Can you cold smoke a fresh sausage??

[ecocottagewales]

Hi smokers. I am new to the art of smoking and have set up a cold smoker in a galvanised metal dustbin. I plan to use a Pro Q cold smoke generator in the bottom. I have some cured loin I will be hanging in the chamber but was wondering whether it was possible/safe to hang some fresh (uncured) sausages in hog casings in the chamber as well, or do you strictly have to only cold smoke cured meat??

 

[dirtsailor2003]

If you plan to keep the smoker at temps below 40 degrees you can smoke I cured meats. If your pit temp is above 40 degrees you need to use cured meats.

 

[ecocottagewales]

Thanks dirtsailor2003, I presume you say I can smoke uncured meats/sausages if I keep the temp under 40. I presume this is Fahrenheit, which equates to around 4 deg centigrade over in the UK. I'm going to have to wait until winter before I try that then :-)

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Yes that is correct. 40°f or less and you can smoke uncured meats. I do this occasionally with pork chops, steaks, ahi tuna. Things that I plan on grilling at a later date. I will smoke them for 2-4 hours depending on the cut, then vac pack and freeze them. Or in the case of the tuna grill or sear it immediately after smoking and eat it. Not a fan of frozen fish.

 

[wade]

Which of the ProQ smoke generators do you have?

As others on here have replied already you will need to treat fresh sausages like any other cold raw minced meat and that requires keeping it at 4 C or below. I think you may struggle with this with the setup you are proposing as the ambient outdoor temperature inj the UK is currently higher than this - even at night. Although meat should be refrigerated at 4 C or below, according to the FSA it is acceptable for raw meat to reach up to 8 C for a period of no more than 3 hours and still be safe - so a short cold smoke up to 8 C would be technically possible. The down side though is that you would then need to rapidly chill them back down to 4 C and then cook them within 24 hours - which would probably defeat the object.

As the nights get cooler you will probably soon be able to smoke the fresh sausages overnight - but be careful as as the smoke generator will also generate heat. If there is insufficient air flow through the smoking chamber it could easily get above 4 C inside.

As has also been mentioned you could cure the sausages first. This is an easy thing to do simply by mixing some Cure#1 or Cure #2 in with the mix or even a lactobacillus curing culture. With the cure the Nitrite will act as the antibacterial agent and with the lactobacillus the acidity of the sausage will increase which also inhibits most harmful bacteria growth. It is very common for people to cold smoke cured sausage at room temperature and they freeze well after being smoked.

Can you post up a photo or two of your cold smoking setup.

Cheers

Wade