Hot smoking sausages - is botulism a concern?

[kerrym]

Hi all. I have a New Braunfels Hondo offset smoker which I'd like to smoke some sausage on.

Ideally I want to hot smoke some decent Cumberland or Italian sausages from the butcher but I keep reading about the risk of botulism so am looking for advice.

I'm planning on doing a pork butt tomorrow at around 225f and am thinking of throwing in some sausage for the last hour of the cook.

Can anyone help with any dangers here?

[DanG]

I smoke regular store bought (eg Sainsburys taste the difference 97% meat) sausages all the time on the WSM at 225F.

Takes a longer time than you think, and the ones I did last night were on for 2 hours until nice and brown on the outside.

Just use a meat thermometer to check that their internal temp has got up to 160F just to be safe.

Also, cook more than you think you'll need - they get better the next day in sandwiches!

[kerrym]

Fantastic thanks! I said an hour just because if the botulism fear... I figured the temps should be fine so thanks for the confirmation.

Cannot wait to get these things on tomorrow!

[YetiDave]

Botulism's only really a concern if you're smoking at very very low temps and leaving the sausages for an extended period of time. At 225 you're absolutely fine

[kerrym]

Cheers Yeti and DanG...much appreciated.

[stretchie_]

I like sausage done on the smoker, normally take about 45 mins to get to 92c inside and they are nice and juicy inside, but if you don't eat them within about 10 mins they get a bit rubbery, good job they don't normally last that long eh

[YetiDave]

92C is waaaaaay overkill for a sausage IMHO

[keith157]

YD IF you made the sausage, knew the provenance of the meat and were eating it yourself I would agree. However IF you are buying from a supermarket, regardless of how much they cost I too would err on the side of caution. It only takes one dodgy banger to ruin a BBQ let alone your reputation.

[RobinC]

YD IF you made the sausage, knew the provenance of the meat and were eating it yourself I would agree. However IF you are buying from a supermarket, regardless of how much they cost I too would err on the side of caution. It only takes one dodgy banger to ruin a BBQ let alone your reputation.

Keith - I'm with YD on this, a 92C internal temp is way above what is recommended under food safety guidelines. Ground meat is basically treated the same as poultry so the recommendations are something like 72C. I say something like 72C because strictly speaking it is time @ at a particular temp that is important. As the internal temp goes up the time the meat has to be at that temp reduces. It's a while since I did my hygiene course but I remember that the time/temp graph didn't seem to be linear ie something could be considered to be food safe if it had an internal temp of 75% for a few seconds but at 70C it had to have been at that temp for a few minutes.

I'd also disagree that making sausage at home is necessarily safer - it probably isn't. You still haven't witnessed how the meat has been handled along the food chain, you're taking it on trust, plus home mincers tend to get warmer than commercial ones.

[stretchie_]

I agree it's way above what is needed but I forgot about them once and they were at 92c when I checked them and they were fantastic, so I do them like that all the time now