Blasphemy! Summer sausage in the oven

[BrewerDave]

Hello all,

The WallyWill cold smoker is put up till fall and I'm making more modifications to my Char-Broil bas vertical (namely making it electric). In the meantime, I am experimenting with a summer sausage recipe that can be finished in ye olde household oven:

   Sweet 'n Smoky Summer Sausage test



   2 pound of 75/25 ground beef
   1/2 c. water
   1 tablespoon brown sugar
   3 teaspoons Morton Tender Quick
   1 teaspoon non fat dry milk
   1 teaspoon cracked peppercorns
   1 teaspoon mustard seed
   1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
   1/2 teaspoon onion powder
   1.5 tablespoon liquid smoke

Mix together and place in non-metal bowl in fridge for 12-24 hours
Next day, stuff meat into casings and place in fridge for additional 12-24 hours
 
Oven Cooking Instructions
•Let sausage sit on counter for 2 hours
•Line the bottom of oven with foil to catch the drippings.
•Lay sausage on racks.
•Cook at the lowest heat possible for the first hour. Leave oven open slightly to remove excess moisture if necessary.
•170 F until product reaches an internal temperature of 152 °F.
•Put it in a ice bath to get it back down to about 100F as soon as possible. This prevents the sausage from getting all wrinkled and your casings should be nice and plump. then let it air dry about another 2-3 hours to finish out the bloom and you should be ready to go.
Refrigerate or freeze sausages after smoking or cooking.

This might be my go to recipe until I get my smoker rebuilt. I'd appreciate any constructive critisism on this

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

DS

[teesquare]

I don't have any tender quick on hand...what is the recommended amount per lb. of meat?

[TentHunteR]

One thing I might do differently is replace the 1 tsp non-fat dry milk with 1 heaping TBS powdered buttermilk to give a little more tang, otherwise the recipe looks good to me.

I love that it calls for fresh cracked (very coarsely ground) peppercorns! I like it so much better than fine ground.



Tee, as far as I know Morton recommends 1 1/2 level tsp Morton TenderQuick (or Morton Sugar Cure) per lb of ground meat.

[Sam3]

I don't have any tender quick on hand...what is the recommended amount per lb. of meat?

Morton's TQ is 1.5 level tsp per 1 lb of meat.

Morton's Beef Salami recipe can be found here:

 http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/culinary-salts/recipes/18/beef-salami/

Or

1 level tsp of Cure #1 for 5 lbs of meat.

[Pam Gould]

How sweet is this sausage? It's time to do something outside now..global warming snow is almost gone..  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

[BrewerDave]

 I'm back at square 1 with my gas smoker so I'm converting it to electric. I've cold smoked 5 big batches of cheese in the WallyWill since January and I want to smoke trout, salmon, sausage etc over the summer.

[teesquare]

Thanks for the answer Tent, and Sam...

I knew Tenderquick had a different usage rate from Cure No#...but could not remember what that was. 

[Pam Gould]

Thanks for the answer Tent, and Sam...

I knew Tenderquick had a different usage rate from Cure No#...but could not remember what that was. 

How interchangable is the pink salt and TenderQuick?  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

[Sam3]

Thanks for the answer Tent, and Sam...

I knew Tenderquick had a different usage rate from Cure No#...but could not remember what that was. 

How interchangable is the pink salt and TenderQuick?  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

Pam, both can be used as a curing agent like I mentioned above.
However, you may need to adjust your salt levels down a bit if using TQ.

For example, I use 1 tsp of Kosher salt per pound of meat when using Cure #1.

If I was using TQ, I might use a half teaspoon per pound of meat to begin with and make test fry patty. You  can always adjust up.

I hope that answered your question.

[Pam Gould]

Thanks for the answer Tent, and Sam...

I knew Tenderquick had a different usage rate from Cure No#...but could not remember what that was. 

How interchangable is the pink salt and TenderQuick?  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

Basically they are NOT interchangeable.

As Sam pointed out, either can be used, but they they are two very different products and the recipes for each are very different.


In addition to the extra salt, Tender Quick: also contains 20% sugar (which has to be accounted for), and Sodium Nitrate (in addition to sodium nitrite).



The biggest difference is in how they measure.

Cure #1: uses 1 level tsp per 5 lb ground meat, so it can't be accurately measured for a 1 lb batch using measuring spoons (0.20 tsp per lb).  In case you're wondering; NO, you should not just bump it up to 0.25 tsp per lb of meat, or you'd exceed the limit by 25%

So, if using cure #1, instead of a 1 lb batch, everything should be converted for 1.25,  2.5, or 5 lb batch:

Ground Meat		Cure #1
5 lbs		1 level tsp.
2.5 lbs		0.5 level tsp.
1.25 lbs		0.25 level tsp.

Thanks Cliff for the explain..I measure everything by weight so no problem for me  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

[TentHunteR]

Thanks for the answer Tent, and Sam...

I knew Tenderquick had a different usage rate from Cure No#...but could not remember what that was. 

How interchangable is the pink salt and TenderQuick?  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

Basically they are NOT interchangeable.

As Sam pointed out, either can be used, but they they are two very different products and the recipes for each are very different.


In addition to the extra salt, Tender Quick: also contains 20% sugar (which has to be accounted for), and Sodium Nitrate (in addition to sodium nitrite).



The biggest difference is in how they measure.

Cure #1: uses 1 level tsp per 5 lb ground meat, so it can't be accurately measured for a 1 lb batch using measuring spoons (0.20 tsp per lb).  In case you're wondering; NO, you should not just bump it up to 0.25 tsp per lb of meat, or you'd exceed the limit by 25%

So, if using cure #1, instead of a 1 lb batch, everything should be converted for 1.25,  2.5, or 5 lb batch:

Ground Meat		Cure #1
5 lbs		1 level tsp.
2.5 lbs		0.5 level tsp.
1.25 lbs		0.25 level tsp.

Thanks Cliff for the explain..I measure everything by weight so no problem for me  .☆´¯`•.¸¸. ི♥ྀ.

YW.   I went to reply and hit the wrong button and deleted my post above!    DOHH!!!

Glad you got it quoted before I did that!

[BrewerDave]

Turned out very well!
The texture and taste is very good. I will use this recipe again

150312_003 by thatbrewerdude, on Flickr

[BrewerDave]

This batch is gone. I'm thinking of adding 1 pound of pork to the next batch and adjusting the ingredients as needed. Substitute powdered buttermilk for the regular milk and losing the brown sugar.

[TentHunteR]

This batch is gone. I'm thinking of adding 1 pound of pork to the next batch and adjusting the ingredients as needed. Substitute powdered buttermilk for the regular milk and losing the brown sugar.

What I see in your pic looks like it has a nice color to it.


I use a little brown sugar in mine.   I like the richness the molasses in the brown sugar gives, but I do limit it to 1 level tsp per lb of meat (50% less than what your recipe calls for), so it balances the flavor without any detectable sweetness.  The buttermilk helps with that too.


Just a suggestion: Try 1 tsp brown sugar and 2 1/2 tsp powdered buttermilk per lb meat, and see if that helps to balance it better.

Can't wait to see what your next batch looks like.