Cold smoked sausages

With the smoke shack built and tested it is time to do a little more. I have a chunk of cured pork belly, and the ingredients for bratwurst and kielbasa. I’m using recipes from Bruce Aidells’ Complete Sausage Book.

Here are the two plates of spices measured out, one for each type of wurst.

For the kielbasa:

and the bratwurst.

The mixes are similar with the kielbasa calling for much more garlic, and the bratwurst needing mace and ground mustard seed.

Since they are both going into the smoker, I used the salt I smoked in the test run for extra smokey flavor, the pink is the curing salt. 6.25% sodium nitrite. It is required because the sausages will be air dried and cold smoked and it inhibits bacteria growth, particularly that responsible for botulism (Clostridium botulinum). In very high doses sodium nitrite is toxic;so it is dyed pink to prevent mistaking it for sugar or salt. If you’re interested, we can discuss nitrites and nitrates further.

The basic sausage making is described in this old post. The process is the same here.

Cut up the meat, chill and stuff into casings. It sounds so easy, but it took about 4 hours as I clean and disinfect all equipment between grinding and stuffing. And this of course was two batches.
In the end we have 4 big kielbasas.

Before they go into the smoker, the instructions indicate to hang the sausages in front of a fan overnight.

Ready for the smoker, also have the cured and pepper pork belly.

Smoke for 12 hours. It was very cold so I did use a small propane heater to keep the smoke box above freezing. I also switched from wood chips, to chunks, they burned longer.

All ready to poach and eat and enjoy!

Until next time Eat Well & Keep Digging!