Kathleen Love

Jul 12, 2021

Summer Sausage

Making Summer Sausage or Meat sticks is easier than you would ever think!

After our trip to Alaska, we got a quote to turn some delicious meat into sausage sticks and…. WOW it was expensive! We did some research and found that if we made an investment into some decent equipment, we would be able to make our own sausage sticks and summer sausage year after year for a fraction of the cost.

The Supplies

We found seasonings and full detailed recipes from waltonsinc.com. They have a wide variety of seasonings and detailed recipes to follow much like what I am about to share with you here. Not only do they have recipes, they also have a chat forum you can take part in and ask questions. We had LOTS of questions. Here is a link to some of their youtube videos that we used.

We found that we really love our MEAT! equipment. We bought our grinder, vacuum packer, mixer, scale and sausage stuffer from them. Super happy with their customer service and quality equipment so far. Here is a great video published by MEAT! that really solidifies why you might wanna invest in your own processing equipment.

Here is the H Summer Sausage Seasoning

The Pink Sure Cure

The Sure Gel Meat Binder

Encapsulated Citric Acid

Fibrous Casings 1.5"x 12"

Those are all of the seasonings and additives that we used from Waltons. We did make two different flavors and also added in some high temp cheese on one of the batches that you can also find on their website! The seasoning flavor can be substituted for whatever flavor you might enjoy.

The Sure Cure is mandatory to help with shelf life of the food.

Encapsulated citric acid is something that helps with shelf life of the meat and also changes the PH of the meat. In the simplest words, the acidity it gives the meat prevents bacteria growth and gives the meat that good tangy flavor that summer sausage is known for. When using the encapsulated citric acid you do not have to let the meat sit overnight, instead you can cook the sausages right after mixing.

Sure gel meat binder forces the meat to bind with water to keep it moist and give the sausage that bouncy feel that good summer sausage is supposed to have when you chew it.

The size of the casings is a personal preference and we have done multiple sizes for these. We change out the size whether we are doing summer sausage or meat sticks.

FIRST THINGS FIRST.

Pull your casings out of the bag they came in and soak them in hot water. It is important that you soften them up and mix them around prior to starting the mixing process. They say to soak the casings in hot water for 30 minutes. By the time you get done mixing, the casings will be ready for you to stuff.

Okay so we are at the point you have some meat, and now you need to know what to do with it. If it is lean wild game meat, we need first to add some fat. Pork fat or beef fat is appropriate and we have used both on separate occasions. You can go to a butcher or local meat market and ask for straight fat and they will be happy to supply you with it. The ratio we are looking for is 80/20.

I like to do everything in 25 pound batches which I will explain why later. We add 20 pounds of nearly frozen cubed meat through the grinder. The meat really grinds nicely when it is almost frozen. The initial grind should be done through a “course” grinding plate. Waltons mentions a 10 mm sized plate.

After that is done, you will add 5 pounds of nearly frozen cubed fat to the already ground 20 pounds of ground wild game. For this grind you will use a finer grinding plate. Waltons mentions using a 3mm plate. The reason you add the fat through the second grind and not the first is because fat is already so soft that it will just smear if ground twice. By grinding it through the second grind only, you retain particle definition on the meat and fat combination.

Now for the mixing. Spend the money for a mixer. I repeat... SPEND THE MONEY FOR A MIXER!!

We have tried mixing by hand, and it works but your fingers get really really cold and can you really assure that you mixed fully?? We’ve found that the mixer is one of our favorite purchases.

Mixing in the Good Stuff

Remember when I said I like doing sausage in 25 pound increments? Well the reason why is because all of Waltons seasonings and additives come in packages measured to be added to 25 pounds. No measuring, just rip apart the package of each thing and pour into the meat mixture.

First add the Seasoning, Sure Cure and Sure Gel meat binder. Also you want to add some water to help the mixing process. For the 25 pound batch of meat, we add 2 normal sized Nalgene bottles of Ice cold water. 64 ounces in total. Don’t worry about the meat if it looks really soupy because through the mixing process it will become sticky…. This sticky thing we mention is a good thing because it means that you are getting good “protein extraction”. If you watch the videos you will hear them talk about it.

We typically mix in our mixer for a total of 8 minutes. 4 minutes mixing one direction followed by 4 minutes mixing the opposite direction. The Encapsulated Citric acid needs to be added towards the end. If it is added to soon then I guess it can be bad because the “encapsulated” capsules break apart to early and it does not do what it is supposed to do.

Lastly is the opportunity to add Hi Temp cheese. This can be mixed in by hand if you would like.

Now Let's Stuff

Add the seasoned meat into the stuffer, slide the casing over the stuffing tube and start stuffing! You want to keep pressure on the tube with one hand while you hold up the casing as it is being stuffed. We want the stuffed casing to be pretty full. The best way to make sure you have stuffed to the right amount is to push down on the sausage. If your finger leaves an indent then you have not stuffed enough meat. You will get the hang of this part but make sure you have a friend there to assist!

After each sausage is stuffed, twist the unclosed end tight and tie it off with some kitchen yarn. Just a simple knot will suffice.

Smokin' the Sausages

Get that smoker smoking! We are almost done…

We have found that the flavor does not change wether you cook the sausages in the oven or on your pellet smoker. The casing we use is almost to thick to allow smoke to penetrate but that is totally fine. In an ideal world you want to follow this cooking time table

140 degrees… 1 hour

160 degrees… 2 hour

175 degrees… 2 hours

200 degrees… Till internal temp is at 165.

This cooking schedule works well. The problem we find is that the lowest temperature our oven goes to is 160. So we actually set the oven to “keep warm” and assume that its less than 160 and let the sausages slowly heat up. The cooking process should take about 6-7 hours, no more than 8 hours.

The Goal with a stepped cooking cycle like this is that you really want he sausages to heat up slowly and heat needs to reach the inside of the sausage. Imagine the opposite, if you seared the sausages high heat and really fast, the outside of your sausage would be burnt on the outside and you would have an inconsistent texture throughout the sausage to the middle.

On the Traeger, we put it on the smoke setting for the hour and then move up from there.

Make sure to move the sausages around quite often in the Traeger because there is definitely hot spots in every BBQ.

Have a good reliable thermometer and when the Sausages reach an internal temp of 165-170 pull them off and put them in a very very very cold bath of ice water. This is gonna stop the cooking process instantly and will also help the casing separate from the meat when you go to serve the sausage. The sausages need to sit in the ice bath for about 15 minutes or as long as it takes for the internal temp to come down significantly. We try to take them out of the ice bath when they hit the 100 degree mark.