Collagen casings and summer sausage question

[jaxon2]

New to making summer sausage and have a question regarding collagen casings and what I may have done wrong.

My first time smoking summer sausage I used mahogany casings and I was very happy for my first attempt. This time I used collagen casings using the same recipe and same smoking temps ect . However, the outside of the SS has a thick "bark" (not sure if correct term".  Once I cut that off it taste great, but I was wondering what I did wrong?

I used 1.5" or 2" x 12 collagen casings

My process for smoking

I used maverick et732 thermometer to monitor the meat temp and smoker temp.

Hang SS in smoker at 120, vent open, no smoke, 2 hours

After 2 hours I bumped the temp 10 degrees every 30 min until I reached 170 degrees

Once smoker was at 170 I left until IT was 152.

Took about 12 hours to reach 152

Pulled from smoker and put in ice bath to cool down

Hung SS to bloom

 Thanks for any help

 

[oregon smoker]

it looks like you followed the same method as most do. i personally bump my temps 10* every hour instead of 1/2hr (not a big deal). is it possible the ends that were over cooked were to close to the heat source? do you have any pictures? i had this happen once when all my SS were the same length but one (the last stuffed) and it was much longer and the low end got a little toasty before i caught it.

Hope this helps in some way,

Keep on Smokin,

OS

 

[jaxon2]

ttt... thinking about trying another batch of SS, but before I did I was wondering what I should try to do different this time. Thanks

 

[daveomak]

You have case hardened the sausage...  

Hang them in the smoker at 110-120 until the surface is dry....  then add smoke until desired smokiness is achieved....   raise smoker temp 10 deg. hour to 150 ish  until IT of 140 has been achieved for at least 9 minutes...  I prefer 1 hour to insure uneven temps in the smoker...  Overall time is probably 24 hours...

FSIS Guidance on Safe Cooking of Non-Intact Meat Chops, Roasts, and Steaks April 2009

Temp °F / Time for 5.0 log Reduction

Unit Time

130.......... .86 min.

131 ...........69 min.

132.......... 55 min.

133.......... 44 min.

134............ 35 min.

135............. 28 min.

136 ..............22 min.

137 ...............18 min.

138 ...............14 min.

139............... 11 min.

140 ..............9 min.

141.............. 7 min.

142 .............6 min.

143 .............5 min.

144 .............4 min.

145 .............3 min.

146 ..............130 sec.

147.............. 103 sec.

148 ..............82 sec.

149 ..............65 sec.

150............... 52 sec.

151................ 41 sec.

152................ 33 sec.

153 ................26 sec.

154 ................21 sec.

155 ................17 sec.

156 .................14 sec.

157 ..................11 sec.

158 ...................0 sec.

159 ....................0 sec.

160 ....................0 sec.

The required lethalities are achieved instantly when the internal temperature of a cooked meat product reaches 158 °F or above. Humidity must be considered when using this Time/Temperature table.

This Time/Temperature table is based on Thermal Death Curve for Salmonella in Beef Emulsions in tubes (Derived from Goodfellow & Brown1, 1978) Regulatory Curve obtained from Jerry Carosella, Deputy Director, Microbiology Division, Science and Technology. All times that were a fraction of a minute or second was rounded up to the next whole number (e.g., 16.2 seconds for 155 °F was round up to 17 seconds).

________________________ 1. Goodfellow, S. J. and W. L. Brown. 1978. Fate of Salmonella Inoculated into Beef for Cooking. Journal of Food Protection. 41:598-605.