Hot smoking without cure?

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skhunter

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Nov 7, 2007
88
10
Saskatchewan, Canada
I've seen a couple threads saying you need cure for cold smoking and no cure for hot smoking. I thought it was the opposite. I have always used cure for hot smoking my sausage.
 
When you say hot smoking, what temps are you talking about? If you have cure in the sausage you don't need to worry about the 41-135 rule. you can smoke the sausage at very low temps, over a long time frame, but need to get it up to about 155 IT for the finish. If you cook the sausage & get it above 135 in 4 hours you don't need cure, like you would do for fresh Italian sausage or breakfast sausage.
 
Last edited:
When you say hot smoking, what temps are you talking about? If you have cure in the sausage you don't need to worry about the 41-135 rule. you can smoke the sausage at very low temps, over a long time frame, but need to get it up to about 155 IT for the finish. If you cook the sausage & get it above 135 in 4 hours you don't need cure, like you would do for fresh Italian sausage or breakfast sausage.


When I say hot smoking I'm talking about smoking to internal temp of 155 over a long time (8-10 hours)
 
If your going to have the sausage or any other ground/injected/probed meat in the "Danger Zone" 41-135 degrees for more than 4 hours then it should be cured. 
 
If your going to have the sausage or any other ground/injected/probed meat in the "Danger Zone" 41-135 degrees for more than 4 hours then it should be cured. 

Totally agree. You are risking illness any other process
 
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What Jerry said (pineywoods) he's one of th men around here.
 
Now, during that smoke of 8 - 10 hours if you monitor your temps and can boost up your heat enough so that as soon as your meat hits 41° it can get up to 135° inside of 4 hours, you're good to go finishing it to 155° over a longer period of time with out cure.  However, over 4 hours with fresh product the bacteria levels explode in that temp range and multiply incessantly; only rapid heat or cure will keep that from happening.
 
What Pops & Al & Piney said.

I like the taste of cured smoked sausage more than non-cured smoked sausage too. But that could just be me.

Bear
 
skhunter

Like the others have said.

Just play it safe and use cure. The small amount of cure is not going to hurt you.
 
Well put Pops...JJ
 
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