Temperature Stall when smoke cooking

two_MN_kids · Post by **two_MN_kids** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 16:37

It seems that EVERY time I use my smoker, my product IMT stalls out / reaches a plateau at about 135°. It can take several more hours of cooking to get to temperature, resulting in a very dehydrated sausage.

This happens with summer sausage, bologna, snack sticks, turkeys, pulled pork, and loins, Etc. It gets very frustrating as one can`t plan a meal around this problem.

I have tried wrapping the larger cased sausages in foil and this seems to help, as it only requires another three of four hours to finish cooking. I have also used the poaching method for the Canadian bacon with success, but the sausages seem to get fatted out way too easily.

What are other options or suggestions as a work-around for this problem?

Big Guy · Post by **Big Guy** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 16:56

relax have another beer and wait it out.

Been there fell into temptation to increase the temp and ruined the meat. Now I just let it happen, you just can't predect or rush things if you want a quality product.

Devo · Post by **Devo** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 17:04

This will explain why meat stalls. It happens to everyone. I have done pork that stalled 4 hours but once you get through the stall stage off it goes again.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/stallbbq.html

nuynai · Post by **nuynai** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 19:25

I'm thinking, putting in the meat even at room temp cause the smoker's temp to go down. After that, cooking at such a low temp, it takes awhile to get up to where you want it and continue. As was said, sit back, grab a cold one and wait it out.

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 21:00

We are dealing with heat transfer in air with a very small thermal gradient. I am certain that cooking in water would conquer this problem if you like boiled bbq.

partycook · Post by **partycook** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 00:05

Hi Guys I also had the problem of temperature stall with my first three smoke house set-ups. This is one of the reasons that I purchased the set-up that the sausage maker
sells. The problems seem to mostly occur when the smoker had a full load or was loaded to capacity. The sausage makers set-up allowed me to control smoke and cooking temperatures more accurately. I guess that now that I have a natural gas burner I am able to control the finishing temperatures more accurately. This set-up also helped eliminate the problem of overcooked meat at the finish. John

Keymaster · Post by **Keymaster** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 01:26

two_MN_kids,
I think you said in some previous post that you had a Bradley smoker. Have you tried installing the fan modification. From what I've heard it speeds up the cooking time and works as a convection oven of sorts. I think the only way around wrinkly sausage links is to steam them or poach after smoking or add moisture to raise humidity in your smoke cabinet after smoking.
Aaron

two_MN_kids · Post by **two_MN_kids** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 05:49

Thanks for the replies, fella`s. The majority of sausages I have made have been bulk packaged fresh stuff. I never had anything to benchmark cooking times against, except grilling and kitchen fare. Those go fairly quickly and perhaps that has something to do with my expectations.

Several years ago I asked a local butcher / sausage maker for a tour of his facilities. When we were at his smokehouse I asked him how long a summer sausage required to smoke cook. His reply was "About four hours".

Thanks for the link DEVO. I knew something I didn`t understand was happening. I found this link also, which says the same thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-gol ... 87719.html

My Bradley is only two years old, so I`m still learning my way through it. My purchase was influenced by the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Ruhlman & Polcyn.

John, it was a difficult choice between that and one by TSM.

Aaron, thanks for the information. I am researching the fan modification.

As an additional note; I smoked 10# of summer sausage Monday. I started them at 120°F, increased the temperature by 10° every 20 minutes, to 160°F and applied smoke for 3 hours after the first 90 minutes. They reached 130° IMT in about 5 hours and only moved another 5° in two additional hours. I pulled the three smallest ones for a poaching bath @ 165°F and foil wrapped the two longer ones.

The three in the bath finished in about 30 minutes @ 160°F but showed some fatting in a few areas. The two still in the smoker required an additional four hours (total of 11 hours) to reach 156°F. As it was only 28°F outside, I set up a cooling rack and had them below 100° in less than one hour. They bloomed inside for another two hours before an overnight nap in the refrigerator.

I have so much to learn!

Dave Zac · Post by **Dave Zac** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 12:52

Good luck Kids and keep learning...then wait til you do your first ham. You will put it in the smoker in the morning...midnight rolls around and you are wondering "now what do I do?" That dang stall will make you nuts!

Dave

two_MN_kids · Post by **two_MN_kids** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 14:04

Thanks Dave! I was recently reading a tutorial at the TSM website about doing a ham. They make it sound so simple; even though it took over 28 hours to complete. It could be an expensive lesson with no guarantee of an Easter ham (and require a couple of beers to help with the stall)!

Jim

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 17:54

Although it is impressive to present a whole ham it is seldom that we consume that much meat in even the largest of gatherings. The stall doesn't last as long in smaller cuts.