Summer sausage is a special favorite when it comes to holiday treats. It has a texture between fresh sausage and salami, so it is a semi-dry sausage.
Grilling is the most common method of cooking this food. So, what should you use to substitute a grill if it’s unavailable?
The best solution is an oven. How to make summer sausage in the oven? You may learn everything you need about the topic from this article.
Let’s get started!
Can You Make Summer Sausage In The Oven?
The answer is yes! It’s frequently favored as a way to prepare summer sausage.
The two most common types of cooking equipment that people use at their home are a grill and a smoker.
Nevertheless, if you’ve not made summer sausages, it could lead to more significant problems than you had thought.
Frequently, smokers cannot attain the ideal internal temperature for the sausages.
You could struggle to increase the smoker’s temperature by more than 100 to 120°F, to be more specific.
The core temperature of the meat must reach 160 to 165°F before it is entirely safe to eat.
The critical justification for preparing summer sausage in the oven is a more practical choice.
Furthermore, you won’t need to care about fluctuations in temperature or other elements messing with oven baking.
How To Make Summer Sausage In The Oven?
If you decide to make summer sausages in an oven, let’s check the detailed instructions below.
Step 1: Select The Suitable Meat Type
You can choose any meat, including pork, beef, chicken, lamb, or venison.
However, remember that the sausages must have between 25 and 30 percent fat on average.
Add other tallow or animal-based fats to the flesh to improve the fat level if it is too lean.
Step 2: Choose The Seasonings
The traditional ingredients include salt, paprika, cayenne, garlic, and pepper.
Besides, you can add cheese. Opt for high-temperature cheese, which is typically the best option for these sausages.
There are two additional factors to consider: the meat binder and curing salts.
The meat binder can prevent the fat from forming clumps.
Curing salts are also essential because they stop undesirable microorganisms from growing inside the sausage.
Step 3: Mix All Ingredients And Let Them Ferment
The sausages need to ferment once you’ve combined all these components, allowing the curing salt to do its job.
It’s best to leave the mixture for 24 hours or more in the refrigerator.
Step 4: Stuff Meat Into The Casings
After inserting the sausages into the casings, release excess air by rolling them backward and forward.
After that, give them some time to rest at room temperature.
Step 4: Cook Summer Sausages In The Oven
Set the oven to 170 °F for baking. Put the sausages in the oven.
Gradually turn up the heat to 190°F. After that, use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the food.
Take the sausages from the oven and allow them to cool after the inner temperature reaches 160 to 165°F.
How Long Does It Take To Cook Summer Sausage In The Oven?
There is no fixed time for cooking summer sausages as they come with various recipes.
Usually, you may need to wait for at least 2 to 3 hours to get fully cooked sausages in the oven.
The duration may be much longer than that time. Ingredients and link size both affect cooking time.
You will also need to bake the meat in the oven for a more extended period if you add water to it.
How do you know whether your food is fully cooked? The best solution is to use a meat thermometer to check the inner meat temperature.
With this tool, you don’t have to guess the doneness level of the meat. You can tell a sausage is done if the thermometer reads between 160 and 165°F.
If you don’t have this tool, you can use a knife to cut the meat. However, this way may damage the shape of your sausage casings.
How To Make Summer Sausage At Home?
Do you want to make summer sausage at home? Follow the steps below:
Preparations
Make sure prepare the following things are ready before making your homemade sausages:
- Cubed venison: 20 lbs
- Pork fat: 5 lbs
- Cure Salt: 7 oz.
- Pepper: 1 oz.
- Minced garlic: 4 oz.
- Mustard powder: 3 oz.
- Hickory powder: 3 oz.
- Curing salt: 1 oz.
- Celery juice powder: 1 oz.
- Encapsulated citric acid: 1.5 oz.
- Casings
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1: Combine venison meat and pork fat in a giant meat lug. If you don’t have lugs, you can use a big container.
Step 2: Add hickory smoke powder, mustard powder, pepper, salt, and garlic to the lug. Mix them well by hand.
Step 3: Grind the mixture.
Step 4: Add curing salt to the mixer with the ground meat. For eight minutes, blend for one minute for each direction.
To prevent the mixture from rupturing during blending, add the encapsulated citric acid when nearly finishing the mixing process.
Step 5: Make sure the interior and exterior of the sausage casing are both moist by soaking it in water.
Fill the casings with sausage, being careful to avoid air pockets. Remember to tie the casings’ ends.
Step 6:Smoke meat rolls for two hours at 165 ℉ in a smoker. After that, increase the temperature for two more hours to 185℉.
Heat up to 205°F until the core temperature hits 155°F.
Step 7: Take the food out of the smoker and submerge them in cold water immediately for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove them from the cold water when the internal temperature is at 80℉.
Step 8: Leave them overnight in the fridge.
Wrapping Up
This article eventually showed you how to make summer sausage in the oven.
Although grills and smokers are popular for making this food, cooking in the oven is the best choice.
When applying this cooking method, remember to check the internal temperature of the food with a meat thermometer.
Hopefully, you will find this post helpful. Thanks for taking the time to follow Health’s Kitchen!
