Pellet Smoker Cooking: Hickory Smoked Garlic Sausage

I finally got around to using my Weston sausage stuffer. I bought it early last year & my wife reminded me several times over the year I hadn’t used it yet! Before I bought it I tried using my grinder to stuff some boudin & some chorizo. I used artificial casings & that did not work out so great. Listen to the experts, real casings, hog intestines, are easier to work with.

I was raised around a slaughterhouse. My uncle had a slaughterhouse & grocery in the small town I grew up in. He never let my cousin & I help make sausage. He let us squeeze out the intestines for making the casings! We loved the hot cracklins when he made lard. I should have watched him make sausage more & maybe this job would have went easier!

I picked up some pork shoulder from my butcher Friday. He had cut me up some with the right meat fat ratio; it was right at 6 lbs. I would use a recipe for garlic sausage from the book Charcuterie. It was for fresh sausage but I decided to use pink salt for some cure. I also added two TBS. of smoked paprika.

I mixed all my dry spices & sprinkled over the meat, added the minced garlic, stirred to coat evenly. I placed in a large plastic bag & in the fridge overnight. Saturday morning my grandson helped me do the first grind; he was the stomper. I used the large plate for this grind. It all went back in the plastic bag& in the fridge overnight.

I did the final grind Sunday morning, I used the ¼ plate. I took a couple of photos but later realized I didn’t have a card in my camera! I mixed in the cup of red wine and in the fridge to chill before stuffing.

I got enough casings soaking in warm water and did the stuffing Sunday afternoon. It went pretty well. I used a twisting method, twist one CW, pinch one, twist one CCW; this will also twist the one you pinched off. It went pretty well, had a few air bubbles to prick. Next time I will get a little tighter. I ended up with 16 links about 6 inches each and had about a pound of bulk left. All went back in the fridge to air dry overnight. The wife & kids went out to eat Chinese that evening. I stayed home with the dogs & fried up a patty from the bulk for a sandwich with mustard & onion. It tasted pretty good.

I used some 100% hickory pellets for the smoke Monday morning. I had experimented with my RSI from Smok’n Spice with the hickory pellets & knew I could get at least an hour cold smoke. I did the one hour cold smoke then went to smoke mode & maintained about 170 deg for the next couple of hours. When it reached 120 deg IT I went to 180 deg to finish to 150 deg IT. The 180 setting was more like 190 average. I had the sausage links on my top shelf & a chub of the leftover bulk on the bottom. After the sausage links were done it took another ½ hour to get the chub up to 160 deg.

After the links had air dried in the fridge I vacuum packed and froze them in 3 link packs. I had one left for my lunch tomorrow.

My grandson, he was my stomper!