Follow basic smoked sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
- Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
- Keep your meat and grinder parts super cold (below 34F) at all times
- Any liquid that is added to the mince needs to be ice cold
- Mix your very chilled meat and seasonings till the mince becomes very tacky
- Add the pineapples and mix for 20 seconds
- add the encapsulated citric acid and mix for 30 seconds (this ingredient is added at the very end by itself)
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Follow this smoking schedule (or one that is low and slow)
-Dry your sausage at 90F – 100 for 1 hour, with your vents wide open
-Increase the temp to 125F for 1 hour and begin to add your favorite smoke
-Increase to 145F for 2 hour
-Increase to 155F for 2 hours
-Increase to 180F till the internal temp reaches 150F (this will release the encapsulated citric acid) - Once the internal temp has been reached place the sausages in an ice bath to cool down and let them bloom at room temperature for 3-4 hours
- If you don’t have a digital smoker just cook these sausages low and slow so as to not render out the fat.
Here are a few things you might find useful when making a smoked sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- Knives for processing meat
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Sausage Pricker
- Iwatani Professional Chef Torch
- Insta Cure #1
- Encapsulated Citric Acid
- SHMP Phosphates
- Meat Grinders
- Meat Mixers
- Sausage Stuffers
- Smokers
- Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator
- Custom Cutting Board (Use discount code 2GUYS15 at checkout for a sweet discount)
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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Grilled Pineapple Smoked Sausage
A tropical festival for your taste buds
How much do you want to make? 1000 grams
Ingredients
- 700 g lean pork
- 300 g pork back fat
- 16 g kosher salt
- 2.5 g insta cure #1
- 2.5 g msg
- 1.5 g white pepper
- 25 g dark brown sugar
- 1 g oregano
- .5 g cardamom
- .25 g clove
- 1.6 g paprika
- 1.6 g garlic powder
- .2 g coriander
- 15 g finely chopped habanero peppers
- 10 ml dark soy sauce
- 20 ml maple syrup
- 30 ml coconut rum
- 4 g fresh grated ginger
- 1 egg white
- 45 ml neutralized pineapple juice (add 1 tsp of baking soda for every cup of pineapple juice to raise the ph)
- 3 g phosphate (SHMP) optional – for better moisture retention and binding properties
- 1 cup chopped grilled pineapple
- 10 g encapsulated citric acid
- hog casings
Instructions
Preparing the pineapple
- We are grilling the pineapple to denature the bromelain enzyme that's naturally found in pineapple. When you grill the pineapple bring the temperature of the pineapple to 185F for roughly 5 minutes to deactivate this enzyme.If you don't want to fuss with this step you can use canned pineapples as the enzyme has already been deactivated.If you don't deactivate this enzyme it will effect the bind of your sausage leaving you with a crumbly mess
- As far as the pineapple juice goes, we need to raise the ph. Pineapple juice is very acidic and if you add it to your sausage it will effect the bind as well leaving you with a crumbly sausage. So to raise the ph of your pineapple juice pour out a cup of pineapple juice and add 1 tsp of baking soda to it. You now have neutralized pineapple juice.
- I have a juicer attachment for my grinder so I just made fresh juice with our grilled pineapple, but you can use pineapple juice from the store as well.
Preparing the meat
- Clean your meat of any silver skin, sinew, arteries and cut into small strips or cubes. Place the meat and fat in the freezer for an hour or until the temp reaches 32f – 34F.
- In a bowl combine all of the spices (starting with salt and ending with phosphates from the recipe ingredient list above). Do not include the diced pineapple or the encapsulated citric acid. Those 2 ingredients will be added at the very end of the mixing process.
- Clean and rehydrate your hog casings
- Grind your very chilled meat and fat on a medium plate (6mm). Rechill if necessary. You want the meat to be very cold while mixing.
- Add the bowl of spice mix to your mince meat then mix till it becomes very tacky. If you grab a small handful it will stick to your hand if you hold your hand upside down.
- Once your meat has become tacky add the diced pineapple and mix to incorporate.
- Finally add the Encapsulated citric acid and mix another 30 seconds.
- Stuff your mince meat into the casings, link, and prick out any air pockets.
- IF YOU USE ENCAPSULATED CITRIC ACID IN THIS RECIPE, IT MUST BE COOKED THE SAME DAY IT'S MADE.
Smoking Schedule
- Start by drying your sausage out and bringing them to room temp before smoking. I set my smoker to 100F with the door slightly open for 1 hour. This will dry out the sausage and get it ready for smokingNext raise the temperature to 125F for 1.5 hours and begin to apply smoke.Raise to 145F for 2 hours, then raise to 155F for 2 hours, then raise to 180F till the internal temp reaches 150F. At 150 the encapsulated citric acid will release in your sausage giving you a lovely tangy bite!(If you don't have a digital smoker just cook these low and slow so as to not render out the fat)
- Once cooked submerge in ice cold water then allow to bloom for several hours at room temperature. Enjoy!
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nice reply I didn’t like metric measurements to start with. But I got used to it I still metric converters I just write all my conversions ahead of time …. works for me
Hi, I’m not familier with smoking process. Why are you using Digital smoker and a cold smoke generator? what is the significance of generator since we can adjust the temperature in a digital smoker?
ok, so this is more of a personal preference than anything else. I like to smoke at very low temps, especially when I’m cooking a sausage. I will usually start at 125F and smoke for several hours. I use the cold smoke generator because I can add smoke at any time during the process. If I were to use the smoker and add would i wouldn’t get smoke till the temps reached 160F or higher, and by that time my cook is almost finished.
Hey Eric!
Good morning! I like the changes you made to the recipe-especially the grilled pineapple! The intense heat of the hobanero I’m sure kicks up the party! And the coconut rum gives a tropical flair!
Question though- did you coat the pineapple with potato starch?
Also, in the posted recipe above, you state to refrigerate the stuffed sausages overnight to allow the cure to work after adding the eca. I’m sure it’s just an oversight as the sausages must be cooked after the eca addition.
I’m enjoying this years show! I look forward to the next wild curve ball in shows to follow! Keep up the great work Eric!
Thanks Keith. The pepper and the rum really gives it a nice touch with an excellent kick! LOL. Good eye. I did coat the pineapple in potato starch but realized it was overkill so I didn’t mention it. Thanks for catching the top section. I just fixed that part. Appreciate the recipe and the sausage. I hope that others will give it a shot as it is really delicious😁
What can you replace encapsulated citric acid with
Fermento
Hallo Eric. Watched the show and read the recipe. Exelent! In the printed recipe above you state to add baking soda to lower ph but further down you change it to baking powder. Am sure it’s just a typo. Mabey you can correct it. Thank you for your hard work.
Thanks, I just fixed it!
It tried a batch of this sausage and although the flavour was outstanding the texture was crumbly. I have used citric acid before and know not to cook the sausage too hot or it will have a crumbly texture. I followed the recipe exactly and noticed it was quite mushy when stuffing it. I also smoked it for about five hours and the temp never got above 180 degrees so I’m not sure what went wrong. Any advice would be great because I really want to make this work
Hey Phillip. Did you use citric acid or encapsulated citric acid? those are 2 completely different products. Aside from that this is an insanely challenging sausage to make as there are lots of very tricky ingredients that can ruin the texture of this sausage. For starters the meat/fat needs to be ground while it’s partially frozen. 30-34f max. If it’s ground too warm (over 34f) the fat could smear leaving you with a crumbly texture. Make sure the knife blade and plates on your grinder are sharp. I just made a video on my you tube channel about how to do that (https://youtu.be/xp7UKCMrv-o). Next the pineapple has to be cooked to denature the bromelain enzyme and the pineapple juice had to be neutralized. You can add some baking powder to do this and if you have a ph meter or ph strips to test the liquid that would be ideal. You are looking for a ph of anything around 5.6ph. Here are cheap strips: https://amzn.to/3kYXDhc Finally the “encapsulates” citric acid has to be added at the very end of the mixing period (last 20 seconds). It must be cooked right away and you want the internal temp to reach 150f..
I hope that helps. If you can nail the technical stuff this is really a great sausage to make..
I’ve already made a similar one but with very ripe pineapple without grilling and with a little cinnamon