Having summer sausages for your BBQ party or a quick breakfast is wonderful. But you can wonder: ‘how to cook summer sausage?’
To make delicious summer sausages, you can follow many different methods. This article will provide three main steps to bring you delicious flavors.
Let’s follow and try this recipe!
How To Cook Summer Sausage?
Summer sausage is semi-fermented dry meat flavored with spices and cooked in dry conditions. This food is tasty and not too fatty.
However, the flavor also depends on the cut and the kind of meat used.
Step 1: Prepare ingredients
As you may guess from trying summer sausages, their primary ingredients are meat and seasonings.
- Meat
You can use a pork and beef combination. The ratios of pork to beef can be 25% pork and 75% beef or vice versa.
However, some people even use beef only. So, it all depends on your taste.
The meat’s quality and freshness determine the flavor of your food. Beef chuck and pork butt are the most common choices because of their delectability.
It would be best to buy fresh meat and grind it or ask the butcher to grind it. It will be easier to blend with seasonings and lend the food a delicate touch.
- Seasonings
The most widely used spices for this food include black pepper, garlic, and mustard seeds. You can also add ginger, allspice, coriander, and many other spices to enhance the flavor.
If possible, grind the spices right before mixing them with the meat. This tip will help you extract the most flavor from them.
Step 2: Cure the meat
Mix the ground meat and water in a large mixing basin and stir well. After that, season with spices and mix them thoroughly. Try to use your hands for this task.
To distribute the spices evenly, you can mix them with the meat first and then grind the seasoned meat.
Some recipes involve stuffing the mixture into casings. Sizes for the casings range from 40mm to 120mm.
Stuff the mixture tightly, making sure there are no air gaps within. It’s nearly impossible to remove all of the air, so you’ll notice some tiny holes when the meat is done.
You can learn some tips for stuffing right here:
Step 3: Cook the meat
There are two ways to cook the mixture, each with a particular effect.
In an oven
Using an oven is the simplest way to cook summer sausages. You don’t need any grilling or smoking equipment for this task.
The instructions are as follows:
- Wrap the ingredients in aluminum foil and shape them into two rolls.
- Refrigerate the rolls for 24 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Remove the foil off the meat and punch a few holes in the rolls’ bottoms.
- Remember to place the rolls on a roasting rack with a pan underneath to collect the drippings.
- Bake for one hour at 190°For until internal temp reaches 160°F.
- Allow the sausage to cool to room temperature before wrapping it in foil or plastic.
- Refrigerate your food and take it out for slicing.
In a smoker
This recipe calls for an electric smoker or something similar. Although it’s more complicated than using an oven, the result is more rewarding.
- Stuff the mixture into casings with a diameter of 60mm.
- Keep the mixture at 86°F with a humidity of 85 to 90%.
- Place the sausages in the smoker and cook for six hours at 110°F and 70% humidity.
- Gradually raise the temperature for the internal temp of the sausages to reach 140°F.
- If you want the sausages to last longer, dry them for three days at 60 to 70°F with a 65 to 75% humidity.
- These processes will yield more traditional sausage, which involves fermenting the sausage for an entire day at high humidity.
What Is The Best Temperature To Cook Summer Sausages?
The key to cooking this food is to reach an ideal fat content within the meat.
You can only achieve this goal by choosing high-quality meat and setting an appropriate temperature range. So how hot should it be?
When the internal temperature of the sausage hits 100°F, all of the fat tissues turn fluid. This issue happens to all kinds of meat.
However, when you cook the sausage above 190°F, the texture will be dry and crumbly. The higher the temperature, the worse the result.
If you use a smoker, the ideal temperature is around 110 to 130°F. Then, gradually increase it to 150°F and up to 190°F.
If you cook the sausage in the oven, start at the lowest mode (often 170°F) and gradually increase to 190°F.
How To Smoke Store-Bought Sausages?
If you don’t have time and are not confident about your cooking skills, store-bought sausages are great choices. You can add flavor to enhance the depth of the meat.
Smoking is the best way to give your food the best flavor. Please follow these steps for this task:
- Place the fresh sausages on smoker racks. They should stay close but not touch each other.
- Heat the smoker with wood briquettes (maple and hickory can work well).
- Preheat your smoker to 250°F.
- Put the sausages in the smoker and cook until they achieve a temperature of 150°F.
- The total cooking time will vary depending on the size of the sausages. It usually takes between 2.5 and 4 hours.
Conclusion
You can make homemade summer sausage with a few steps, and feel free to add your favorite spices until the mixture suits your taste.
Also, check the temperature carefully to yield the best result. Delicious summer sausage is the result of care, ingenuity, and the right way.
Do you find this post helpful? If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Thank you for stopping by!
