Mastering the Craft of Making Sausage (17 page)

Another way to dry the sausage is to place it in a 130° F (54° C) to 140° F (60° C) smoker with the smoker vents fully open.

When the surface is dry, place the sausages in the smoker by laying them on wire racks or hanging them on rods. If the sausages touch each other, smoke flavor cannot adhere at that point, and there will be no coloration at that point. If the sausages are on wire racks, it is best to turn them over from time to time to minimize the marks left by the racks.

Smoke at the lowest temperature possible for at least two hours—or as long as six hours if a stronger smoky flavor is desired. Do everything you can to keep the temperature below 100° F (38° C)—or, to keep the temperature as low as possible: Open the vent fully, direct a large fan at the smoker, place a shallow pan of ice in the smoker, and open the smoker door briefly from time to time.

After this cold smoking is finished, raise the smoke chamber temperature to about 140° F (60° C)—with or without smoke—and hold this temperature for one or two hours until the sausages take on an attractive mahogany coloration. While smoking at this temperature, close the damper most of the way in order to reduce the airflow and, thereby, reduce dehydration. (The damper should never be closed all of the way, no matter what kind of food is being smoked. If the smoke becomes stagnant in the smoke chamber, it will impart an unpleasant taste to the product.)

Raise the temperature gradually (over a one hour period) to somewhere between 170° F (77° C) and 180° F (82° C). (During the period of hot smoking, the generation of smoke is usually continued, but it is optional.) Check the smoke vent again; it should be only about ¼ open to reduce drying. Insert the cable probe of an electronic thermometer 2½ inches (6.5 cm) into a sausage. Hot smoke at this temperature until the internal temperature is between 155° F (68° C) and 160° F (71° C). Depending on the thickness of the sausage, the afterheat should bring the internal temperature to 160° F (71° C). If the sausage contains poultry, the target temperature is 165° F (74° C), so you need to remove the sausages from the smoker when the internal temperature is between 160° F (71° C) and 165° F (74° C).

If the sausages have been stuffed in natural casings, remove them from the smoker, and immerse them in cold water (or spray them with cold water) until the internal temperature is below 110° F (43° C). (The cold water helps to re-solidify the fats and minimize shriveling.) Cool the sausages a little more at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour. During this time, the sausages will
“bloom”
(become darker). Blooming will make them even more attractive. Refrigerate the links overnight; this allows the smoke flavor to mellow.

If the sausages have been stuffed in synthetic fibrous casings, remove the chubs from the smoker when they are fully cooked, and place them in front of an electric fan for about one hour to cool. (If sausages stuffed in fibrous casings are cooled in ice water, water will enter the casing and dilute the flavor.) Refrigerate them overnight to allow the smoke flavor to mellow.

When refrigerating the sausage, cover them with paper towels only. If they are tightly covered, they will “sweat” and their appearance will suffer.

The next morning, these smoked sausages may be re-heated by any cooking method explained in Chapter 6, or they may be frozen for up to two months for later use. If they will be frozen, it is best to wrap each link or chub in plastic food wrap before placing it in a sealed plastic bag. Because they have been fully cooked, sausages left in the refrigerator will keep well for at least a week.

PARTIAL HOT SMOKING

Instead of fully cooking the sausage in the smoker, it can be partially hot smoked and then poached, steamed, grilled, or sautéed. This method will reduce the dehydration caused by hot smoking.

Follow the instructions for hot smoking, including raising the chamber temperature to somewhere between 170° F (77° C) and 180° F (82° C). However, instead of fully cooking the sausages, remove them from the smoker when the internal temperature is at about 125° F (52° C).

Cool the sausages at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour. During this time, the sausages that have been stuffed in natural casings will
“bloom”
(become darker), and blooming will make them even more attractive. Refrigerate the links or chubs overnight—uncovered, or covered with paper towels—to allow the smoke flavor to mellow.

The next morning, these smoked sausages may be cooked by any method explained in Chapter 6, or they may be frozen for up to two months for later use. If they will be frozen, it is best to wrap each link or chub in plastic food wrap before placing it in a sealed plastic bag.

Manufactured Smokers

Manufactured smokers are sold at prices that range from less than $100 for a small amateur model, to thousands of dollars for a large, fully automated, professional model. Descriptions of manufactured smokers will be limited to smokers that are designed for amateurs and have a modest price tag. The more elaborate and expensive smokers will have a built-in thermometer and automatic or manual devices to control factors such as temperature, airflow, humidity, and the feeding of smoking fuel.

PORTABLE ELECTRIC SMOKERS

Almost everyone can afford a portable electric smoker, and they are very easy to use. Although they employ electricity, there are no electrical controls to operate or adjust. They are lightweight and compact (some of them even have a knockdown design). Depending on the size, electric smokers are capable of holding anywhere from 20 pounds (9 kg) to 100 pounds (45 kg) of product. These smokers are designed to operate on the electrical power system used in all households in the United States and Canada. (Any appliance that specifies 110, 117, or 120 volts will work properly on this system.)

The electric heating element in the bottom will simultaneously provide heat to produce the smoke and heat to cook (or partially cook) the product. A small pan of hardwood chips is placed on this heating element to produce the smoke. Smoke-laden hot air rises to the top and escapes through vents. If the external (ambient) temperature is more than 70° F (21° C) and there is no strong wind, the internal temperature of the smoke chamber should reach at least 150° F (66° C).

The proliferation of these inexpensive manufactured smokers is the most important reason for the popularization of smoking as a hobby. These units are capable of producing a first-class smoked product, but they do have a few limitations and disadvantages; these are summarized below.

• Because these aluminum smokers are not insulated, and because there is no easy way to provide supplementary heat, the maximum temperature produced (if the smoker is used according to the manufacturer’s instructions) depends on the outside temperature and the strength of the wind blowing on the smoker. The resulting temperature may not be hot enough to cook the sausage thoroughly; in order to hot smoke sausage, the temperature needs to be maintained somewhere between 170° F
(77°
C) and 180° F (82° C).

• There is no easy way to lower the internal temperature for cold smoking, except to partially open the door, to open the flap near the bottom, or to use an electric fan directed toward the smoker.

• These smokers do not have a thermometer to measure the smoke chamber temperature.

In summary, these portable smokers cannot be used for hot smoking unless the ambient temperature is very high, but—if used correctly—they will do a superb job of cold smoking sausages. Before a batch of product is smoked, the smoker should be tested. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for setting up and using the smoker, and then measure the internal temperature of the smoke chamber under various ambient temperature and wind conditions. The smoker can be used for cold smoking under any conditions that permit a temperature of 120° F (49° C), or below, to be maintained in the chamber. You might find, for example, that sausage can be cold smoked in your smoker if the ambient temperature is 60° F (16° C), or lower, provided there is an electric fan blowing on it.

Most of these portable smokers are not large enough to improvise a way to hang sausages, so the sausages must be placed on the wire racks provided with the smoker. Turn the sausages over from time to time to minimize the rack marks on the links.

BRADLEY SMOKERS

A little less than a year after my first book was published
(Mastering the Craft of Smoking Food)
, I received a phone call from the Bradley Smoker Company in British Columbia, Canada. My book had come to their attention and they were selling it as an accessory on their website. The reason for the phone call was to ask me if I would join a special Bradley team that was developing several curing mixtures. (Curing mixtures are blends of salt, flavoring, sweeteners, and sodium nitrite to cure meat in preparation for smoking it.) I joined their team as a consultant, helped them formulate four curing mixtures, and I did all of the testing.

After the formulation and testing was finished, they asked me to write instructions for making various smoked products using the new Bradley curing mixes. Instructions for 23 products were written: ham, bacon, smoked salmon, pastrami, smoked duck, jerky, several smoked sausages, etc. To test these products, they gave me a deluxe Bradley smoker that they call the
Bradley Digital Smoker
. This was my introduction to the Bradley smokers.

The Bradley Digital Smoker was very impressive; the smoking fuel “bis-quettes” are fed into the smoker automatically onto a small hotplate where they smolder and produce smoke. These bisquettes are disks of compressed hardwood chips (hickory, apple, oak, etc.) with a diameter of 2¼ inches (5.7 cm) and a thickness of ⅝ inch (1.6 cm). Each bisquette smolders for 20 minutes and is replaced with a fresh bisquette automatically. If extra heat for hot smoking is desired, a built-in heater can be used. The desired temperature can be selected, and the heater is controlled automatically, much like a kitchen oven.

I could find no fault with the smoke generator or the automatic feed of the smoking fuel. These features worked perfectly. However, if extra heat for hot smoking were used, the smoke chamber temperature would swing about 15° F (9° C) above and below the selected temperature. For example, if the temperature were set to 140° F (60° C), the temperature might swing between 125° F (52° C) and 155° F (68° C). The temperature swings were worrisome, but I hot smoked many solid-muscle products (non-sausage products) such as ham, pastrami, and chicken; the results were perfectly acceptable.

The digital smoker was acceptable for cold smoking, but the ambient temperature had to be low. For example, if the ambient temperature were 40° F (4.5° C) to 50° F (10° C), the temperature inside the chamber would remain under 120° F (49° C). Cold smoking of many products, including sausage, is possible at this temperature. If the chamber temperature climbs higher than 120° F (49° C), the Bradley Digital Smoker can still be used for cold smoking if a tray of ice is placed on the lower rack (between the smoking fuel hotplate and the food). Opening the door from time to time, and opening the smoke vent all of the way, also help to keep the heat down.

As indicated above, the Bradley Digital Smoker works fairly well for cold smoking sausage, and it works well for cold smoking and hot smoking solid-muscle products. Nevertheless, the wide temperature swings of the heater make it unsuitable for hot smoking sausage or for making semi-dried sausage. When I began writing this book on making sausage, I explained that problem to my contact, George Radke, at the Bradley Smoker Company. Mr. Radke offered to provide me with an
Original
Bradley Smoker to use for testing smoked sausage formulas. The Original Bradley is about the same as the Bradley Digital, except that the heater is manually controlled on the Original. I accepted his offer.

Approximately 75 percent of the cold smoked, hot smoked, and semi-dried sausages that I included in this book were processed in the Original Bradley smoker during the colder months of the year, and the remainder were processed and tested in my homemade smoker. (My homemade smoker has an offset smoke generator and a long flue to cool the smoke, so I used it when the ambient temperature was too high to use the Original Bradley smoker.)

In my opinion, the Original Bradley Smoker is the best modestly priced smoker on the market for the home sausage maker. I have not seen any other affordable brand of smoker for home use that will smoke at temperatures as low as the Bradley. The low temperature smoking is possible because the small hotplate that smolders the bisquette smoking fuel consumes only 125 watts, so it generates only a little more heat than a large light bulb. Moreover, the heater for the chamber is independent of the hotplate and can be controlled manually. The automatic feeding of the smoking fuel is another feature that you will not find on other smokers in this price range. I have not been able to find another brand of a reasonably priced smoker with these important features. The Original Bradley Smoker is not the cheapest smoker available, but at about $399, or less, it is affordable for most serious hobbyists. The only way you might get a better smoker for the same amount of money is to build a homemade smoker with an external smoke generator and a long smoke flue. (Please see Appendix 5 for the Bradley website.)