Not enough time to smoke everything- need advice!

tooth · Post by **tooth** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 03:18

Hey guys-
So in my excitement to make sausage this weekend, I ended up making 50 lbs, way more than I need. And to top it all off, I messed up the knackwurst seasoning and cure amount, so I ended up with a 20 lb batch instead of 10. My new smoker is too small for my own good, it handled about 3 lbs of snack stix and about 5 lbs of knackwurst. I'm slow cooking the rest of the stix in the oven to finish them off, but I still have 15 lbs of knackwurst and no time to smoke them! (The knackwurst is chuckwagon's recipe from the member recipe page, and the snack stix are the cactus jack's from the same page).

So give me some advice on what I should do- I know this is supposed to be eaten as a smoked, cured sausage rather than fresh. So what if I freeze them and pull them out and smoke them as I want them? Can I slow cook in the oven then freeze? Eat them fresh like I would a bratwurst without smoking? Can I cure them without smoking or cooking? I know I need to buy Stan's book, but I could use some advice, pronto! Any help is much appreciated!

Chuckwagon · Post by **Chuckwagon** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 04:11

Hi Tim,
First of all, relax - we're here to help you! Ok, nobody says you have to smoke any sausage at all if you don't want to. Smoking sausage does NOT cure it. It simply makes it taste better. Many sausages taste better without it. For instance, pepperoni is traditionally made without smoke. Next, it would be best to prep-cook (bake) the sausage, cool it down, and then freeze it until you need it. This is done over the period of a few hours in a slack oven. (Right this minute, I have a batch on its fifth hour at only 200°F.) Use your kitchen oven for convenience. Monitor the temperature carefully and be aware that trichinae in pork is destroyed at 137°F. so as you surpass this temp, you already got one nail in the wanted poster. OK, next you want to ensure that you take care of other nasties such as cryptosporidium and pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli species, listeria, and the strains of staph and perfringens. This is accomplished by further elevated heat to 150°F.
Now, more is not better. Pull the sausage out of the oven at 150 and begin to cool it down. If the heat continues, it will ruin the texture and liquify the fat - Yechhhh!
So... monitor the stuff carefully and don't overcook it but make sure it reaches a safe temp. Cool sausages with natural or synthetic casings by running cold water on them until they drop to room temperature. (Do not do this with sausages cased in collagen).
Put your sausages into vac-bags and freeze them up to 6 weeks. When you get ready to use them, thaw them in the refrigerator, slap them on a smoky grill and enjoy them. Lots of folks like to steam them in a little beer before grilling.
They will be fine. Hey, you're gaining experience! You'll be fine too. I'm sure you weren't planning on the extra work, but now you've learned something. Next time - try smoking. Let us know how they turn out. And shout if you need any more help or questions answered. We'll send Ross over to your house!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 04:43

I was in illy noise about five years ago and I don't remember leaving anything there. If you need a bigger smoker you need to improvise. If you have an unused bedroom you can lay bricks on the floor about six feet square and then get a little wood stove. set the stove up in the bed room on the bricks and open a window from the top about six inches. make sure that there isn't anything that your wife is fond of in the room and then build some racks that will hold some rods. You can hang sausage and hams from those rods. now all you have to do is build a small fire in the stove and close the dampers. I gaurantee you that you will have a smoker that is the envy of all of your neighbors.

tooth · Post by **tooth** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 22:41

Thanks guys. Last batch of Knackwurst is finishing up in the oven right now. Hopefully I'll have some pictures up in the next few days when I get a minute.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 23:36

ssorllih wrote:I was in illy noise about five years ago and I don't remember leaving anything there. If you need a bigger smoker you need to improvise. If you have an unused bedroom you can lay bricks on the floor about six feet square and then get a little wood stove. set the stove up in the bed room on the bricks and open a window from the top about six inches. make sure that there isn't anything that your wife is fond of in the room and then build some racks that will hold some rods. You can hang sausage and hams from those rods. now all you have to do is build a small fire in the stove and close the dampers. I guarantee you that you will have a smoker that is the envy of all of your neighbors.

Now we know why there's a line for "current location" but not one for "current wife," huh, Ross?

Chuckwagon, I dunk my cooked sausages in ice water for a couple of minutes, but pull 'em quickly so the collagen won't be affected by the water. Then I put 'em on a plate and slip 'em into the refrigerator, or bag 'em and put 'em into the freezer. I guess there's enough weight loss from drying that the sausages have shrunk enough to relieve internal pressure so it won't burst the collagen if it gets much softer. Hopefully, this arrangement still cools down fairly rapidly. Your thoughts...?