Smoked Andouille Sausage

Step 1

Cut the pork meat and pork fat into 1-2 inch cubes. Pass them through a meat grinder. Consider reserving about 1/3 of the pork meat and dice into small chunks so that there are chunks of ham in the sausage.

Step 2

In a large bowl, stir the meat with the remaining ingredients (spices, cure, water, milk powder). Knead it together well so that everything is combined thoroughly. Place in the fridge and let marinate for 3 hours or so.

Step 3

Take the meat mixture out of the fridge and stuff the sausage casings according to the instructions of your sausage stuffer.

Step 4

Preheat the Bradley smoker, or the smoker you are using, for 130F with your choice of wood pucks smoking in it. Place the andouille in the smoker by either laying them on the racks or hanging them on hooks.

Step 5

The andouille needs to smoke in the smoker for four hours. Each hour increase the temperature 20F. So hour one is 130F, hour 2 is 150F, hour 3 is 170F and hour 4 is 190F.

Step 6

After they have been in the smoker for 4 hours take them out and put them in a hot water bath that has the water preheated at 165F. Keep them in the hot water bath for 45 minutes.

Step 7

Remove the kielbasa from the hot water bath and hang them for 1-2 hours so that they can bloom.