Being a fairly efficient and enthusiastic harvester of whitetail deer I have quite a bit of it in my freezer.  I eat it almost every day, and have a large number of tasty recipies to keep it interesting.  This past year I had quite a number of different types of sausages (polish, bratwurst, spicy, jalapeno) made and am trying to think of a way to safely bring them on my canoe trips this year.

The question I am asking is: Has anyone tried this before?

I'm going to experiment with dehdydrating whole sausages.  My concern is that, especially with bratwurst, they are not pre-cooked.  So I thought I would pre-cook them by baking them, and then dehydrate them in my machine.  I realize that it might take forever and a day, but I'll see how it goes.  The risk, of course, is that I create hard tooth-breaking meat sticks.  But I'll  give it a shot and report back what I learn.

But...as I asked, has anyone tried this before?

lotalota

I have never tried to dehydrate sausage in link form...

I would agree with you though, that the danger is turning them into hard rocks.

Even when drying things like split pea soup, the soup turns into hard little nuggets that will not reconstitute. I have found it necessary to put the soup into a blender... I imagine that I could keep this from happening if I was to spread the soup very thin on the leather sheets but I think it takes too much time. I just grind it to powder in the blender and it works great.

I am not sure how successful your experiment will be, but good luck.

Mark

Thanks!

I've dehdrated countless batches of duck and goose jerky, so I think I have a pretty good sense of how it works.  I use an Excalibur dehdrator which I swear by, and as you suggest if I leave it on too long my bird meat turns into rocks.  I have my process dialed in to about 20 hours and I use a timer to shut it off a automatically.

One solution may be to bake it to elimate any microbiogical contimination, and then marinate it for moisture/flavor prior to dehydration.

I'm sure that by baking it I can make sure the internal temperature reaches 145 degrees F for the minimum of 10 minutes.  Then, after marination, start the drying process.  Any bacteria within that was there from the processing would be dead, and then allow the heat of the dehdrator to do its magic on the external portions.

You could make a summer sausage that requires no refrigeration.  Here's a recipe from the web:

Venison Summer Sausage
15 pounds venison
10 pounds 50/50 pork trimming
2/3 cup salt
1½ tablespoons cure
2½ tablespoons mustard seed
½ cup black pepper
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon marjoram
1 tablespoon monosodium glutamate (optional)
3 tablespoons garlic powder

Mix salt and cure with coarse-ground product. Pack in shallow pan and place in cooler for three to five days. Mix in remainder of spices, regrind and stuff in 3-inch fibrous casings. Smoke at 140°F for 2 hours; raise temperature to 160 °F for 2 hours, and finish product at 170 °F until internal temperature reaches 155 °F. NOTE: Can substitute lamb or beef for the venison.

wrote on Apr 6^th, 2006 at 3:46am:

You could make a summer sausage that requires no refrigeration.

Thanks for the recipe, but I hate summer sausage.  I ate a lot of it as a kid on canoe trips and really liked it.  But on a trip once in my early 30's I just reached my fill and couldn't stand the stuff any longer.

Plus, I have a lot of the already made sausages and I'd like to figure out a way to utilize them in a non-refridgerated portable way.

wrote on Apr 6^th, 2006 at 12:29am:

I'm going to experiment with dehydrating whole sausages.  My concern is that, especially with bratwurst, they are not pre-cooked

I would give smoking the links serious consideration. By adjusting the temperature and time they are in the smoker, they will get cooked and dehydrated. Although I have never smoked sausages, I have smoked all types of wild game, including venison. It's pretty hard to beat for taste.

Another idea, for preserving, not dehydrating, is to cook and pickle the sausages, like the Red Hots that can be bought at the grocery store. IMHO, these, too, are hard to beat for taste.

-aj

Thanks asmjock,

A few follow up questions if you don't mind:

As for the smoker, I do have a cheap one I received as a gift, only used once on a goose.  What time at temperature would you recommend for sausage so that it would be safe to keep at ambient temperatures?

As for pickleing, that's a good idea as well.  I corned a couple of venison roasts this past March that turned out well.  Two weeks, temps in the low 30's, in a salty spiced brine.  Like with the smoker, I just don't have a good sense of how long the meat would be safe to eat when it is not cold.  Do you have any idea?

lotalota

I would very interested in learning to corn a roast! I love corned beef and I usually have a abundance venison! Any info on this would be great!

TIA

Mark

wrote on Apr 7^th, 2006 at 1:47am:

lotalota I would very interested in learning to corn a roast!  Any info on this would be great! Mark

I'm happy to provide it!

Mix:
1.5 pounds of salt--I used Morton's Canning and Pickling salt (no iodine, just salt)
5 oz of sugar
2 tablespoons of peppercorns
1 tablespoon of whole cloves
6 bay leaves
10 tablespoons of pickling spices
2 onions, chopped
12 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon crushed hot red pepper
1 tablespoon red hot chili powder
several small hot peppers, cut in slices

Mix up all of the dry ingredients above in a huge zip lock bag (2 feet by 1.7 feet).  Then add enough cold water to make the total volume about 3 gallons.  Mix this all up so that all the salt is dissolved.  Add the meat to the bag, squeeze all the air out, and carefully seal the bag.  Put this bag in your cooler, put a bag of ice on top of the bag, and put the cooler in an unheated room that hopefully stays between 30 and 45 degrees.  Put a bag of ice on top of the bag, in the cooler, every day or as needed to keep it cold.

Cure for 2 weeks in a cool spot, preferably around 38 to 40 degrees F.  If you can't do this for every 15 degrees over 40 add 1/3 cup more salt.  Every few days gently mix the bag (don't pop it!).

Now, when it is cured you can freeze it or cook it right away.

Here is how you cook it:

Rinse off corned meat an put in large stew pan.  Cover corned meat with water and simmer for 2-3 hours or until tender.  Add potatoes and carrots one hour before serving, add cabbage 30 minutes before serving.

Serve with horseradish and hot mustard if you like.

Absolutely delicious!  Served with hot cornbread and homemade apple pie.

Thank you! I will be trying this in the near future!

Mark

I'd go with smoking the sausages.  I have never tried dehydrating sausage but I'd be worried that the outside would get rock-hard before the inside got sufficiently dehydrated.

wrote on Apr 7^th, 2006 at 1:05pm:

I'd go with smoking the sausages.  I have never tried dehydrating sausage but I'd be worried that the outside would get rock-hard before the inside got sufficiently dehydrated.

pretty difficult to roll in papers no? ;D

thebutcher

wrote on Apr 7^th, 2006 at 1:42am:

What time at temperature would you recommend for sausage so that it would be safe to keep at ambient temperatures?

I would start with somewhere between 3 and 4 hours for a load of links in the smoker. The important thing is to get the temperature of the links to 170 degrees F to be sure the nasties are dead. Be sure to use a full water pan to keep from getting sausage crisps (don't ask how I know that). If they get too dry, use less time, but a higher heat to get to 170F faster. If they seem too wet, add some more time (after you get to 170F you could back off the heat some).

After all of that, I would handle the links with tongs, etc, to keep them clean. When  I smoke meat, I let it cool down in the smoker a bit, then pack it with as little air in the packs as possible, then freeze it until I am ready to use it.

I have taken the commercial packaged smoked sausage links (which do not require refrigeration) and smoked venison chunks on two week trips with no spoilage problems, but I am careful not to handle the links that I am not eating. I would expect properly smoked (to 170F) links to last just as long.


wrote on Apr 7^th, 2006 at 1:42am:

As for pickleing, I just don't have a good sense of how long the meat would be safe to eat when it is not cold.  Do you have any idea?

I don't have much experience here having only pickled vegetables and smelt (packed uncooked and very good, by the way, similar to the herring at the grocery). The commercial Red Hots are packed in brine and also do not require refrigeration. I would expect that links that are properly cooked, pickled, and packed (keep the air away and/or keep them in some brine) would easily keep for weeks.

(BTW, thanks to your thread, I will put this to the test on my next trip by packing Red Hots and see how they do. I will probably pack them separately in twos (can't eat just one) so unused sausages will remain in sealed packs with a little bit of brine to keep them wet).

-aj

lotalota,

I’ve had good success taking sausage along on canoe trips. On one two week trip, we took along 25lbs. of venison summer sausage. By the end of the trip there was some mold on it that we just scraped off, the same as cheese. Since then I found that if you vacuum bag with a Food Saver you can keep the mold off.

The real trick is in the cooking. When mixing everything together I always add  Prague Powder # 1 (the Cure). This is a combination of a small amount of sodium nitrite on a salt carrier. When cooking make sure the internal temperature reaches at least 152dg. I usually run over a few degrees, because I take my eyes off of it. :)

I’ve taken this on every trip since 1992, with no complaints. I too would like to know now the dehydration works out. I could save weight and take more stuff that I don’t need along.

asmjock,

When you bring the temperature up to 170, do you hold it there for any length of time? I use to try and hold in the mid-150s for four or five hours. Now I just pull it out of the oven as soon as I see that the meat is hot enough, and throw it into a bath tub full of cold water. I remove it from there once the temperature hits 110.

wrote on Apr 7^th, 2006 at 11:56pm:

When you bring the temperature up to 170, do you hold it there for any length of time? I use to try and hold in the mid-150s for four or five hours

No. The 170F temperature is just where I want to get to sometime during the cooking (usually at the end). Since I am a fiddler when smoking (but I don't lift the lid  ;)) I keep track of the temperature. If it looks like it is getting to 170F too fast (on warmer days), then I'll cut back to try and make 170F just when the time is finished. If it doesn't look like it will get to 170F (on cooler or windy days) I'll turn the flame up during the last half hour or so. I would expect that the meat would dry out if the temperature was too high for too long. Sticking to the mid-150's for most of the cooking time sounds just as good as a slow climb to 170F to me.

BTW, I mostly use an LP gas smoker now, so I can fiddle with the temperature and stick to my smoking times. I have used an electric smoker that was okay on warmer days, but occasionally needed a propane torch "boost" on those cooler or windier days. On the warmer days, I would crack the lid every now and then to let some of the heat out.

-aj

Thanks for all the details folks, I appreciate it.  I'm taking a closer look at smoking now.