It's been awhile since I've posted but have no fear, I've been making and smoking sausage!
I did my first batch of venison jalapeno cheddar chubs Sunday (6 lbs) along with my 3rd or 4th batch of bambi stix (5 lbs). (I'll post the recipes when I have them in digital form. Stay tuned.)
I double-ground the venison (12mm then 10mm plate).
I only once-ground the pork (10mm plate) because double-grinding seemed to take forever and using a finer plate made the texture way too squishy for my liking. It was my first attempt at double-grinding so I need more practice with my technique and which plates I want to use for what purpose.
I absolutely love my 1950’s vintage grinder. Grinding the meat is one of my favorite things to do in the sausage making process.
I used 1-1/2" x 12” mahogany fibrous casings for the chubs, soaked for 30 minutes in warm water. I squeegeed the water out with my hands before stuffing them.
I used 21mm collagen casings for the stix.
I don’t have pics for the stuffing process but I have a Hakka 7 lb horizontal stuffer like this one.
Chubs stuffed
Stix stuffed and in process of cutting to 9” to fit on my racks.
Air drying and ready for the smoker.
I have a 30” Smoke Hollow electric smoker.
Preheated smoker to 120° and put stix on the top 2 shelves and chubs on the next lower one. I double-racked the stix in the pans like you see in the pic. About ½ way through I rotated the top racks of stix to the bottom and vice-versa. I left the chubs as-is on the mat.
Here’s my temp procedure:
120° 1 hr to dry casings (longer if necessary)
140° 2 hr - Added hickory/maple/cherry pellets to A-Maze-N Pellet tray for 2-3 hrs
155° 2 hr
175° until IT of 150-154° depending on how the stix look.
If they’re starting to wrinkle and look like they’re getting overcooked I pull them at 150°.
It took about 7.25 hours yesterday with weather in the 40’s and calm winds.
I didn’t do a water bath.
I’ve found that I like the sticks better if I don’t.
I will, however, do it for the summer sausage next time because the casings didn’t peel off as well as I would have liked.
I found a yardstick that fit nicely between the cupboard handles for drying. I put a box fan on the stovetop to aid in cooling and let that run for about 2 hours.
The flavors and textures were on point!
I did my first batch of venison jalapeno cheddar chubs Sunday (6 lbs) along with my 3rd or 4th batch of bambi stix (5 lbs). (I'll post the recipes when I have them in digital form. Stay tuned.)
I double-ground the venison (12mm then 10mm plate).
I only once-ground the pork (10mm plate) because double-grinding seemed to take forever and using a finer plate made the texture way too squishy for my liking. It was my first attempt at double-grinding so I need more practice with my technique and which plates I want to use for what purpose.
I absolutely love my 1950’s vintage grinder. Grinding the meat is one of my favorite things to do in the sausage making process.
I used 1-1/2" x 12” mahogany fibrous casings for the chubs, soaked for 30 minutes in warm water. I squeegeed the water out with my hands before stuffing them.
I used 21mm collagen casings for the stix.
I don’t have pics for the stuffing process but I have a Hakka 7 lb horizontal stuffer like this one.
Chubs stuffed
Stix stuffed and in process of cutting to 9” to fit on my racks.
Air drying and ready for the smoker.
I have a 30” Smoke Hollow electric smoker.
Preheated smoker to 120° and put stix on the top 2 shelves and chubs on the next lower one. I double-racked the stix in the pans like you see in the pic. About ½ way through I rotated the top racks of stix to the bottom and vice-versa. I left the chubs as-is on the mat.
Here’s my temp procedure:
120° 1 hr to dry casings (longer if necessary)
140° 2 hr - Added hickory/maple/cherry pellets to A-Maze-N Pellet tray for 2-3 hrs
155° 2 hr
175° until IT of 150-154° depending on how the stix look.
If they’re starting to wrinkle and look like they’re getting overcooked I pull them at 150°.
It took about 7.25 hours yesterday with weather in the 40’s and calm winds.
I didn’t do a water bath.
I’ve found that I like the sticks better if I don’t.
I will, however, do it for the summer sausage next time because the casings didn’t peel off as well as I would have liked.
I found a yardstick that fit nicely between the cupboard handles for drying. I put a box fan on the stovetop to aid in cooling and let that run for about 2 hours.
The flavors and textures were on point!
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