Taking the plunge this year on more home processing. First run is summer sausage. I have everything ordered, but I want to put jalapenos in the recipe as well. Do I just chop fresh ones and throw them in, or do they need to be dried or canned?

Fresh!

Fresh is fine. I prefer to run them through a food processor to chop them instead of running them through the grinder.

Glad someone started this topic.

We delved into summer sausage making last year for the first time. Have been making sausage forever prior to summer sausage. We just did a basic summer sausage with no jalapenos but will be trying new varieties.

What does the group recommend as a smoker for the meat? The small electric smokers seem to be the best option but you cannot get much summer sausage in them at a time. We smoked outside in the smokehouse for a while then brought into the oven until it got up to temperature. Turned out great but wished I had a good smoker for summer sausage. Thoughts?

I'm not smoking this batch, but, if I were to smoke some, I'd use my trailer pit at keep it around 180* with wet pecan chunks for smoke.

I've seen a few people build little smokehouses in the backyard.

dahouse said:

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I'm not smoking this batch, but, if I were to smoke some, I'd use my trailer pit at keep it around 180* with wet pecan chunks for smoke.

I've seen a few people build little smokehouses in the backyard.

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How are you going to get it up to temperature?

Slow cook in the oven. 185 or so until it hits 160

Smoke houses for small batches don't have to be anything special. Two pieces of plywood/masonite will work.
I've started cooking mine in 16/20 quart roasters. Like poaching. Bring water up to temp. and place in water. Will cool off but just wait till back up to temp and stabilizes. A lot cleaner than in an oven and more evenly cooked.
Lots on the web about it.

We also cook our in the oven. Once they are done, we put them in an ice bath that we've made in a clean ice chest. It chills them down really quickly so you can package them.

How do you monitor internal temperature? I don't want to probe it because that makes a hole in the casing.

For the first time, it didn't come out bad at all. Tastes really good. Next round I'm adding more jalapeno, adding course black pepper, and maybe some red pepper for heat

Did you use high-temp cheese or just the regular stuff?

I bought the high temp stuff from LEM

dahouse said:

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How do you monitor internal temperature? I don't want to probe it because that makes a hole in the casing.

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If you use a heat safe probe, you won't notice the hole because the probe just stays in the whole time. Besides, you're only putting a hole in one sausage.