Summer sausage in Arizona

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help needed

Newbie
Original poster
Mar 2, 2014
2
10
I  am attempting a trial run to make Venison summer sausage with a cold smoking process in Northern Arizona. I made  a  sample cold smoker that worked quite well. The "fire box" is a two drawer file cabinet with an electric hot plate and the "smoke house" is a cardboard  moving wardrobe box (20"X24"by50") connected to the firebox with a 6" stove pipe. (pictures available on request).The box holds 21-( 1.75" X 24")  sausages  easily.  After smoking, I left the sausage hanging in the box to "cure".

This is where my plan went "south". I cut some windows for air flow and and covered them with cheese cloth, I even left the covered flap down for extra ventilation. I also added 2 large coffee cans of water inside for moisture because we have a low humidity. My instructions were to keep the internal box temperature under 60 degrees. the temperature was kept between 55 and 32 degrees with the help of another large can of ice cubes and a frozen gallon jug of water. I never saw any information  as to  humidity requirements.

Everything looked great the first week. The second week showed a lot of shrinkage, but looked great. I became aware that it was drying to rapidly during the third week. I cut a sample during the third week noticing it was firm on the outer portion and very raw in the middle. I have been told if its too hard on the outside it will turn hollow. I was told to seal the box to cut down the air flow and keep the water inside. It may be too late for this run. 

My 2 questions are: could a small (gallon) humidifier work to fill the humidity gap. and what  level should the humidity be maintained?  My family in Missouri never seems to have the problem.

THIA!

H.N.
 
Hey HN

Welcome to the Smoking  forum.   You’ll find great , friendly people here, all more than willing to answer any question you may have.  Just ask and you’ll get about 10 different answers—all right.  LOL.   Don’t forget to post qviews.

Gary
 
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Hello and welcome from East Texas. This is a great site, lots of information and great people that are willing to throw in their two cents worth on about anything.
[/h3][h1]Gary[/h1]
 
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