Smoked Italian Sausage

[RAmorris]

This is something I stumbled onto by accident. I had four mild Italian sausages left over from grilling the day before, and was going to cook spare ribs on my gas water smoker. It was a Brinkmann All-In-One gas water smoker, which ran hot - about 350 degrees F. I have since graduated to a Backwoods G2 Party and a two-drawer Landmann gas water smoker. Anyway, I would have some extra space on the bottom rack of the Brinkmann bullet smoker, and decided to put the 4 sausages there. I put the chip-filled iron smoke box on the lava rocks, and poured boiling water into the water pan. Then the cooking grates with the ribs, with the 4 sausages directly above the water pan. It takes about 15 minutes from the time you put wood chips in an iron chip box until they start smoking on this smoker. Then they smoke about 20 minutes. After that first smoking, I turned the sausages over, and put another chip box on to smoke. But I took the sausages up just as the second chip box began to smoke because they looked done.

They were incredible, smoky flavor and dripping with juice so much that it dripped down my chin. By far the best sausage I have ever had. I shared some with my neighbor, and he said it was the best sausage he had ever had. From then on, I usually added Italian sausages to whatever I was smoking. The only problem is they are done long before whatever else I am smoking, and lose their incredible taste if refrigerated. But they are very popular to munch on while waiting for the main meal.

When I got the Landmann gas water smoker, I made them on it and they were just as good. They are best if put on the bottom rack directly above the water pan, and smoked at a higher temperature - about 300 degrees.

[Huskee]

No pics of these delicious morsels?

[_John_]

Have room on this weeks cook, I will give this a try.

[Beefchop]

RAmorris I love cooking sausage on my smoker. Great bang for the buck during lean economic times and the cook times are short.

[fzxdoc]

I cook hot Italian sausages on my PBC every time I do a chicken cook (about 3 times a month). All my neighbors love those sausages, since I pass them out like candy. I do 10 to 36 at a time, hanging them from the rebars in modified sausage baskets. I take them up to 185 deg F internal, which is higher than Meathead's chart says, but I like that crunchy bite of the skin. On occasion, I'll pop them under the broiler for 1-2 minutes a side to darken them even more after I take them off the PBC, depending on how they look. They always get done in 30-35 minutes with an average PBC temp of 325 to 350 degF.

Any leftovers are chunked and tossed into a meaty marinara sauce for spaghetti.

Kathryn

[Jerod Broussard]

I smoked 40 pounds of sausage a couple weeks ago. They came out really good. I was putting about 18 grams of salt per 2.5 pounds of meat. Think I might reduce that to 15 on the next batch.

[DeusDingo]

how much wood do you use to smoke sausages? i see a lot of times and temps which is great but i don't want to oversmoke my sausages. do sausages pick up smoke easily or are they ok to be smoked for a long time?

[Alex Baton]

I make my own sausages. And for pork sausages i usually smoke them until internal temp of 71C (160F). I smoke them in my MES around 200F for few hours (around 3hours) until that internal temp have been reached. I am adding smoke for the first 2 hours (so it's about 3 ounces of wood at 1oz at a time) After that I give them a cold bath/shower with cold water. I did find that due to high humidity the natural hog casing doesn't dry enough and becomes chewy, therefore making the whole eating experience unpleasant. Also the last batch have been made from pork trimmings that i've been freezing for almost a year. It came out juicy a bit too fat imo. So I threw them on the bbq on hight heat to melt more of that fat. The result was amazing.
Since then, I always presmoke them for few hours (until 160F), might even leave them overnight in the fridge, and then BBQ them. Due to high temperature on the bbq that hog casing dries, more fat melts which makes the sausage INCREDIBLY tasy andd juicy.

Some would disagree but I find few advantages into having them precooked this way and then just grilling. Makes it easier to carry to friend's house or out to a picnic.

For chicken sausages, I did cook them in hot water (NOT BOILING). Very important to cook them in water around 80C (175F) (45minutes) because if your water is boiling then
#1 you have a chance of your casing exploding.
#2 fat melting greatly would cause your sausage to turn into a "chicken spam"

and then just grill them on charcoal/gas/wood fire.

To answer your question is that the most i've smoked a sausage was 3hours of regular thin blue smoke and it wasn't oversmoked.