my food "to-do" list
- Thread starter Jamie
- Start date
I was told they have temp gauges that go into the meat and there is an app that you can use on your smartphone to monitor the temps. He says they are designed to tolerate the heat. You don’t even have to get out of the pool! F’ing technology!
lol, well, that is only about half true. you have to know how to operate your equipment, and an accurate thermometer in your smoke chamber and one in the product sure is a big help. trust me, after nearly 20 years of routinely smoking, smoker cooking, grilling, etc., I'm still an amateur by every metric. learn something every time I burn wood or charcoal for cooking. this a journey, not a destination. the sooner you get started, the better, Sgt. tick-tock, brother.
Buckmaster
Senior Member
FWIW....I run an insulated electric much like this one: https://www.sausagemaker.com/20-lb-Digital-Stainless-Steel-Smoker-p/19-1010.htm
It get's the job done for this amateur backyarder.
It get's the job done for this amateur backyarder.
I will deal with that when/if it happens. Until then I will enjoy.
My probe temps are spot on. I always double check temps with my manual thermometer. My cooking temps are within 5 degrees on what the digital read out says and what the mechanical one in the lid says. The lid is always 5 degrees higher. I suspect the difference in locations is the biggest reason for that. Digital is at the cooking grates the mech is in the lid.
For the amateur like me the pellet grill is a good starter.
It's funny how my "food to-do list" hasn't really changed much in the last 10 years. over the last couple of weeks I canned all of my squirrels (28 quarts) and venison shanks(16 pints), ground and packaged 50lbs of venison since we were almost out of burger. still have that much more for grinding in the freezer. I like to get this stuff done in February, but I've been working on paying jobs since the day archery season ended. no rest for the wicked.
with that all done, I got busy on some bacon, which I have not made in two years. one last tweak of the salinity and sugar this time. the rest of the flavor profile has been good the last couple of times, so I didn't change that any. put the 11 lb belly in cure two weeks ago today. I let it cure for 7 full days this time, which is a bit longer than I've done in the past. It just doesn't take 10 or 20 days to cure pork belly sealed in a vacuum bag. dried it Saturday night and smoked it for 8 hours with hickory and apple wood last Sunday, it's been getting happy in the fridge ever since. I baked some while I was slicing it all. I think I've got it where I want it. probably the best bacon I've made.
wound up with about 8 lbs of sliced bacon, plus about 1lb of ends. bacon ends are awesome for flavoring beans and such, adding to fried cabbage, and for pasta alla Carbonara in place of the traditional guanciale or pancetta. it smells all smoky in here.
with that all done, I got busy on some bacon, which I have not made in two years. one last tweak of the salinity and sugar this time. the rest of the flavor profile has been good the last couple of times, so I didn't change that any. put the 11 lb belly in cure two weeks ago today. I let it cure for 7 full days this time, which is a bit longer than I've done in the past. It just doesn't take 10 or 20 days to cure pork belly sealed in a vacuum bag. dried it Saturday night and smoked it for 8 hours with hickory and apple wood last Sunday, it's been getting happy in the fridge ever since. I baked some while I was slicing it all. I think I've got it where I want it. probably the best bacon I've made.
wound up with about 8 lbs of sliced bacon, plus about 1lb of ends. bacon ends are awesome for flavoring beans and such, adding to fried cabbage, and for pasta alla Carbonara in place of the traditional guanciale or pancetta. it smells all smoky in here.
When hunting season ends there is always some more work to be done for me. This is traditionally the time of year when I put up my squirrels, grind venison, make sausage and bacon. Because of major surgeries for either Nancy or me, I have not made sausage or bacon since 2021. Once again this year another surgery. Nancy had to have a discectomy at her C5-C6 vertebrae. This was 15 year old injury that started giving her real trouble gain about 6 months ago again. I have been here caring for her while she recovers, which has gone well for her. I seized the opportunity to get some real work done in the kitchen while watching her convalesce.
Since the day after her surgery on Tuesday 2/6 my kitchen has been buzzing. I have ground and packaged 45lbs of venison, packaged fresh squirrels for braising later, packaged 10 bags of saddles and cooked them sous vide for buffalo woodland "wings" later on, and canned the rest which amounted to 14 quarts. I had 80 or so squirrels frozen, and they are all put up properly now. This week I made sausage. I made more than I have made in a pretty long time since we were out of everything except a few packages of brats and breakfast sausage.
I started with grinding and packaging 25lbs of fresh pork shoulder breakfast sausage. In total, I ground 85lbs of pork shoulder and 55lbs of venison during this whole affair. This is what I wound up with after all the grinding, mixing, stuffing, smoking, and cooking was done.
At the top left is 10lbs of Rebel Smoked sausage with cheese in summer chub casing, 10lbs of Rebel smoked sausage in 38mm edible collagen casing. Top right is 20lbs of fresh brats with cheese and 10lbs without cheese. Bottom is 12lbs of Venison summer sausage with cheese and 15lbs of smoked Parmesan sausage, a.k.a. "Pizza Sausage".
I ran the smoker for three days in a row. I put four hours of apple and hickory smoke on all of these sausages which was also enough time to give them good color and start cooking them. After the smoke was done, I vac sealed them and finished them all in a 155 degree sous vide bath for about four more hours. There is not a better way to finish cooking these types of sausage, imo. They are done absolutely perfectly. No chewy rind from a long stay in the smoker and the texture is perfect. The internal temperature of most of these was just over 100 degrees when I took them out of the smoker, so they were not too hot to handle. I did a fair amount of sampling while cutting these up this morning. the Rebel sausage with cheese is phenomenal, and this might be the best batch of summer sausage I have made. We sampled the cheesy brats Friday night and they were quite good, too. This was a lot of fun and a lot of work that I really needed to get done, but I'm glad it's over now. Time to go do some paying jobs and build some bows.
Since the day after her surgery on Tuesday 2/6 my kitchen has been buzzing. I have ground and packaged 45lbs of venison, packaged fresh squirrels for braising later, packaged 10 bags of saddles and cooked them sous vide for buffalo woodland "wings" later on, and canned the rest which amounted to 14 quarts. I had 80 or so squirrels frozen, and they are all put up properly now. This week I made sausage. I made more than I have made in a pretty long time since we were out of everything except a few packages of brats and breakfast sausage.
I started with grinding and packaging 25lbs of fresh pork shoulder breakfast sausage. In total, I ground 85lbs of pork shoulder and 55lbs of venison during this whole affair. This is what I wound up with after all the grinding, mixing, stuffing, smoking, and cooking was done.
At the top left is 10lbs of Rebel Smoked sausage with cheese in summer chub casing, 10lbs of Rebel smoked sausage in 38mm edible collagen casing. Top right is 20lbs of fresh brats with cheese and 10lbs without cheese. Bottom is 12lbs of Venison summer sausage with cheese and 15lbs of smoked Parmesan sausage, a.k.a. "Pizza Sausage".
I ran the smoker for three days in a row. I put four hours of apple and hickory smoke on all of these sausages which was also enough time to give them good color and start cooking them. After the smoke was done, I vac sealed them and finished them all in a 155 degree sous vide bath for about four more hours. There is not a better way to finish cooking these types of sausage, imo. They are done absolutely perfectly. No chewy rind from a long stay in the smoker and the texture is perfect. The internal temperature of most of these was just over 100 degrees when I took them out of the smoker, so they were not too hot to handle. I did a fair amount of sampling while cutting these up this morning. the Rebel sausage with cheese is phenomenal, and this might be the best batch of summer sausage I have made. We sampled the cheesy brats Friday night and they were quite good, too. This was a lot of fun and a lot of work that I really needed to get done, but I'm glad it's over now. Time to go do some paying jobs and build some bows.
With Slick down and ML season at hand, I decided to crank out a full batch of Summer sausage. 30 pounds to be exact. I decided to give beef fat a try this time as I have always used pork shoulder or pork trimmings for the added fat. I had the trimmings from two briskets that I was going to render into tallow, but it found a higher purpose. Last February (see above post) I made a small 10 pound batch of venison summer sausage with pure fat trimmings from the some of the dozen pork shoulders I had to buy and added some hi-temp cheddar cheese for the first time ever. I only made 10 lbs because Nancy never really liked summer sausage so I had to eat all of it. This was probably the best Venison summer sausage I had ever made, imo. Well, now she likes it a lot and 12lbs did not last very long because of it. Since I still have (had) 40 some lbs of venison for grinding from last season I decided to spend most of it on summer sausage. I did 24lbs of venison, 6lbs of pure brisket fat trimmings. I only had 1.5 lbs of cheese left from last time, which is only 5% worth. I would have preferred 3 lbs of cheese in this (10%), but it is still plenty. I put quite a bit more smoke on this batch as well. Four hours of smoke from Bradley hickory bisquettes and at the same time I lit my pellet maze, which I let go for 5 hours total. Really poured the smoke to it for four hours, then just a bit more of the hickory pellet smoke. I finished them in a 145* sous vide bath for three hours. I know that I've said it before, but this might be the best summer sausage I have ever made. The beef fat brings a very faint beef flavor at the front end of each bite but fades as you chew. Absolutely delightful. The extra smoke was an improvement as well. These will be even better after aging for a week or two in a vacuum to allow the smoke to permeate the meat more. Now I have to figure out how to keep Nancy off my sausage.
As an aside, I did some reading about encapsulated citric acid before I started this batch. The tanginess of venison summer sausage traditionally came from fermentation. With ECA we can get the same tang without the wait. I have been using this as long as I have been making venison summer sausage and I already knew that it is sort of fragile and needs to be added to your mix at the very end of the mixing so as not to disturb the encapsulation before it is supposed to dissolve and release the citric acid into the meat at the appropriate time during the cooking, which is at about 135*. What I learned from reading is that allowing the seasoned mixture sit too long before cooking it can cause the ECA to begin to break down ahead of schedule just like too much mixing can. If this happens, you will not likely get the full effect from the ECA in terms of tanginess and it can also cause problems with texture of the finished product, making it crumbly. In the past I have mixed and stuffed sausages and let them hang overnight when the weather allows it or sit in the fridge overnight because I was smoking other stuff or just did not want to do it that day. I have never had any texture issues, but I have had batches where the tanginess was noticeably less or not there at all. Either way, the sausage is still perfectly safe to eat once cooked to 145*
This time I decided to mix, stuff, and smoke/cook as fast as I could., which was about 3 hours from mixing to being in the smoker drying/smoking/cooking. This is the most tang I have ever gotten from the ECA. I will definitely plan to do it like this from now on
As an aside, I did some reading about encapsulated citric acid before I started this batch. The tanginess of venison summer sausage traditionally came from fermentation. With ECA we can get the same tang without the wait. I have been using this as long as I have been making venison summer sausage and I already knew that it is sort of fragile and needs to be added to your mix at the very end of the mixing so as not to disturb the encapsulation before it is supposed to dissolve and release the citric acid into the meat at the appropriate time during the cooking, which is at about 135*. What I learned from reading is that allowing the seasoned mixture sit too long before cooking it can cause the ECA to begin to break down ahead of schedule just like too much mixing can. If this happens, you will not likely get the full effect from the ECA in terms of tanginess and it can also cause problems with texture of the finished product, making it crumbly. In the past I have mixed and stuffed sausages and let them hang overnight when the weather allows it or sit in the fridge overnight because I was smoking other stuff or just did not want to do it that day. I have never had any texture issues, but I have had batches where the tanginess was noticeably less or not there at all. Either way, the sausage is still perfectly safe to eat once cooked to 145*
This time I decided to mix, stuff, and smoke/cook as fast as I could., which was about 3 hours from mixing to being in the smoker drying/smoking/cooking. This is the most tang I have ever gotten from the ECA. I will definitely plan to do it like this from now on
Bradley 6 rack electric smoker. It is tall and accommodates long sausages pretty well. It is not a high end smoker and won't hold much more than the ten sausages I crammed in it, but it has served me well for 20 years. I can hang 30" casings in it, but the bottoms get overcooked because the heating element is in the bottom of the smoker. My next smoker will be bigger and more sophisticated for sure.
I should have been more specific. Did you vac seal the full logs before submerging in the sous video? Or did you cut the to length and seal as pictured, then finish in the sous vide?
I seal the whole sausages in vac bags. I make long bags from rolls. I put three sausages in a 15" bag, making sure they are separated/not touching while evacuating air and sealing. This is a bit less hassle than making 10 long bags from a 6" roll for each individual sausage. I think it would not be good to cut into the casing until the contents are fully cooked and thoroughly chilled.
This is the largest amount of sausage I have done this way in one single batch. I literally had to cram the one shorty sausage into the cooler I use for sous viding large food. I made it all fit, but it was very tight. Finishing sausages this way is just fantastic.
This is the largest amount of sausage I have done this way in one single batch. I literally had to cram the one shorty sausage into the cooler I use for sous viding large food. I made it all fit, but it was very tight. Finishing sausages this way is just fantastic.
Buckmaster
Senior Member
MUCH better than post 82
Bradley smoker doesn't cold smoke well in my limited experience. We killed my father in laws after 2 years.
@bowhunter1023 I portion and then vacuum seal and then sous vide with no issues.
Big_Holla
Senior Member
Great timing
I will be making sausage soon
And this year I will sous vide
Also I will get it in the smoker right away
That was a lot of work!!
I will be making sausage soon
And this year I will sous vide
Also I will get it in the smoker right away
That was a lot of work!!