When Should You add Curing Salt to Smoked Sausage?

a smoked sausage cooked low and slow is a beautiful thing when done right the end result is a gorgeous looking sausage that's juicy Snappy and extremely delicious but when does cooking a sausage low and slow become dangerous and more importantly when should you be adding curing salts to your recipe to keep it safe thank you for joining us on another episode of beyond the recipe where we take you behind the scenes and talk about the finer points of sausage making to help you level up your sausage game let's begin by understanding why cooking sausages in a smoker at low temperatures can potentially be dangerous sausages are basically meat and fat that's been ground mixed with spices and through this process of mixing and grinding you're introducing all types of bacteria to your meat both good and bad have you ever heard of the phrase life begins at 40 this refers to bacteria because bacteria starts to get very active between the temperatures of 40 Fahrenheit and 140 Fahrenheit and it's this temperature range that we call the danger zone and when it comes to food safety Raw raw meat should never be left in the danger zone for more than two hours so the longer your meat stays in the danger zone the more likely you are to create a product that can potentially make you sick which is where curing salts come in curing salts are added to sausages or recipes in general because they inhibit the growth of these unwanted pathogens when you add curing salt to your recipe you can keep your meat in the danger zone for much longer without having to worry about this harmful contamination but not everybody wants to add curing salts to every sausage that they make and so what we're going to do today is a bit of a food experiment we're going to determine what's the lowest possible temperature you could smoke your sausages at and still have a safe product all right so here's what we're going to do we just made a fresh batch of Texas hot links and I think I'm just going to go ahead and yeah separate these we're just going to get these individual and we're going to cook these at different temperatures I'm going to cook this batch at 150 Fahrenheit this one at 160 this one at 180 and if we need to we'll cook this one at 190. so the goal for this experiment is to try to get our meat past 140 Fahrenheit in under two hours there's a lot of different ways we could have run this experiment but what we're going to end up doing is cooking these sausages in our digital smokers from smoking it these digital smokers give us incredibly accurate temperatures within one or two degrees of what we set it at which is going to give us very precise results if you're going to try to run this experiment at home and I highly suggest that you do but you don't have a digital smoker let's say you have an offset or a barbecue pit know that it is incredibly difficult to maintain these very low consistent temperatures primarily because there is a heat Source that's always on and so just be aware of that you're more than likely going to cook a little bit hotter than what your target is but I hope you get a chance to try this all right now that we've got the equipment out of the way let's talk about the process when you make a smoked sausage you should always dry your sausage first before smoking that's going to improve the texture of the color the snappiness you're going to have an overall better experience and produce a high quality smoked sausage if you dry it first and there's a couple different ways you could dry your sausage the easiest is to just place it on a rack at room temperature and let it dry naturally now this process can take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on how Breezy the room is that your sausage is drying you could speed that process up by putting a fan in front of it and you could reduce that time to about half an hour the other option to dry your sausage if you have a digital smoker is to place your sausages in your smoker set the temperature to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and leave the door open and this will evaporate any condensation that's built on your sausage getting it ready to smoke either way works fine today we're going to be drying our sausage by putting a fan in front of it so that we can speed up the process it is important to remember that your drying time has to be calculated into your danger zone time so today's goal is to get the temperature of our sausage outside of the danger zone in less than two hours so if it takes me 30 minutes to dry my sausage we've got to get it out of the danger zone in an hour and a half the last thing I had to consider for this experiment was temperature normally we're not preheating our digital smoker we're putting our meat in there while it's cold we're turning it on setting the temperature and walking away but that's not the case if you're using a barbecue pit or an offset you've got to prepare the coals get it to the right temperature and once you hit your target you're adding your meat so for this experiment we are going to be doing just that we're going to be preheating our digital to the appropriate temperatures and then we're going to add our meat I think following these parameters for this experiment is going to paint a very interesting picture as to when you should use curing sauce or when you don't have to use curing salts when smoking meat let's get started here's our sausage they have been drying at room temperature in front of a fan for about 30 minutes the internal temperature of this sausage is 61 degrees Fahrenheit and our smoker is set to 150 degrees and now we're going to cook our sausage for 90 minutes because remember we want to get the temperature of the sauce message outside of the danger zone in under two hours 90 minutes have passed and this is what it looks like this is a very popular temperature to smoke sausages it Cooks them low and slow and you get an absolutely beautiful product let's see what the temperature is after 90 minutes we are at 114 F so when you combine drying and cooking time we are two hours in the danger zone which means it is not safe to smoke sausages at 150 Fahrenheit without curing salts let's go ahead and move on to the next temperature at 160 degrees our sausage has been drying for 30 minutes it's got an internal of 56 Fahrenheit we're going to go ahead and pop these into the smoker for 90 minutes and see what that looks like 90 minutes have passed and let's give this a temperature poke and see where we're at okay so for round number two we are at 121 122 degrees Fahrenheit a combined total of two hours still in the danger zone let's check this other sausage 124 yeah so we still got a little ways to go before we get to that 140 Mark and so when it comes to cooking your sausage at 160 degrees Fahrenheit it is not a good idea to do it without curing salts all right let's take a look at round number three we're now at 170f we're going to do the exact same thing these are my sausages 30 minutes in front of a fan and they are dry to the touch looks like the internal temperature is about 53 F okay so you know the drill we're going to pop them in the smoker they're going to cook for the remainder of that two hour window which is 90 minutes and here it goes 90 minutes later let's give them a quick temperature check and see where we're at first one is 100 come on baby 132 133 degrees Fahrenheit not quite there yet we are two hours in the danger zone let's check this other sausage same thing 133 134 we are getting close but we are not there yet so being that we are still in the danger zone if you're gonna be smoking at 170 you should consider using curing salts let's move on to the next test 180 degrees Fahrenheit all right so we're going to be smoking these babies at 180 F there's our sausages they're dry to the Dutch 30 minutes in front of a fan we have an internal of 58 F into the smoker for 90 minutes and 90 minutes have passed so let's go ahead and see what the temperature reading is we've been cooking at 180 f for 90 minutes and here we go I'm feeling good about this one here we go 140 1 142 there we go so we are out of the danger zone but barely wow a little too close in my book notice it took every bit of those two hours to get out of the danger zone let's take a look at the next test this is going to be at 190 degrees Fahrenheit sausages drive to the touch internal temperature looks average 57 F we're gonna smoke these for 90 minutes at 190. and I actually checked these a little sooner so now 75 minutes have passed let's give these a quick temperature reading and it looks like we are 140 degrees at 75 minutes so a total elapsed time was an hour and 45 minutes in the danger zone uh much better temperature right here if you're not going to be using curing salts let's do our final test 200 degrees Fahrenheit we got sausages that are dry to the touch 30 minutes at room temperature 54 internal temperature when we put them in the smoker and for this last round I think we're going to check them even sooner we're going to check them at one hour so 60 minutes later let's see what the temperature reading is now we're cooking at 200 F and here we go it looks like we are well within the safe zone for these sausages we've spent a combined total both drying and cooking one and a half hours in the danger zone and that is completely acceptable a lot of information to extrapolate here let's talk about it before we talk about what we just learned let's take a look at a recent poll that we had on our channel the question that was submitted was what's the lowest temperature you could smoke a sausage before you need to add curing salts and the most popular option at 38 percent of the votes was 150 degrees Fahrenheit interestingly enough the least popular option with only 10 percent of the votes was 190 degrees Fahrenheit now I did have an opportunity to talk to some of you who submitted votes and I just asked what made you choose what you chose and for those of you who submitted 150 at least those that I talked to the two most common answers that I got was number one I watch another YouTube channel and they said it's okay and number two because a danger zone is between 40 and 140 and we're cooking outside the danger zone at 150 it's okay as well you got to remember when we're talking about the danger zone we're talking about the internal temperature of the meat that's the most important number that you've got to be aware of when it comes to food safety and when it comes to determining whether or not you're going to put curing salts inside your recipe as far as getting information from YouTube that's a tricky topic because there are some content creators that are true Pros that have been doing this a long time incredible resource for charcuterie but at the same time there are some YouTube channel animals that honestly are just getting started in the craft and have no business teaching it so hopefully this information that we're giving you right now will help you discern which is which and at the end of the day my best advice is take the information that you get off of YouTube with a grain of salt do your own research and make sure that you're doing it properly so let's talk about today's results I'm going to be the first to say that the amount of variables for this experiment was quite honestly overwhelming do you dry your sausage do not if you do dry it how long do you let it dry for what's the temperature of your sausage before it goes into the smoker how about the diameter because that does make a difference also how much sausage are you cooking at one time Three Links like we did are you cooking 30 pounds all of those things play a huge part in how your smoker operates heats up and the internal temperature of your meat The Hope here is to keep it super simple so that you can have a general idea of what we're talking about and a better understanding as to when you might want to add curing salts versus when you might want to leave them out okay let's talk about the results in every test we dried our sausages for 30 minutes as you saw in the video and then we cooked for 90 minutes because the goal was to get the internal temperature of the meat outside the danger zone in under two hours basically our first test at 150 degrees Fahrenheit 30 minutes of drying and 90 minutes of cooking gave us an internal temperature of 114 F that's two full hours in the danger zone at 160 same parameters our final temperature of the meat was 125 Fahrenheit and at 170 the final temperature of the meat was 132 Fahrenheit so all three of those temperatures did not produce a sausage with an internal temperature that got us outside of the danger zone remember that 150 160 and 170 after two full hours we were still in the danger zone not a good place to be at 180 same parameters the internal temperature of our sausage was 142 and that right there breaks that danger zone barrier now I am cautious to recommend 180 as kind of like the standard for cooking your sausage without curing salts because there are so many different variables the thickness of the sausage how long you let it dry you know if you let it dry for an hour instead of 30 minutes that number is certainly going to change but let's move on to the next one at 190 degrees cooking temperature we let it dry for 30 minutes but we only cooked it for an hour and 15 minutes so 15 minutes less than all the other temperatures and we had already reached the target of 141 degrees Fahrenheit so it looks like we're getting out of the danger zone a lot quicker which is what your goal is if you're not going to be using curing salts finally at 200 degrees Fahrenheit 30 minutes of drying one hour of cooking and we got to an internal temperature of 143. so what does all that mean well what's most important here is that hopefully you have a better understanding of how temperature and time relate to the safety of food and how important it is to get outside of that Danger Zone in a reasonable amount of time especially if you're not going to be using curing salts unfortunately because of the amount of variables that exist in this particular setting it's very difficult to give a precise answer as to when you should versus when you shouldn't use curing salts I can say this based off of the results that we got here today if you're going to be smoking your sausage at 150 160 or 170 degrees Fahrenheit or if you're at least going to be starting your sausage off at those temperatures I would advise the use of curing salts when it comes to the hotter temperatures like 180 190 even 200 Fahrenheit A lot of that is going to depend on the type of sausage you're making you know the diameter of the sausage how long you let it rest how much of it you're making the type of smoker you have the temperature of the sausage going into the smoker so there's a lot of factors that play personally speaking the 180 and 190 cooking temperatures we're cutting it a little too close for me I mean we were getting out of the danger zone but without a whole lot of wiggle room and with there being so many variables at play I wouldn't feel confident recommending either one of those temperatures I like the 200 Fahrenheit cooking temp because it got us out of the danger zone own in only 60 minutes which gives us plenty of time to dry our sausage and then smoke overall my opinion on the matter is this if you don't want to put curing salts in your smoked sausage I would recommend you cooking those sausage at a temperature of at least 200 Fahrenheit or hotter 225 is actually a little bit better anything lower than those temperatures I would seriously consider putting curing salts into the recipe so you don't get a new one sick thanks a lot for watching this video if you got any questions thoughts or concerns leave them in the comment section below and if you got anything out of this video a thumbs up is always helpful if you're new to sausage making be sure to click that subscribe button and that notification Bell because we've got an entire series of videos that'll take you beyond the recipe that's guaranteed to level up your sausage game thanks for joining us we'll see you in the next one bye-bye [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: 2 Guys & A Cooler

Views: 47,782

Keywords: Easy Sausage Recipes, sausage, meat preservation, pork sausage, smoked meats, cured sausages, danger zone, texas hot links, Kielbasa

Id: Oo9dLKcqf4Y

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 11 2023