How to Make Smoked Kielbasa

Smoked kielbasa is a versatile Polish sausage that can be used in any recipe that calls for sausage or meat. It's also great grilled on the barbecue and served on a bun. Making your own smoked kielbasa does take some specialized equipment and some time, but it can also be fun and rewarding, especially if you enjoy sausage but are worried about health concerns like high sodium or high cholesterol. Making it yourself means you can substitute lower salt or fat ingredients and still end up with a good-tasting sausage.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Meat grinder
• Smoker or smokehouse
• Meat thermometer
• Natural medium hog casings
• 3 lb. lean pork butt or shoulder
• 2 lb. lean beef chuck
• 1/2 cup ice water
• 1/4 cup dry milk
• 3 tsp. cure mix
• 2 tsp. white pepper
• 2 tsp. ground marjoram
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp. paprika

1. Prepare the casings by rinsing them and soaking them in water overnight. The water can either be warm (90 degrees F) and be allowed to cool slowly overnight in a cooler, or the water can be cold and allowed to sit in the refrigerator instead.
2. Grind the pork through the coarse disk (1/4-inch plate).
3. Grind the beef through the fine plate.
4. Combine the meat with the other ingredients. At this point you can mix it by hand, or send it through the grinder again.
5. Stuff the prepared casing with the filling and tie off the end.
6. Measure out 8 inches (or the desired length) and pinch the sausage casing, pushing the filling out of that space.
7. Twist the sausage clockwise.
8. Measure out another sausage, pinch and twist counter clockwise.
9. Continue to make sausage links by pinching and twisting alternately clockwise and counter clockwise until you reach the end of the tube.
10. Refrigerate the sausages for 24 hours to let cure.
11. Place in the smoker and smoke for 2 hours at 90 to 100 degrees F.
12. Raise the temperature in the smoker or smokehouse gradually until it reaches 170 degrees F.
13. Cook until the internal temperature of the kielbasa sausages reaches 150 degrees F.

Tips & Warnings

• Smoked kielbasa will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.
• If you plan on making sausage regularly, consider buying a sausage-stuffing machine to make the process quicker and easier.
• Curing agents like saltpeter or sodium nitrate or nitrite are helpful in preventing botulism in homemade preserved meat products, but these chemicals can be dangerous if used incorrectly. It is much safer to use a premixed cure product.
• Make sure that the sausage reaches the appropriate internal temperature. If it doesn't, it won't be thoroughly cooked and could prove hazardous. Make sure to test the sausages with a meat thermometer before declaring them done.