Summer Sausage Question

[Braz]

I am going to have my first go at summer sausage later this week - if it warms up a little. My plan is to stuff it into fiberous casings and smoke it to around 140F and then finish in the sous vide to an IT of 153F. Question is, can I put the chubs directly into the sous vide water or do I have to bag them. My sous vide machine is an Anova if that makes any difference.

 

[dward51]

I would bag them. The meat should be set and firm at 140* and your plan is how I do it. If you don't have a vacuum bagger, just use a zip lock bag and the water method to press all the air out and seal it. The beauty of sous vide and summer sausage is you can't really over cook it and zero chance of fat out at 153*. Just put it in for a couple of hours and you should be golden.

 

[wayoutwest]

I would bag them. The meat should be set and firm at 140* and your plan is how I do it. If you don't have a vacuum bagger, just use a zip lock bag and the water method to press all the air out and seal it. The beauty of sous vide and summer sausage is you can't really over cook it and zero chance of fat out at 153*. Just put it in for a couple of hours and you should be golden.

 

[wayoutwest]

I have been doing it this way for a while too, but what I noticed is that when I put it in hot tap water and let it come up to temp with the sausage in the water I get better results.

 

[Braz]

I have been doing it this way for a while too, but what I noticed is that when I put it in hot tap water and let it come up to temp with the sausage in the water I get better results.

Thanks Dave and wayoutwest. I do have a vac sealer so I'll go that route. My hot tap water comes out at about 118F so I'll start with that and let the Anova bring the water with the chubs up to 153F and then hold it there for a couple hours.

 

[Braz]

Success! I used 6 LB of 80/20 ground chuck (on sale for $1.99/LB). Started with Butcher & Packer summer sausage seasoning to which I added 1 TBSP garlic powder, 1 TBSP red pepper flakes, and 1 tsp mustard seed. Smoked in the MES with hickory chips in the cold smoker attachment. I started out at 130* with no smoke for a couple hours then added smoke and increased the smoker temp by 10* every two or three hours topping out at 160*. I pulled the chubs when they got to 140* IT, vac bagged and put them in the S/V bath. The S/V was at 140* when I put the bags in the bath and I increased the setting to 153 and let them cook for three hours to an IT of 153*.

Taste and texture is very good, much better than the "store bought" I have gotten lately. It has plenty of garlic, which was one of my objectives, and decent heat from the pepper flakes. Next time I will increase the pepper flakes a bit (I like spicy) and add more mustard seed. I ended up with six sticks of about 1LB each which the Food Police Wife says is my lifetime quota of fat and sodium. We'll see about that.

 

[driedstick]

Looks great,,, Nice job