Homemade Sausage Making

Hi again all.

Firstly, thanks for everyone being so helpful on this site. I am VERY new to all of this so please bare with me. I am also a pit-master who has thus far only cooked meats at temps ranging from 200°-300.

I am now wanting to experiment some with cold smoking and would like to know what some of you have smoked using one of the little maze smokers with the saw dust? I purchased one 2 days ago.

I first plan on doing gravalox, but what else have you done?

This is my current smoker that I will place the maze in. It's insulated but while temps are low in Florida I might be able to do a few things fun. http://www.stumpssmokers.com/products/g ... he-stretch

Thanks for any suggestions and please realize I need things dumbed down until I get some sort of a comfort level with this stuff.


Mark

I've cold smoked just about everything generally considered cold smokable with a A-Maze-N sawdust maze smoker.
Hams, bacon, sausages, cheese, fish, peppers, tomatoes, etc.

With the A-Maze-N pellet maze smoker, I can smoke at BBQ temps up to 275°.
That same smoker will also burn sawdust for cold smoking.

Their pellet tube smokers are also great.

Baconologist wrote:I've cold smoked just about everything generally considered cold smokable with a A-Maze-N sawdust maze smoker.
Hams, bacon, sausages, cheese, fish, peppers, tomatoes, etc.

With the A-Maze-N pellet maze smoker, I can smoke at BBQ temps up to 275°.
That same smoker will also burn sawdust for cold smoking.

Their pellet tube smokers are also great.

Sorry, I forgot to post my smoker:
http://www.stumpssmokers.com/products/g ... he-stretch

Baconologist wrote:
With the A-Maze-N pellet maze smoker, I can smoke at BBQ temps up to 275°.

I'm lost. How does that little pellet smoker generate enough heat to reach temps of up to 275°?

I have smoked several kinds of cheese and also salmon. The source of the smoke is immaterial to the smoking process. I burn chunks in a remote fire place others here burn chips or pellets. Today was a little too cold for smoking at about 23° F.
I posted a while back about the difference between cold smoking for preservation and smoking cold for flavor. The former involves an extended period in which the meat is progressively dried. The latter is a relatively short process usually less than 24 hours. Cheese is smoked cold for flavor. Fish may be done either way with different results and for different purposes.

Mark wrote:

Baconologist wrote:
With the A-Maze-N pellet maze smoker, I can smoke at BBQ temps up to 275°.

I'm lost. How does that little pellet smoker generate enough heat to reach temps of up to 275°?

It's just a smoke generator, it doesn't produce enough heat to do the cooking.
Many folks use them in electric or propane smokers.
The pellets will withstand more heat than the sawdust without bursting into flames.
I see you've got a Stumps, very cool!!!

Mark wrote:Hi again all.

Firstly, thanks for everyone being so helpful on this site. I am VERY new to all of this so please bare with me. I am also a pit-master who has thus far only cooked meats at temps ranging from 200°-300.

I am now wanting to experiment some with cold smoking and would like to know what some of you have smoked using one of the little maze smokers with the saw dust? I purchased one 2 days ago.

I first plan on doing gravalox, but what else have you done?

This is my current smoker that I will place the maze in. It's insulated but while temps are low in Florida I might be able to do a few things fun. http://www.stumpssmokers.com/products/g ... he-stretch

Thanks for any suggestions and please realize I need things dumbed down until I get some sort of a comfort level with this stuff.


Mark

Hi Mark,

That smokehouse is the Ferrari that I wish I could take on the road! Instead, I'm putting up with my Bradley which is beginning to look like a Easy-bake oven as each day passes. Your Stumps looks a true dream machine.

Traditional Scandinavian gravlox is not smoked, it's cured only with salt, sugar, pepper, dill and sometimes vodka. I think that what you are intending to make is cold smoked salmon. I have made it for years and this past year using the Amazen smoker. Nothing can be easier, I can get up to 10 hours of smoke in a single load. It's convenient because I can load the smoker at night when it's cooler outside, start the smoke and go to bed. But I have found, that it does raise the temp in my smoker by several degrees, so if the outside temp is 20°C or more, it will start cooking fish. I also have a Bradley cold smoke attachment and place the Amazen in it and there is almost no temp increase then.

In the last several months I have also used the Amazen when hot smoking (using electric heat) and am quite pleased with it. I use mostly Traeger pellets, they are the most economical and have several woods to choose from.

I use the amazen pellet smoker in a mailbox attached to the side of my smoker. I have cold smoked bacon and cheese with it so far. I have also hot smoked alot of sausage and my 1 canadian bacon. When you light it with pellets, make sure to let it burn with a flame for 10 minutes so it gets a good coal base. I had trouble with mine going out even doing that so I heated the pellets some first. I smoked my bacon 10 hours no problem without it ever going out last weekend. It definitely needs a good bit of air circulation around it so put it close to a vent.

Here is a heads up on a good deal on pellets that work well in the amazen. I stopped in at Cabellas in Oregon yesterday and bought a couple of 20lb boxes of Smokehouse brand pellets. In a box you get one hickory, one alder, one apple, one mesquite, 5-lb. bags. Only 14.88 and no tax in good ole' Oregon.

I use the Amazen in my Bradley and have saved a small fortune since I rarely use the pucks now.

I made my own a-maze-n smoker, I wanted longer burn times so this one is 16x 10 x 2 inches. Burns for about a day without being maintained . I use the traeger pellets too.
Good luck

trying to upload a pic, but no luck

I don't like Traeger pellets, they're a blended pellet, as are most of the cheaper pellets.
I much prefer pellets that are 100% correct species, such as the Lumber Jack brand.
Lumber Jack also makes blended pellets, so it's important to know the difference.

first run
custom a-maze-n-smoker

Great job fabricating your smoker. Looks just like the one I got from A-Maze-N.

Bob, I agree, the Lumber Jack pellets (the ones that list all one species of wood and not mixed) are really great and reasonable. I buy them all the time from Amazon.com because of the free shipping. They light easily and keep smoking until all the pellets are used up. Plus my smoked products come out tasting great. And, since they don't need a heat source, they produce very little heat making cold smoking easy. Just wish they made beechwood pellets.

Thanks Rudy, and it only cost 15 bucks for materials

Toby