quick help neede regarding :bloom..."

[TasunkaWitko]

i'll post full details at a later time, with hopefully some good pix, but here's the immediate issue:

making pennsylvania dutch bologna over the weekend, stuffed it today into nine 10-oz chubs of synthetic casing, then let them hang around for an hour or so before i smoked them in the big chief. they got 4 pans worth of smoke, but no real temperature due to the extreme cold outside.

when i judged the smoke was good, i brought them in and finished them in the oven. oven temps were 170 degrees. following the recipe, i removed from heat at 155 internal and dropped the chubs into 180-degree water.

instructions said to leave them in the 180-degree water until they float, but after 10 minutes or so this never happened, so i said the hell with the float and dropped them into ice water for 10 minutes. then i gently wiped them dry and laid them on oven racks with the oven off and at room temperature in order to finish drying and "bloom."

here's the question: how long does this take? it's been about an hour so far. are they done? should they go another hour? overnight?

advice would be appreciated - thanks!

by the way - this recipe is the fracking bomb - will get a full pictorial up asap.

[Richtee]

You should be asking these questions before 1:30AM ;{) If you "bloom" at room temps, you should not go for more than an hour or so. Blooming is more a process to let flavors develop... altho the meat will darken, depending on the mix. Remember most sausages are subject to the 40-140 thing. Even if you used cure, and it sounds like you should have- most of that is gone after cooking. They WILL bloom in the fridge, just takes a little longer...

[Texas-Hunter]

After the ice bath I allow the SS to bloom for about an hour to hour and a half.. Then I drop them in the frig for a day before vacuum sealing them.... I only do this with the large cubs of sausage not links..

[curious aardvark]

The 'bloom' is simply waiting for the fat to set. And the meat to cool down

liquid fat is clear - solid fat is white - hence the term 'bloom' in reference to bacterial blooms.

It also gives time for the sausage to dry out a bit after its water bath.

Fat takes time to solidify, it's more a slow crystallisation process than a factor merely of temperature. Hence the leaving time before slicing.

So to answer your question - leave it somewhere overnight. :-)

[devo]

I need to ask why would you do this???

i removed from heat at 155 internal and dropped the chubs into 180-degree water.

At 155°F your sausage is cooked past the safe zone already. By dropping it into that hot of water you also take the chance of liquefying the fat....(FAT OUT)

If your going to hot water bath sausage it is better to take them out of your smoker after they get some smoke, say 130-132°F IT and drop them into a hot water bath no hotter than 160°F to a IT of 152°F. They will rise in temp pretty darn fast so you need to keep an eye on them.

The blooming part I leave mine over night like curious aardvark suggested. Makes the house smell real nice

Hope everything works out for ya

[Richtee]

I need to ask why would you do this???

It's a bologna style emulsfied sausage I believe... that style is usually poached/cooked...altho the 180 water is a little hot...most references I see are 165-170° bath temps.

[curious aardvark]

yeah that step did seem a bit odd.

I'd either simmer - hotdogs primarily or smoke. Seems strange to do both

[devo]

Make the water 160 and no more. If you make it to hot it will melt the fat in the sausage. Don't ask how I know this

I use one of these


You will loose all the color from smoking them but after they cool they look like this.


I had to cool these puppies down in a hurry for that very reason

[curious aardvark]

nice looking dogs

[TasunkaWitko]

thanks for the advice and the clarification, guys. the bloom ended up being right about 2.5 hours, then i put them in the fridge overnight.

my smoking process was a little unorthodox because i was using a non-adjustable big chief smoker in sub-zero temperatures, but they got about 6 hours worth of cold smoke (4 pans total). I then finished in the oven to 155.

my instincts said to throw them in the ice bath at this point, but the instructions said 180-degree water until they floated, so that's what i tried, since this was my first time and i didn't know what i was doing anyway - lol. anyway, after 10 minutes of not floating, i decided it wasn't goingtohappen, so i ice-bathed them for 10 minutes, then the bloom. i'll let the flavours marry in there during today, then try one tonight before vacuum-sealing the rest and freezing them.

hopefully they turned out ok - we'll see tonight!