Anybody here ever smoked sausage??

Brian

I'm not interested in casing my own, just smoking what I buy. Any suggestions on types of sausage/time/temp??[p]Thanks!

AZRP

<p />Brian,
I've made several types of smoked sausage and they have all used a curing agent mixed in with the meat. If you buy fresh sausage and smoke it, the texture will probably be different due to the lack of the cure. Dry the sausage then smoke at 180 degrees until you get an internal temp of 157. -RP

jwirlwind

Brian,
You can do a fine job smoking sausage on the Egg. One of the best methods is cool smoke. I don't have pictures but someone on this site does. You will have to rig a pipe that will come off the dome and run to a smoke box allowing true smoke to cook or age the sausage. Or you can smoke or should I say low and slow cook them on the grill. [p]Chef Jerry

thirdeye

<p />Brian,[p]Sure, sausage is great on your Egg. Chances are, store-bought sausages will not have curing agents mixed in which means you can't cold smoke them like some smoked kielbasa or some of the Hillshire Farms sausages you may have had.[p]The good news is you can hot smoke fresh sausage you pick up at the store or meat market. I call this flavor smoking because it is done at 175° to 225° which are much lower temps than grilling sausages. [p]I either use a rack I rigged up, or I set-up for indirect cooking, or I use a raised grate and cook direct and do links or rings or coils on the grate. [p][p]No matter which set-up you choose, your fire will be really small and not kicking off much heat. You want a light smoke, not a heavy white colored smoke. The sausages will plump up and pick up some color from the smoke. A little while later they will begin to sweat, now is the time you need to watch them carefully and ramp down the pit temperature. You want to save as much of that moisture you can. If they continue to cook, they will spit or split and you don't want to loose juices that way. Anyway, I take them to 160° or so. Depending on the type of casing you have they may wrinkle after pulling off the pit, this is normal. This can be avoided with a water spray or dunk. Or you can put into a pan with warm beer and onions, or you can not worry about it at all, let them rest a few minutes and dig in.[p][p][p]~thirdeye~[p]

thirdeye

<p />Jwirlwind,[p]Here is a picture with the general idea. For cold smoking, Brian should get or make sausages made with curing agents due to the length of time the sausages will be below 140°.[p]I have cold smoked sausages for 2-1/2 hours in my Big Chief then immediately moved them to a hot Egg and grilled them. VERY nice flavor and I didn't break any food safety rules [p]~thirdeye~[p]