Bull Smoking sausage on the Bull

[MOSmoke]

Hi everyone. I’ve had my Bull for a few months and have had great results. I’m new to the forum and have been combing through the posts trying to soak up knowledge. I am making some brats/sausage next weekend and I would like to use the Bull (his name is Rocky btw) to smoke it. Sausage making is a tradition for the hunters in my family. I enjoy trying new recipes and experimenting in small batches, much more so than anyone else in my family. I’ve always done more traditional brats and have never messed with smoked sausage. Based on my research, I am seeing the common belief is that pellet grills really aren’t suited for smoking sausage because of limitations with low temperatures, except for Recteq owners who seem to have had good experiences. From what I have read the “Hi Smoke” setting lives in the 170-180 degree range. Do any of my fellow Bull owners have any tricks to keep temps lower and avoid the dreaded “fat-out” that I’ve read so much about?

 

[chadinsc]

you can use the grill temperature offset feature which is there to allow you to calibrate the grill if needed. if you set it to +25 it will read 25 percent hotter than actual. so if you had it set to 180 low it would be 135 if you grill is perfectly calibrated from factory at zero offset. when i do +25 my bull actually runs at 147. i only do this for sausages also.

 

[rgreenberg2000]

you can use the grill temperature offset feature which is there to allow you to calibrate the grill if needed. if you set it to +25 it will read 25 percent hotter than actual. so if you had it set to 180 low it would be 135 if you grill is perfectly calibrated from factory at zero offset. when i do +25 my bull actually runs at 147. i only do this for sausages also.

Chad, how stable are your temps when you do this? I ran a test doing this a while back, and my temps swung up and down quite a bit (with a 10% offset which should get pit temp of 162F, I was seeing temp swings as high as 173F as measured by my Thermoworks probe that I had set up next to my RT700 probe.....which isn't horrible, but more than I'd like!)

When you have run with a 25% offset, have you measured the pit temps with a thermo probe? Do you get consistent temp readings? I'd love to be able to use the main barrel of the 700 for sausage (I have the "smoke box", but it's smallish), and my initial tests didn't give me much comfort level with doing that.

If you did test your temps, and they were consistent....... what kind of pellets? what about ambient temps? any other observations or thoughts?

I have a design in mind for a sausage hanging rack for the main barrel of the RT700, and I was planning to use a hotplate and smoke tube or chips. If I can just use the offset feature, that would be easier for sure!

Thanks for any insight you can add!

Rich

 

[chadinsc]

when i did it i had the grill Full of 41lbs of pig summer sausage. so my probes were in the logs. but i do remember checking the temp an hr or two apart and both times for me it was 147 when set to 180 with a +25 off set. one observation was the grill did seem to smoke less at that lower temp than it does at a 180 with no off set. i also remember the app had a pretty much flat line and i ran it like that for 4-5hrs before coming up in temp. i don’t know how well that will work on a hot day either

 

[rgreenberg2000]

when i did it i had the grill Full of 41lbs of pig summer sausage. so my probes were in the logs. but i do remember checking the temp an hr or two apart and both times for me it was 147 when set to 180 with a +25 off set. one observation was the grill did seem to smoke less at that lower temp than it does at a 180 with no off set. i also remember the app had a pretty much flat line and i ran it like that for 4-5hrs before coming up in temp. i don’t know how well that will work on a hot day either

Thanks, Chad. I may have to do a loaded run to see how it goes. I did my test with an empty grill. Maybe another batch of 5lb summer sausage just to test it out before I risk my precious links and rings!

R

 

[BradBQ]

Has anyone tried this offset approach with the BFG 3RPM motor installed to achieve lower temps?

 

[chadinsc]

m

Has anyone tried this offset approach with the BFG 3RPM motor installed to achieve lower temps?

my grill has the 3rpm mfr set to 2.0 but i would imagine a stock grill would do it even better

 

[BradBQ]

m

my grill has the 3rpm mfr set to 2.0 but i would imagine a stock grill would do it even better

My MFR is set a bit higher but still works like a charm! Glad to hear you were able to hit 147 with the offset calibration when you have a BFG heart!

 

[MOSmoke]

you can use the grill temperature offset feature which is there to allow you to calibrate the grill if needed. if you set it to +25 it will read 25 percent hotter than actual. so if you had it set to 180 low it would be 135 if you grill is perfectly calibrated from factory at zero offset. when i do +25 my bull actually runs at 147. i only do this for sausages also.

Thanks for all the great insight. It’s only supposed to be about 40 degrees this weekend in Missouri and my backyard doesn’t get much sunlight this time of the year so excess sunshine heating up the smoker shouldn’t be an issue. Hopefully with the offset feature I’ll be able to pull this off without ruining any meat. I’m only going to do a couple of 5lb. test batches to see if I even like the recipes. If this works the possibilities are endless. I’m pumped. Thanks so much!!

 

[rgreenberg2000]

Thanks for all the great insight. It’s only supposed to be about 40 degrees this weekend in Missouri and my backyard doesn’t get much sunlight this time of the year so excess sunshine heating up the smoker shouldn’t be an issue. Hopefully with the offset feature I’ll be able to pull this off without ruining any meat. I’m only going to do a couple of 5lb. test batches to see if I even like the recipes. If this works the possibilities are endless. I’m pumped. Thanks so much!!

If you find a formula you like for your sausages, feel free to share! I always love to try new ones out. Would also love to get your report on how the offset method works for you.....I may need to tinker with that again.

Rich

 

[Pacman]

Total hijack, but this...

when i did it i had the grill Full of 41lbs of pig summer sausage...

You are my hero!

 

[chadinsc]

Total hijack, but this...


You are my hero!

im adding another shelf to boost that number lol. sc has alot of wild pigs and they make dang good sausage!

 

[C. Keeper]

im adding another shelf to boost that number lol. sc has alot of wild pigs and they make dang good sausage!

Pic of SC wild pig, please.

 

[chadinsc]

here you go jigsaw

 

[C. Keeper]

That's a wild looking critter. Sort of, kind of, looks like a pig.

Thanks for sharing, first time I've seen a wild pig.

 

[chadinsc]

That's a wild looking critter. Sort of, kind of, looks like a pig.

Thanks for sharing, first time I've seen a wild pig.

most of them are black. but some times they can get wild color combinations from cross breeding with different types of pigs. they have much leaner meat than pork we buy and don’t make as good of pulled pork as a butt. also wild pork must be cooked to 165 vs 145 for domestic. they are great for sausage though and a hole lotta fun to hunt. when they get in a group and are feeding they are extremely noisy so you can often times walk up on them much easier than a deer to kill one or a few. cool animals

 

[C. Keeper]

most of them are black. but some times they can get wild color combinations from cross breeding with different types of pigs. they have much leaner meat than pork we buy and don’t make as good of pulled pork as a butt. also wild pork must be cooked to 165 vs 145 for domestic. they are great for sausage though and a hole lotta fun to hunt. when they get in a group and are feeding they are extremely noisy so you can often times walk up on them much easier than a deer to kill one or a few. cool animals

Unlike a deer, I bet that sucker bites?

 

[chadinsc]

Unlike a deer, I bet that sucker bites?

they have a reputation for being aggressive but i have never had one act aggressive. Bears have a bit of a reputation also but they always just look at me with curiosity. i once had a bear try to take my backpack lol. it was bear season and i had a tag but didn’t wana shoot him because he was small. but had he taken my backpack any farther i would have killed him. he carried it about 10ft. it was leaned up against a tree near a few ft from me. bears have zero fear of man but also in my opinion don’t have an aggressive nature either. deer they just seem to live in fear and run at first sight. i had one jump in a river this year and swim atleast 1/4 mile to escape me. big old buck. he was smart

 

[C. Keeper]

they have a reputation for being aggressive but i have never had one act aggressive. Bears have a bit of a reputation also but they always just look at me with curiosity. i once had a bear try to take my backpack lol. it was bear season and i had a tag but didn’t wana shoot him because he was small. but had he taken my backpack any farther i would have killed him. he carried it about 10ft. it was leaned up against a tree near a few ft from me. bears have zero fear of man but also in my opinion don’t have an aggressive nature either. deer they just seem to live in fear and run at first sight. i had one jump in a river this year and swim atleast 1/4 mile to escape me. big old buck. he was smart

Here in D.C. we have a bunch of wild animals. I just can't hunt them.

 

[chadinsc]

Here in D.C. we have a bunch of wild animals. I just can't hunt them.

not allowed to hunt in dc or a felon? in sc felons cant have a gun however a muzzleloader is not considered a gun so they use muzzleloaders