Getting the equipment ready!  Note: pixs taken before I owned a digital camera and scanned the prints and not the best of quality but fair for screen viewing....my bad on the pixs....Someone asked why the locking devices on the cabinets and it was to keep our East Coast Grand Boys safe when they were little whereas my bride kept them until they entered Kinder Garden and regular school.....all our lower kitchen cabinets have master keyed locking devices on them.  Safety has to be number one when it comes to hazardous chemicals such as cleaning supplies and knives.

Grinding the meat mixture that has the spices added and “cured” the proper amount of time.  The electric meat grinder simplifies this operation.

Stuffing the ground-seasoned summer sausage into fibrous casings.

Below synthetic fibrous casing being prepared for a soak bath before stuffing.

Below pix of some wieners being stuffed into lamb casings from a much later sausage making session.  Digital age now!

18 lb. batch of summer sausage ready for stuffing into fibrous casings.  Usually make 30 lbs. at a time.

Below pix of Bill Porter stuffing Porter's Cajun Blend Summer Sausage in 2003.  It must be real early in the morning!

Kielbasa from another sausage making session below and ready for a taste test by yours truly:

Stuffed and hickory smoked summer sausage ready for an overnight stay in my game refrigerator and vacuum seal and freeze for later usage.  "Fruits of the Harvest." 

Below summer sausage air drying (blooming).

Stuffed summer sausage in smoker ready for a quick cool down and taste test!  It is either early or late in this pix. 

This is the current smoker I am using made from an old 1954 International Harvester refrigerator without all the cooling components.  Notice the addition of an external thermostat and using a pressure cooker to create steam, which is piped into the cabinet when needed. The steam is used the last 30 minutes, which reduces the smoking time about 6 to 8 hours for the sausages that are 3 inches in diameter, by 24 inches in length.   I later removed the "stream generator" which gave me false intermittent readings on the digital thermometers and the electronic controller.

This smoker I call “PORTERSTEIN”. We were recently annexed into the city limits and the local police made 5 security checks within an 8 hour period.  Makes one wonder what they thought I was up too.  It looks like a moonshine operation or a "Meth. Lab".  Our son said "If you have every painted a refrigerator to match  the side of your house, you might be".......  Who cares right?  Go ahead and grin now…

Close up of a few additions to the smoker since the earlier pixs where taken....replaced the thermostat controller with one more accurate and added an excellent digital two probe cabinet and meat thermometer:

The above smoker has five (5) different temperature probes reading cabinet and internal sausage temperature.
 

Below pix of what the inside of the smoker looks like after several years of usage......rough looking but doesn't hurt the taste!  The venison summer sausage started out weighing 5 lbs. each but end up at 4 lbs. each +- a little.  Some serious prep. work and clean-up (grinding and stuffing equipment that is) but worth every ounce of labor you put into it!  Smoke is generated by placing damp hickory saw dust on one of the hot plate burners and letting it smolder.

Below Venison Summer Sausage 10-26-08 allowed to chill out for a day in my game refrigerator before vacuum sealing and freezing....yours truly will have a stalk out to enjoy "My Fruits of the Harvest."  It is nice to have a his and hers refrigerator....grin if you must!   I use this same game refrigerator on a time sharing mode to age out deer quarters while awaiting cutting, grinding and slicing into some fantastic table fare.

Note:  It took about 22 hours in the smoker for the above venison summer sausage not counting the 80 hours used to allow the fermentation and cure process to do its magic.  Commercial processors can't afford this much time in a product but I am after taste and texture versus time and money.  Most game processors now simply mix store bought premixed spices and cures stuffing immediately into the casings and directly into the smoker but I can certainly tell a difference using my "Old School Old World Technique"  method and way of smoking sausage!

 
A lot of work goes into making a smoked summer sausage but the taste is well worth the effort.  Commercial processors use liquid smoke to imitate the hickory smoke flavor.  The 2 lb. log of Porter's Cajun blend summer sausage below was enjoyed by our son and myself while he was visiting us on a Defense Contract project while he was in Norfolk, Virginia for a few weeks in Sep'08.

As Rube Goldberg as the smoker looks, it is a very controlled process all the way from grinding the meat, mixing the spices, curing, regrinding and the actual hickory sawdust smoking.  Looks can be deceiving and it is in this case!

There you have it, a Rube Goldberg operation using Flintstone technology with George Jetson results.

Ok, everyone go ahead and grin now, you may even want to laugh!
 

By Bill Porter

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  I love sharing recipes, however on my Porter's Cajun Blend Venison Summer Sausage I do not give this recipe out since I do process it in small batches for others who do not have the capability to produce their own summer sausage.  My current recipe has been tweaked and field tested for the past ten (10) years and most if not all tell me this is the best summer sausage they have ever eaten.  Those that are using pre-mixed or blended seasoning mixes more power to you.  I have not found a summer sausage pre-mix seasoning blend that suits me, but they will get you in the "ball park" but no home run for sure!  Everyone has an opinion and this is mine!  10-29-08  Bill Porter.