Sausage Fest: Making Croatian Kobasice (Smoked Sausages) with BGE & AR

A while back, before purchasing an adjustable rig from the Ceramic Grill Store, I asked if it was possible to use the AR and Woo to make a "mini smokehouse" to hang homemade sausages for smoking.  I got a lot of helpful tips and measurements from Eggheads, but the consensus was that it might not work (but was worth a shot anyway).  So I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the AR.  A great purchase, by the way, I have found so many uses for it.  And now I found one more: it actually works as a pretty good setup for a smoke shack.   

I wanted to make my grandfather's recipe for "kobasice," which are essentially a Croatian riff on the Slovenian classic kranjske kobasice, or heavily seasoned, heavily smoked, extremely garlicked pork sausages.  I used to do these with extended family when I was a kid and the family still had a smoke house in someone's backyard (in the middle of Chicago, mind you), and so I was hoping to try it with my Egg.  

The recipe is:

·         1000 g Pork shoulder

·         18 g kosher salt

·         2.5 g Cure #1

·         3 g Black pepper, coarsely ground

·         11 g Garlic, minced/mashed

·         45 mL Water

·         30 mL water (for garlic)

·         2.5 g salt (for garlic)

·         10 g half-sharp paprika (optional)

The procedure is:

1. Grind pork through 13/8" (10 mm) plate.
   
2. Crush garlic, food process with water, 30 mL/kg, into a slurry.
3. Mix all spices into garlic slurry. Add additional water, 45 mL/kg.
   
4. Add spices. Mix to primary bind.  Add additional water if necessary.
5. Stuff into 32-34 mm hog casings. Link pairs, tie ends.
6. Hang sausages, approx. 2 hours, until casings are dry and tacky.
7. Light small fire in Egg.
8. Place in Egg, smoke heavily with cherry or oak until brownish/red color obtained.
9. Slowly work grate temp to 160, heavy cherry/oak smoke the entire way may be too much for some people, but I like smoke. Looking for 152 IT.
10. Cold water bath.
11. Bloom for an hour or two.
12. Refrigerate.
13. The sausages are safe to consume, however, they are often boiled in a hot water for a few minutes.  They are better after a few days.

And now for the pics:

After deboning pork shoulder, cutting it into strips, approx 1" by 6", to feed through grinder.  I will take any opportunity to use my big butcher knife.   



Stuffing hog casings:


After linking and tying, hanging them to dry:


Loaded onto the AR.  I did half the traditional way, and the other half with some hot paprika, and you can really see the difference in color before smoking.  This is roughly 6.5 pounds of meat, and I think I could easily get up to 10 pounds with tighter spacing and adding one more dowel.  





I lit the Egg (no pics), using the CGS Ang-L brackets to section off a small section of the firebox, loaded large pieces of lump on the fire grate, placed some splintered chunks of cherry, apple, and post oak, and then sprinkled small pieces of lump.  I'm usually a dump-the-bag-and-forget-it guy, but this is one cook where you have to take the time to place the lump pieces.  It's important not to go above 165-170 grate temp, otherwise you'll "fat out" the sausages.  This technique, which I saw on this forum, worked really, really well.  

AR set atop the Woo ring, with the 19" pizza stones acting as a heat shield.  People in the earlier thread warned it might not be stable, but it definitely was stable enough for me.



4 hours later--you can't really tell which have the paprika and which do not:








Letting them bloom for a couple of hours before refrigerating.




I was really pleased with the results.  When I bit into the first one, I did one of those Steven Raichlen "mmm hmm mmm" noises and shook my head at how good it was.  (I did not, however, say anything like, "The delicate flavor of wood smoke permeates to porquaceous encased meats."  I'm so happy the test run worked out.  Next time, I'll work on my technique and try to make more uniformly sized links.  Thanks for looking.