Smoked sausage burnt ends???????

[jjdbike]

Planning on a cook for a cookout for my work colleagues. I wanna do chicken (pulled smoked), beef (smoked chuck), and some easy & inexpensive pork. I’m considering spicy pork rubbed, sauced and caramelized sausage burnt ends. Anyone here ever cook or eat these? Any input, advice or recipes are appreciated. One important question that I have is about using fully cooked - pre smoked sausages, or raw and smoking them myself on my stick burner. Here's why I'm asking that. I do not mind salt, but some like my wife are sensitive to it. We find that many widely available precooked processed smoked sausages that we find the grocery near the hot dogs and bacon then to be pretty salty. I could imagine if coated w/ BBQ rub they might be very salty. I'm wondering if I started w/ fresh raw unprocessed sausages and smoked them myself on my stick burner, and rubbed liberally w/ BBQ rub, if they would be more flavorful and less salty. Your thoughts? Thanks in advance! JD

[bbqLuv]

Pork Belly Burnt Ends are always a winner, IMHO. Sausage burnt ends sound good. The first time I heard of it, if I do not count hotdog burnt ends.
On the safe side, using fully cooked - pre-smoked sausages would be my choice. Burnt ends are generally made from cooked meat.

Sounds like fun, and PBR too.

[jjdbike]

Yes, I'm now considering porkbelcy burnt ends. I'll look into them
Thanks!

[bbqLuv]

This is the video I watched and then knew I just had to give it a try.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=malcom+reed+pork+belly+burnt+ends&mid=EBD3EC820233F13A4CA3EBD3EC820233F13A4CA3

A friend said, "Whole Crap! They are delicious".
Here is the review video, short and sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA3Db9lYO4A

[Murdy]

FWIW, I watch my salt fairly closely. If you pick through the sausage products at you store of choice, you will most likely see a wide variation in the amount of sodium per individual product. You can probably get the content down this way. I wouldn't worry too much about the flavor of the individual sausage, as most of the flavor will come from the sauce and/or smoking process. Fresh (raw) sausages are often high in sodium as well. You could make your own sauce and control the salt there.

[jjdbike]

Thanks!

[JoeSousa]

I did some smoked sausage burnt ends last year and they are better in concept than they are in reality. I treated them similar to pork belly burnt ends where I smoked the sausage, put the chunks in a pan with butter, honey, etc. to braise for a bit, and then glazed with sauce. Overall the texture wasn't great and I would rather have just smoked the sausage, cut it up, and then glazed the bits in sauce for a few minutes. The extra steps didn't add much.

[jjdbike]

Interesting. Thanks!

[tstalafuse]

If you want something cheap and somewhat unusual, use Spam to make burnt ends. It is easy and actually tastes better than it sounds.

[JLR]

I’m pretty sure it couldn’t be worse than it sounds! LOL

[tstalafuse]

JLR I know. My first reaction was anything involving Spam sounds gross until I tried one, and it was actually good.

[Bkhuna]

I've made Oklahoma Prime Rib, a.k.a. BBQ bologna several times for cookouts and I've yet to meat anyone who didn't like it.

[Starsky]

My brother-in-law would take precooked sausage, chunk it up, and put it in a tinfoil pan on the grill with BBQ sauce. He'd cook it on a medium heat until the sauce was caramelized and sticky

[Finster]

JD-
If you decide to go with the pre cooked sausage, you could use Memphis Dust or Big Bad Beef Rub neither of which contain salt.
Probably other salt free rubs you could throw together fairly quickly as well.

[shify]

I've seen hot dog and bologna burnt ends but frankly the idea never appealed to me. If you go forward with it, I'd probably stick with the pre-cooked stuff as I'm not sure you'd get the right texture with fresh sausages. Would be sort of a version of whiskey wieners.

Otherwise, I agree with bbqLuv - Pork belly burnt ends are always a crowd favorite and would probably be cheaper than using sausages. I have even spread it out over two days, smoke the day before and finish with the braise the 2nd day, to streamline the day-of cook to no ill effect.

[Bob K]

Agree w shify and bbqLuv - pork belly burnt ends absolutely. IMO, these are the only acceptable substitute for brisket burnt ends. (Well maybe smoked plate ribs)

The catch with the sausage idea is that (especially if you cut the links into segments), all the fat will render out between the smoking and braising in sauce. Really, once they get to about 170 internal, with an open (cut) end, all that fat will render out in 5 mins. Then no matter how much time or sauce you add, they will be dry and mealy.

Maybe the way to get to your goal is to buy ground pork, mix in your rub/whatever, make meatballs or logs, smoke them until done, then glaze w sauce?

[jjdbike]

Agree w shify and bbqLuv - pork belly burnt ends absolutely. IMO, these are the only acceptable substitute for brisket burnt ends. (Well maybe smoked plate ribs)

The catch with the sausage idea is that (especially if you cut the links into segments), all the fat will render out between the smoking and braising in sauce. Really, once they get to about 170 internal, with an open (cut) end, all that fat will render out in 5 mins. Then no matter how much time or sauce you add, they will be dry and mealy.

Maybe the way to get to your goal is to buy ground pork, mix in your rub/whatever, make meatballs or logs, smoke them until done, then glaze w sauce?

Thanks,
Yes this is what I've been worried about. I'm not familiar with pork belly burnt ends. I have a pork belly sandwich once it it was just salty gooey fat. I couldn't eat it. I'm guessing & hoping that smoked pork belly burnt ends are significantly different from that?
Thanks!
JD

[jjdbike]

I've seen hot dog and bologna burnt ends but frankly the idea never appealed to me. If you go forward with it, I'd probably stick with the pre-cooked stuff as I'm not sure you'd get the right texture with fresh sausages. Would be sort of a version of whiskey wieners.

Otherwise, I agree with bbqLuv - Pork belly burnt ends are always a crowd favorite and would probably be cheaper than using sausages. I have even spread it out over two days, smoke the day before and finish with the braise the 2nd day, to streamline the day-of cook to no ill effect.

Yes I see your points. Makes sense.
I'm going to look into pork belly burnt ends. I've only had pork belly once it it was just gross gooey fat.
Thanks!
JD

[gdean44]

If they were "gooey fat" then they weren't cooked long enough. You can't cook all of the fat out, but it shouldn't be "gooey".

I have done hot dog burnt ends quite often and they always get rave reviews.

[shify]

You can think of Pork belly burnt ends as basically cubes of thick cut bacon.

Yes, they'll be fatty but if should be rendered fairly well, tender and crispy/sticky on the outside.

Malcom Reed's recipe is a good starting point but I personally cut way down on the sugar and add more spices/spicy flavors as I think they do better spicy than sweet.

[jfmorris]

I've done the pork belly burnt ends before, and for me the basic process was to cube up a pork belly, cover in dry rub, then smoke the cubes for some number of hours, then move to foil pans for braising with butter and bbq sauce and brown sugar. They always seemed to be a hit. Of course, I prefer brisket burnt ends, but they are a bit more expensive and the yield per brisket is fairly low.

[Texas Larry]

Sound good to me either way. Just a term these days for peices of any meat, smoked, sauced, smoked/braised in the sauce, etc.

“Burnt ends” have wandered very far from the original. I’ve seen chicken “burnt ends,” salmon “burnt ends.” Just waiting for someone to offer up Brussels sprouts “ burnt ends.”😛

[Finster]

I think I come pretty close with my sprouts roasted with bacon and maple syrup >😁😋