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
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Refrigerate your sausage overnight to allow the cure to work
- The next day follow this smoking schedule
-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 145F - 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
- Non Fat Dry Milk Powder
- 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!!
If you want to see the different things that we use in operation our be sure to check out our new Amazon Store.
2 Guys & A Cooler Amazon Storefront
Eric,
Thanks for having the celebrate sausage series – it gave me the final incentive to actually start making cured meats and sausage. I have been interested in it for quite a long while – now I have about 12 Kilo of whole muscle drying in our second refrigerator and have made several batches of meat sticks and fresh sausages of various types. I will be doing my second batch of Lenguica Calabresa tonight and tomorrow.
Which brings me to two questions:
First, I am a bit put off by the texture/mouth feel of the hog casing that I am using for this sausage – it seems very tough to me (it is from the Sausage Maker company).
Second, how have you calibrated your smoker PID to do the temperature steps? Mine is on the factory settings and it will blast past the second temperature setting by 35 – 40 degrees (and the third and the fourth as well). Then it takes quite a long time to get back down to the set temperature, and sometimes doesn’t do so before the set time has elapsed. (Perhaps this is related to the texture of the casing??)
Thanks again.
pjk
Excellent to hear!! As far as casing toughness, you might want to soak them for longer or even add a little lemon juice to the water. I think that the cooking temp certainly plays a factor in how tender the casings turn out as well. What smoker do you have. Mine was pretty dialed in from factory settings. There is a way to get into the actual settings and tweak the P, The i, and the D. There’s also something called an “Auto Tune” that allows you to have the controller reconfigure itself.
Thanks Eric – I will try adding some lemon juice to my casing soak – I think that the temperature variation did toughen the casing – I have the same smoker that you have, but it isn’t well dialed in for me – I will study the documentation that came with it and see if I can’t get the PID set a little better.
Next on my list is the Basturma!
Hi Eric, Eric after I have smoked or cooked and bloomed the sausage, can I vacuum pack them and put them in the freezer or fridge? Eric will the sausage continue to cure when vacuum packed and put in the fridge?
Eric I just want to share and tell you that you are my mentor, its my first time im doing this and with what I got, but man you got it, any one can do it in the way you explain it.
I am from South Africa and I must tell you I follow you every day without fail.
Keep up your excellent work, I Thank You, God Bless.
Thank you. After you cook the sausage you can vac seal them and freeze or refrigerate. After the sausage is cooked it will not continue to cure. The curing process happens quickly (24 hours)
Hello Eric, what can I replace the Calabrian Peppers with? Also fresh or dried peppers? I’m unable with to find them easy in Canada. Amazon wants $21, not getting it from me….sorry.
Thank you Eric
There’s no real good sub for Calabrian peppers. If you absolutely must use something different, I would simply use red chili flakes and smoked paprika (possibly cayenne)