Cold smoking sausage?

SmokinJ

If I buy a kit from himountain is ok to cold smoke the sausage for a few hours then freeze and cook regular when you want to cook them. My proq cold smoker only got my dome temp to 60 degrees the other night for cheese. Also was going to try the snakin stick kits they have.

Thanks

Retired RailRoader

SmokinJ, I made a 5lb. batch of snack sticks a few months ago. I kept my dome temp between 180 and 190 and cooked them all day. Once the snack sticks were cooked and cool I took half of them and sealed them in a foodsaver bag. I froze them and took them out right before Christmas and they were just as good as the ones we ate right away. As a helpful tip once you get your meat grinded and mixed with the spices stuff them in their casings and let them sit overnight in the fridge. If you do not stuff them right away and let the mixture set you will have nothing but grief trying to stuff them then.

boston_stoker

I am not a sausage expert, but that (cold smoking meat at 60 F for several hours) sounds questionable to me.

Meat's danger zone for bacteria is between 40 F and 140 F. Food safety rules say that any meat that has been in the danger zone for more than 4 hours should not be consumed. When meat is between 100 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit bacteria counts double every 20 to 30 minutes, so this zone is extra sensitive. Also whole cuts of meat like a bone in butt are safer that cut up pieces ( boneless butt ) because the majority of the bacteria tends to only be on surface. Ground meat is the worst safety wise because the bacteria rich surface of the meat is mixed throughout the meat, which means the bacteria are well mixed throughout the meat.

That being said, I would defer to someone more experienced at making sausage.

stike

yes and no.
if you used pink salts (nitrites), then yes it is ok to cold smoke sausage. if it is truly fresh uncured sausage, then you really should hot smoke it. bacteria and botulism are the risk here. technically, it's botulism (low oxygen environment, warm, lots of wet meaty places to hang out) that's the real risk...

so if it is uncured sausage, and you want it to hang out at room temps for multipe hours on end while cold smoking, then (technically) the answer is 'no'

stike

...to simplify, make sure the kit has nitrites and isn't just a 'flavor' kit.

additionally, if your kit doesn't have nitrites (brats wouldn't, for example) you can add them. when i do brats, i sometimes cold smoke for some extra smoke. in that case, i add pink salts. it gives them nice color too

SmokinJ

Thanks for all the advice. I wonder if its not worth cold smoking. Maybe I should just smoke at around 200. This way I don't haver worry about it not being safe and adding stuff to it.

stike

stike wrote:

if it is truly fresh uncured sausage, then you really should hot smoke it.

thing is, this is 'cooking'. you can do this (hot smoking) when you plan on eating them, too, and then just bump temps at the end and grill them to finish them off. freeze them now unsmoked/uncooked, and smoke them hot then grill when ready to eat.

if you still are determined to hotsmoke them (to 140-145) internal and then freeze them, i would plunge them into an icewater bath when they hit 140-145, then let dry on a rack, then vacuum pack and freeze

that's how you do kielbasa (when it's smoked)


and it's how i did my modified fresh brats. these had pink salts and got smoked low for a long time.

AZRP

You will be adding a cure to the meat which keeps it safe for low smoking temps. The instructions tell you how to smoke them, time and temps. -RP