- Apr 21, 2016
- 2
- 10
Ok, so I'm a newbie...even in my 70's I'm a newbie!! Me and the wife very recently got into making our own sausage and smoking it. At least, we're trying. Don't know where I was sleeping to miss out on smokin' my own meat....after all the years of eating store bought....I guess I'm just kind of slow....maybe??
Jumped into it with both feet, got a LEM sausage stuffer and a grinder. So far, we've only used ground pork from Costco and chicken we ground ourselves. Both turned out okay, actually the chicken sausages were a BIG surprise!! They were great!! I had my doubts, but they turned out great, both smoked and not smoked!!
After the success with home made sausages, we bought a smoker at Home Depot, a Masterbuilt PRO dual fuel and we were doing good until we tried our new smoker. Don't get me wrong, I'm not badmouthin' Masterbuilt.....at least, not yet. Okay, I can see the question marks over a few heads, so I'll explain.
We made up a batch of sausages and put them in the smoker, closed the door and readied the hickory chunks in the pan as instructed, closed the doors and sat down to watch the thermometer....and the inside temperature went NUTS!! With the knob at LOW it zoomed way over 250*F and the only way we could keep the temperature down was by having to try and "smoke" our sausages with the smoke all going out the open door, because that was the only way we could keep the temp under 185F so the fat wouldn't render out of the sausages. That almost worked, except that we lost most of the fat while we fought to keep the temps down. It's amazing how quickly the temps go up and down while you fiddle with an open door. I think I got smoked at least as much as those sausages did!!
Well, after popping up and down every five minutes to mind the temperature, I decided to buy a remote thermometer so I felt a little less like a jack in the box. Then, once I got finished, I did contact Masterbuilt about this excessively high temperature in the smoker and they said the problem was the regulator so they are sending/have sent me a new propane regulator or ??? Don't know exactly what's coming yet....they said 5-10 working days so it could be another week.
In the meantime, as I type this, we are now on our third try at smoking, the black box sits outside with the door open about four inches just to keep the temperature lower. Watching the remote display, it's up and down between 165*F (now) and 178*F (five minutes ago). But, it is kind of breezy out there, so I guess that has to be acceptable. Right now, there's about 15 pounds of assorted chicken sausage in there so I hope it's going to work. If whatever is coming doesn't go let us keep the temperature low enough to let us smoke with a closed door and keep the temps between 150-180.....well, I guess THEN it's all going back to the store, and we'll be in the market for a new smoker that actually has a "low" temperature when the dial is set to "low".
So, there's the trials and tribulations of "AlbertaSmokin" at the beginning of our adventure. Hopefully the next time I post it'll be with good news for y'all.
Bye for now.
Jumped into it with both feet, got a LEM sausage stuffer and a grinder. So far, we've only used ground pork from Costco and chicken we ground ourselves. Both turned out okay, actually the chicken sausages were a BIG surprise!! They were great!! I had my doubts, but they turned out great, both smoked and not smoked!!
After the success with home made sausages, we bought a smoker at Home Depot, a Masterbuilt PRO dual fuel and we were doing good until we tried our new smoker. Don't get me wrong, I'm not badmouthin' Masterbuilt.....at least, not yet. Okay, I can see the question marks over a few heads, so I'll explain.
We made up a batch of sausages and put them in the smoker, closed the door and readied the hickory chunks in the pan as instructed, closed the doors and sat down to watch the thermometer....and the inside temperature went NUTS!! With the knob at LOW it zoomed way over 250*F and the only way we could keep the temperature down was by having to try and "smoke" our sausages with the smoke all going out the open door, because that was the only way we could keep the temp under 185F so the fat wouldn't render out of the sausages. That almost worked, except that we lost most of the fat while we fought to keep the temps down. It's amazing how quickly the temps go up and down while you fiddle with an open door. I think I got smoked at least as much as those sausages did!!
Well, after popping up and down every five minutes to mind the temperature, I decided to buy a remote thermometer so I felt a little less like a jack in the box. Then, once I got finished, I did contact Masterbuilt about this excessively high temperature in the smoker and they said the problem was the regulator so they are sending/have sent me a new propane regulator or ??? Don't know exactly what's coming yet....they said 5-10 working days so it could be another week.
In the meantime, as I type this, we are now on our third try at smoking, the black box sits outside with the door open about four inches just to keep the temperature lower. Watching the remote display, it's up and down between 165*F (now) and 178*F (five minutes ago). But, it is kind of breezy out there, so I guess that has to be acceptable. Right now, there's about 15 pounds of assorted chicken sausage in there so I hope it's going to work. If whatever is coming doesn't go let us keep the temperature low enough to let us smoke with a closed door and keep the temps between 150-180.....well, I guess THEN it's all going back to the store, and we'll be in the market for a new smoker that actually has a "low" temperature when the dial is set to "low".
So, there's the trials and tribulations of "AlbertaSmokin" at the beginning of our adventure. Hopefully the next time I post it'll be with good news for y'all.
Bye for now.