OK, I'll try to provide as many details as possible. I made venison summer sausage using last year's ground venison, mixed with ground pork from the supermarket (70/30 ratio venison to pork). I mixed well using a well-received internet recipe. I also added high heat cheddar cheese. The recipe called for 1 T of tenderquick per pound as a cure. I read that for sausage, I should use only 1.5 t of tenderquick per pound so I went with it. I had 13 pounds of meat and it called for 4 cups of water so I mixed that in as well. I dissolved the TQ in the water before mixing in. I used a LEM stuffer with fibrous casings with no holes in them (2.5 inch 3 pound casings). I let them rest in the fridge for 24 hours to cure and I thought I was ready to roll. I used a
Masterbuilt electric smoker. I set it to 100 degrees until the meat got to about 80, then bumped up the temp every hour or two staying ahead of the meat by 20-30 degrees or so until the meat reached 160. This process took about 7.5 hours. I placed them in an ice bath for a few minutes until the temp came down to less than 100. At this point I noticed the casings felt "squishy". It was evident that fat rendered out into the casings. I cut one open to inspect and I was correct, a gelatinous goo was in the casing. I was a little disheartened and placed them in the fridge overnight. I inspected the next day and the casings were still squishy so I cut them open and got rid of the goo and vacuum packed them and put them in the freezer. The flavor was OK, not what I was expecting but OK (I can tweak the recipe for the flavor). The texture was nowhere near as firm as I was looking for, not quite but near "crumbly". I attached a couple of pics to show what I'm trying to describe. Any tips or something I definitely did wrong? I have more ground venison and I hoping to try again and get it right.
Hi there and welcome!
The good news is that your situation makes sense so you are not experiencing anything out of the ordinary for your situation.
The bad news is that you ended performing "fat out" while smoking your summer sausage.
This means that you smoked the sausage too hot and all the fat leaked out rather than staying in the sausage and having a solid sausage.
The results of fat out are crumbly, dry, loose texture of your sausage... exactly what you describe.
Back to more good news, the solution to your problem is easy to understand but might be difficult to execute.
Solution:
When making sausage like this you have to walk up your smoker temp from like 100F degrees to about 170F degrees.
You do this by setting at 100 for an hour with no smoke.
Apply smoke and raise temp to like 125F for 45min-1hr.
Raise temp again to like 145F for 45min-1hr.
Then raise temp again to like 165F for 45min-1hr.
Continue this trend until you hit 170F smoker temp and leave there until your sausage meat hits your internal temp. If you are shooting for 160F Internal Temp (IT) of sausage you may have to bump up to 180F smoker temp with the process (I have done this).
Why do this process? This process for sausage keeps from shocking the fat and melting it out with temps that are too high for too long.
Now for the "ugly" truth.
Your MES is purposely built to have temp swings in order to burn/smolder wood chips. So when you set it to 145F smoker temp it may swing up to 160F and drop down to 130F.
This is an unfortunate and ugly reality when it comes to making sausage and does not help you.
If you go over 170-180F smoker temp you can start to cause fat out so most people shoot for an IT of the sausage being like 152-155F but if you have parasite concerns or have reason to go with a higher temp for game meat then you have a dilema. Your MES temp swings will make this difficult for you.
If your oven doesn't have such high temp swings you can transfer the sausage to the oven after it receives all the smoke you want and walk the temp up there.
Another solution would be to put them in a big water proof trashbag and into a cooler with water and a Sous Vide (SV) machine to finish them. The SV will hold temp very tightly.
I know these may not be very good options or possibilities but its the reality of your situation.
There is 1 more end all be all solution that is a little more involved but definitely a solution.
You can do a simple rewire to your MES smoker and buy an Auber PID controller and have it control your smoker temps. A PID controller will hold temp spot on or within 1 degree of the temp you set.
My MES is rewired and using a PID because I wanted to be able to do sausage and bacon (and other smokes) without the risk of fat out. I make sausage with no problem.
I wanted a smoker that would allow me to make basically any smoked food I could think of so I went this route and it is night and day difference the performance I get from my MES.
So let's Recap.
1.) You experienced "fat out" and the texture you are getting with your sausage is as expected. Crumble it up and mix with bbq sauce to have a bbq-sloppy joe style meat mix eaten with melted cheddar on a hamburger bun and you will LOVE it (I have been where u are at and this was a wonderful solution to eating the meat for me lol)
2.) Use sausage smoking processes to ramp up temp, provided your smoker does not/will not ruin things for you (only trying will tell you)
3.) Your MES will try to cause fat out due to high temp swings just as it is designed to do. You have a few solution type options to go with should any of them be feasible.
I threw a lot of info at you so ask any/all questions you may have, we will get em answered. I hope this info helps :)