. The meat will be set and firm by then and should keep it's shape when vacuumed. I then vacuum the chubs and into the sous vide bath for a couple of hours at 154* to finish. No need to stick a temp probe through the vacuum bag to test, just go a couple of hours and it should be uniformly at 154* throughout the chub. The beauty of this is no chance of grease on the sous vide element, and the meat is already vac packed and ready for the fridge. I vac pack mine in individual chubs for this reason.

I highly recommend finishing in the sous vide bath.

 

[campfire218]

Last batch, I used a Nesco turkey roaster filled with water. Took the sausages directly from the smoker into the water bath. Only took about 20 minutes to finish. Then I hung the sausages in the garage overnight to dry, then packaged and froze.

 

[checkdude]

I also have a turkey roaster just for that purpose. Much prefer this method go finishing larger sausages as I can keep the temp. Acurate. They come out perfect every time.