Love the smell of my smokehouse, hmnnnnn.

Making a small batch of venison jalapeno summer sausage, (no cheese this time), using up the last of last year's meat. Pure venison grind, mixed, and of course re-ground through a smaller plate.


Stuffed into 2 lb casings and ready to hit the smoke house after a night in the fridge.


Experimenting with some more snack sticks, and smoking some bacon for my venison burger grind.


Nothing like that smell IMO, next up is another good sized batch of smoked pork sausage. I have found nothing in the grocery store that can compare to it. There really is that much difference! For those of you who don't process your own from field to table, you are missing out! Get after it! Thanks for looking.

Nice problem to have. Something about that smoked meat smell.

That looks awesome....

How long and at what temperature do you smoke it?

Time depends on the temp, wind, and humidity. Normally it takes 1-1 1/2 hrs @ 100-120 degrees to dry the casings enough for them to take smoke properly, with my little fan going inside. Once casings are tacky to dry to the touch, I turn the fan off and turn the smoke on and start cranking up the heat. Normally takes 6-8 hrs, I pull when the internal temp is 153-155. They go straight into an ice bath for a few seconds and then hung to dry and blossom under a fan. Then I refrigerate overnight and package. I don't like not enough smoke, also don't like too much smoke. In this cold smoker 6-8 hrs is normally the trick.

It looks good when will the samples be ready

Any pics of your smoker?

Thanks yall, I will have to dig for them. Hang on ......

Killing me. Looks awesome.

Looks great

Getting hungry looking at your pictures.

Well done sir

What they said, looks awesome!!

I want follow ups on that smoke sausage!

samples?

I'm starting to slip.

Sorry Foosh, all I have are old pictures but still looks the same.
I got a good deal on a used SS commercial grade insulated food warmer box. Brought it home and got after it. After power washing I put a new gasket on the door, new temperature gauge in the door, & put two smoke stacks on the top of it. For the racks I just cut holes in a 2x4 with a hole saw, split them in half, drilled all the mounting holes and bolted them in. I used regular old pine dowels from the hardware store for hanging, I smoked/seasoned everything in good before putting any meat in. I tried several different fancy heating elements, but a pair of cheap old electric stove burners worked better than the rest. I had the insulators at work build me a SS cover for them.


So the back view shows my control unit, (yes kinda high tech I guess ). One of the perks of being an E&I guy in the oil & gas field is sometimes you can get good deals on new equipment or can often get your hands on old equipment that gets discarded instead of fixed. Anyway, I ended up using a Thermon unit (we use for heat tracing of piping etc). Just mounted the JBox with controller, contactor all of that and then knocked out my holes, flexed it in, wired her up and voila! Unit powers up with 2 extension cords (one to control unit, one powers elements). One flex supplies power to the heating elements, one goes to an RTD, and one went to a fan switch but my dogs ate that one.

So the purpose of the heating elements is to bring your temperature up to a "safe to eat" temp, but here is the cool smoke generation unit that's mounted on the side. I just used a Bradley smoke generator with the cool smoke attachment box & hose. Above the hose I installed a 3" electronics fan. When I first put the meat in I program my temp to 100-110 (no smoke) and turn the fan on. This is to dry the casings enough to take smoke properly. Once casings are at least tacky to the touch, I turn the fan off, the smoke on, and start ramping up my temp. I initially thought the fan would work well during the smoking process but it actually smokes better on this one without it. It's a 12V fan so I just hook a battery to it. One of these days I'll wire it into the unit on the switch I bought for it.


More to come....

Here is a pic of the very first test batch of pork sausage (was also just learning how to twist/tie the sausage). I also drilled a small hole in each side of the box for my digital meat thermometers. On one side one probe goes into a sausage on the top rack, the other side probe goes into a sausage on the lower rack. I monitor temp by reading the control unit and the gauge on the door, but most importantly the internal temp of the meat of course. Those little hand held units sit right there on the handles on the sides of the box, works well...except for the ones my dogs chewed up.

My oldest knuckleheads loading her up for the first time.

Inside view looking up.

Hickory smoked pork sausage, or shaw shaw as my youngest son used to call it.

First batch of venison jalapeno summer sausage.

Hmnnnnnn.

Thanks for looking.

well done

Thanks East, these pics are a little old but oh well. Hope all is well with you buddy.

Now that is awesomeness right there. My Dad's Uncles in rural Mississippi all had smoke shacks out back. Loved going to see them. I remember Uncle Arthur taking his knife out and slicing a piece of ham off while in the smoke house. I have never yet been able to duplicate that. Wish I knew how to build my own.

I have been watching hours & hours of You-Tube videos and reading on how to make old school country salt cured hams, something that I've wanted to do since I was little. Problem is, where I live the temp & humidity doesn't work in my favor. All of the videos that I've watched are from up North where it gets cold and stays cold for several months to begin the process. I'm going to have to build a walk in cooler or modify a fridge to do it here on the coast. It's on my list. According to my knowledge, it takes about a year to cure a country ham. If you get it wrong it's trash. I am excited about doing it, someday.

Pretty slick!