Summer Sausage - Step by step

[92xj]

It's that time of year again.
I did one of these threads years ago, but it got jacked up when photo bucket screwed pictures, so I shall do this again.
This is what I do and how I do it.

I work in 23 pound batches.
My seasoning is good for 25 pounds, but I cut it short 2 pounds to increase boldness in flavor.
I mix all my sausages 70/30, Game to pork shoulder
This batch is 16 lbs deer, 7 pounds Boston butt.

I use AC Legg seasonings.  Salami, Summer Sausage and Jalapeño Summer Sausage.
For the ones with cheese, I use High Temp cheese and add 2.5 lbs per 23 lbs of meat.

So, lets start.
Setup your work area.  If you don't have 2 meat totes, stop everything, and go buy them now.
I grind my meat partially frozen.  It grinds so much better.
Start with your large grinding plate and grind away.


Once first grind is done, mix your seasoning AND your cure with super cold water.  Whisk away and dump all over first grind.  Then start mixing the meat.  The partially frozen meat will be in little marble clumps that fold over themselves nicely.  I mix by hand and go for 3-5 minutes or until I can’t feel my fingers anymore.


At this step, go get a bowl of hot water and soak your casings until ready to stuff.


Once meat is mixed with seasoning and cure, install your fine plate on your grinder and start mixing the second grind.  I pinch golf ball size chunks that fall into the neck of the grinder and never use the plunger.  Using the plunger creates suction and it’s a pain.  Just pinch small pieces and let gravity and the grinder do their thing.


After the second grind its time to mix again and also add cheese if you are wanting it.  Add the cheese (or not) and mix by hand.  I add more water here,  about 2 cups of cold water.  And mix away.  I fold and punch and push and fold and punch.  Once I cant feel my hands and see that the cheese is consistent throughout, I call it good.


Grinding and mixing are done and its time to stuff the stuffer.  Drop in handful size balls and press down getting all air pockets out of the meat.  Fill up the stuffer and get ready.  Get your casings from the water bowl, pull out a few and load one.  I would highly recommend an electric foot pedal stuffer.  It changed my life.  Start stuffing and hog ring the ends.



Once all are stuffed, rest in fridge for 24 hours.

[92xj]

Lets cook.
Internal temp 152 – 155.
Smoker temps from 120 – 179.9
Never, and I really do mean never, let your smoke house go over 180 degrees.  You have just spent hours grinding and stuffing and cleaning, don’t screw it up cooking.  It is going to take a long time and get annoying, but plan accordingly.  This batch took 24 hours exactly to hit temp.  I started at noon Thursday and ended today at noon. 
After your meat has sat in the fridge for 24 hours, hang in smokehouse and get your heat source fired up.
Run 125 degrees for an hour, no smoke to dry the casings and prep them to take on smoke.


After an hour, I crank up the heat to around 150 and start adding smoke.  I use a smoke tube that I place in the air intake port of my smoke house.  It is perfect.  Allows me to control the smoke and add more without opening the smokehouse door at all during the process.



I run two probes that hang in the smokehouse.  One even with the bottom of the sausage on the left hand side and one on the right hand side at the top of the sausage.  I want to know what the heat is doing throughout the house.  I then run two probes in the meat.  One in the bottom of a tube on one side and one in the top of a tube on the other side.  The bottom will be a tick warmer in the sausage and smokehouse that the top, but keep an eye on it all and do good work.  After a few hours, I crank the heat and hold between 170 and 179 with the lowest probe. And the waiting game continues…

8hour mark
Top of sausage = 133
Bottom of sausage = 138
Top of smokehouse = 161
Bottom of smokehouse = 169


10hour mark


18hour mark

24 hour mark
Top of sausage = 152.2
Bottom of sausage = 157.1
Smokehouse is cooling as I just turned off the heat


Open door and take some pride here…


Pull meat out and place in cold water asap.  Keep in there for 20 minutes at least.  I leave the garden hose running and walk away from a half hour and let water run.

[92xj]

Now that the meat is cooked and cooled.  I bring inside and lay out towels to roll the meat and dry it.


Once dry, I place in fridge and chill for however long you can stand it.  After chilled pull out and cut into whatever size you want to package.  I do quarters and fit two logs in one quart bag. 



I vacuum seal in premade quart bags.  I used to do the make your own custom size bag, but never again.  Premade is the way to go.  Just learn to deal with the little excess of bag and fold it under the logs when storing.


Stack in freezer and pat yourself on the back.  Also, every time you walk by the freezer, open it and accept the pride you feel.
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[3boys]

Awesome. 
Now I just need to kill something!
Thanks for the detailed pics and instructions.

[bigdave]

Thanks for posting such precise instructions and the photos are very nice. Thanks!!

[Wolfdog2314]

This is amazing, thanks so much! This is the year I completely switch over to completely processing all my own game. And summer sausage is on my list to tackle!

[jrebel]

I'll be following this shortly.  Have some bear meat that should make great summer sausage.

[Brushcrawler]

That is a work of art. Thanks for sharing your recipe.

[Taco280AI]

Great post 

[hunter399]

Great post
Looks a lot better than me just throwing it in oven.👍

[carlyoungs]

Looks amazing and good job. I am doing a batch this weekend.  For anyone who has never done this I would recommend doing a half batch on your first run. It gets intimidating doing all the smoking if you do not have a big smokehouse like the one pictured. Once you get a batch done you get a lot more confidence. Again good job XJ and thanks for the step by step 

[NRA4LIFE]

Very nice.  You need a meat mixer though.

[LDennis24]

Thank you so much for sharing this! Masterfully done!

How much water do you mix with the cure and seasoning on the first mix? The pic with the silver cup.

[92xj]

Very nice.  You need a meat mixer though.

Had one and sold it. 
It was a pain to clean and never mixed the meat 100 percent.  Always left some on the sides that didn’t get sucked into the big annoying ball of sticky meat.   After a few rounds of the mixer, I had to go back to hand mixing for a more consistent product.   Though I know lots of folks who love them. 

[92xj]

Thank you so much for sharing this! Masterfully done!

How much water do you mix with the cure and seasoning on the first mix? The pic with the silver cup.

That bowl in the picture, I filled up about half with water.  Maybe 2 quarts.  Not a ton but enough to get the seasoning and cure to whisk easily.   

[NRA4LIFE]

Very nice.  You need a meat mixer though.

Had one and sold it. 
It was a pain to clean and never mixed the meat 100 percent.  Always left some on the sides that didn’t get sucked into the big annoying ball of sticky meat.   After a few rounds of the mixer, I had to go back to hand mixing for a more consistent product.   Though I know lots of folks who love them.

Yes, I love mine.  And it keeps my knuckle hair out of the sausage.

[cooltimber]

Thanks,great job. This helps a lot.

[riverrun]

Thanks for sharing!

[callturner]

Very nice.  You need a meat mixer though.

Had one and sold it. 
It was a pain to clean and never mixed the meat 100 percent.  Always left some on the sides that didn’t get sucked into the big annoying ball of sticky meat.   After a few rounds of the mixer, I had to go back to hand mixing for a more consistent product.   Though I know lots of folks who love them.

Yes, I love mine.  And it keeps my knuckle hair out of the sausage.

I use rubber gloves and keep hot water close by.

[92xj]

Very nice.  You need a meat mixer though.

Had one and sold it. 
It was a pain to clean and never mixed the meat 100 percent.  Always left some on the sides that didn’t get sucked into the big annoying ball of sticky meat.   After a few rounds of the mixer, I had to go back to hand mixing for a more consistent product.   Though I know lots of folks who love them.

Yes, I love mine.  And it keeps my knuckle hair out of the sausage.

I use rubber gloves and keep hot water close by.

Yeah, my bowl of hot water for the casings sits close by and I dip my hands in it often.   Nitrile gloves for the whole process but they do nothing for the cold.

[Houndhunter]

Great write up 

[callturner]

I tried the nitrile and they do keep your hands clean , but I use the orange Playtex type. They let me work a little longer before running my hands under hot water to warm them up.

[kellama2001]

Awesome write up and great pics, thank you for sharing! I'm hoping to get a grinder under the Christmas tree this year so I can start making sausages too

[Fletch]

Great write up with great pics.  It is confirmation for me that I am not alone in my process.  I have run the meat through the grinder a 3rd time with an open plate and right into casings...it works but just got the motorized stuffer and life is good    Boy did you hit it right with cold fingers aye yi yi 

[pickardjw]

@92xj with this recipe is the sausage "shelf stable"? i.e. could you take this on a 3 day backpacking trip and it's still safe to eat the 3rd day?

[92xj]

@92xj with this recipe is the sausage "shelf stable"? i.e. could you take this on a 3 day backpacking trip and it's still safe to eat the 3rd day?

 I cant answer that. I'm no USDA professional. I'd do a little research on what is possible with 6.25% sodium nitrite cure.

I will say, I have eaten my summer sausage after numerous days outside of a fridge and am still alive.

[Woodchuck]

@92xj with this recipe is the sausage "shelf stable"? i.e. could you take this on a 3 day backpacking trip and it's still safe to eat the 3rd day?

If yours turns out anything close to how xj's comes out, you won't have to worry about it lasting that long.

[pickardjw]

Ha! Good answers. I wonder if there's an, "ask the USDA" thing somewhere.

[Ghost Hunter]

Definitely taking some pointers here.

[pickardjw]

Started grinding around 4pm yesterday and finished stuffing at 12:30am. The .75 HP Meat! grinder was pretty impressive, especially having only used stand mixers to make sausage previously. The time to start and finish these smaller casings was the real time suck but those long ones won't fit in my smoker. The fine grind was also slow at first. I kept everything cold but it was maybe a bit too warm after mixing, so put everything in the freezer again and took a break and it mowed through better after that.

Ended up about 4 casings short so I may have to try a loaf like @hunter399 

Pit Boss Pro Series II is currently set at 150* and maintaining temp around 110*. It's cold out. Stocked up on pellets so it can feed all night. To be continued...

[hunter399]

Heck ya man .👍
Those be looking good.

[pickardjw]

14 hours of smoke time and these are done! I didn't think about it before but the smaller size of the casings definitely reduced the cook time. Turned up to 175* and rotated the rack before bed, then woke up at 1am to check them. Smoker was at 150* and internal temps hadn't moved a ton so I cranked it to 200* from my bed...spending the extra $$ on the wifi/bluetooth capable smoker was worth it in that moment!

I was going to wake up an hour later to make sure the smoker wasn't getting too hot but slept through that alarm and woke up at 4am to a 200* smoker and the casings in the back right corner at 170* already  Haven't cut into them yet but I kept all 6-8 of them separate from the ones still under 150*.

Lowered back to 175* and drifted in and out of sleep for a while. Rotated the rack a few times and the other 28-30 got up to right around 154*. Did the water soak and they've been on paper towels in the fridge drying all day. It's delicious. Time to vac seal, just in time to take home a bunch for Christmas gifts!

Thanks for the detailed recipe 92xj, it was plenty easy to follow and the results are well worth the effort.

[92xj]

Looks great!
I was nervous when reading and not seeing your picture.    The ones that got hot and having your cooler at 200, I was thinking they would be a little crumbly but the one in your picture looks good!   Good job. 
And I should have mentioned the casing size does affect cook time for sure.   Also, keeping space between the sausages while hanging helps with temps and times as well.   

[pickardjw]

Yeah I was a little cramped for space in the smoker. I got curious and dug one of the 170* ones out. Actually doesn't appear too badly overcooked. The texture is different, the flavor is a bit more meaty, and color is darker but not too dry.

[kellama2001]

Damn those look tasty! Wish I was on your Christmas list 

[Blacklab]

Oh my goodness🤑🤑🤑 well done thanks for sharing👍