Fruitcake Summer Sausage

Directions

1. Soak the casings in warm water while you prepare your meatblock.
2. Cut the pork and beef down into grinder sized pieces. Place on a tray and put in the freezer for 30-40 before grinding.
3. Grind your meat once through a 3/8” plate and then again through a 3/16” plate.
4. Place the meat in a meat lug and add in the seasoning.
5. Stir the cure into the rum to dissolve and then pour into the meatblock.
6. Mix with your hands until the seasoning is well mixed in and the meat becomes tacky.
7. Add in the dried fruit and chopped nuts.
8. Mix again until the inclusions are well distributed.
9. Load your sausage stuffer attached with a 1 ¼” horn and stuff into the casings. Tie off the open ends tightly with butcher’s twine.
10. Let the sausages sit in the fridge over night to develop the cure and flavor.
11. On smoking day, preheat your ProMax to 100 degrees on the Smoke setting.
12. Hang the sausages on smoke sticks and load into the smoker, leaving enough room between each sausage for airflow.
13. Insert a meat probe into one of the sausages to monitor internal temperature.
14. With dampers wide open, run at 100 degrees for 1 hour for a drying cycle.
15. Set dampers to 2/3 closed and increase the temperature of the smoker to 110 degrees.
16. Run 1 hour.
17. Fill a sawdust pan ¾ full with sawdust and dampen with water.
18. Place the pan directly on the heating element and then increase the temperature again to 120 degrees.
19. Fill water pan.
20. Run 1 hour.
21. Increase temperature to 130 degrees, run 1 hour.
22. Increase temperature to 140 degrees, run 1 hour.
23. Increase temperature to 150 degrees, run 1 hour.
24. Increase temperature to 160 degrees, run 1 hour.
25. Increase temperature to 180 degrees and run until the internal temperature of the sausage reaches 155 degrees.
26. Remove the sausage from the smoker and place in an ice batch for 30 minutes to quickly cool.
27. Place in the fridge to cool completely.
28. Slice and enjoy!