Beef and Pork Sausage with Smoked Muenster (Printable)

Printing doesn't work inside the TikTok or Instagram app. Tap the ⋯ menu and choose Open in browser, then print from there.

Beef

Beef and Pork Sausage with Smoked Muenster

Half beef, half pork sausage seasoned with The Gospel rub, studded with homemade smoked muenster, cold smoked and then finished on the smoker to 160°F.

Prep: 2 hours, plus overnight rest
Cook: 6 to 7 1/2 hours (cold smoke plus hot smoke)
Total: About 22 hours, including the overnight rest
Yield: About 10 lbs, roughly 35 to 40 links
Method: Cold smoked, then smoked
Wood: Your choice

Ingredients

Meat and casings

5 lbs beef, cut into about 1-inch cubes
5 lbs pork, cut into about 1-inch cubes
Hog casings (about 32-35mm), rinsed and soaked

Seasoning mix

200 g Meat Church The Gospel All-Purpose rub
70 g table salt
12 g Prague powder no.1 (curing salt; check against the package label)
90 g nonfat dry milk powder
12 oz ice cold water

Cheese

1 to 2 cups homemade smoked muenster, cut into about 1/4-inch cubes

Instructions

Rinse the hog casings and soak them in lukewarm water for about 30 minutes, then flush them with water.
Cut the beef and pork into roughly 1-inch cubes. Chill the meat and your grinder parts until very cold, about 30 minutes in the freezer.
Run the meat through a medium grind. Grind it a second time if you want a smoother texture.
Keeping the meat cold, add the 12 oz of ice cold water and the seasoning mix: The Gospel rub, table salt, Prague powder no.1 and nonfat dry milk powder. Mix until it's extremely well combined and tacky.
Only once the meat is fully mixed, fold in the cubed smoked muenster.
Stuff the sausage into the hog casings, about 5 lbs at a time. Don't overfill them.
Once a casing is full, pinch and twist into links, alternating the twist direction with each link so they don't unravel.
Let the links rest overnight, uncovered or loosely covered, in the refrigerator.
Cold smoke for about 4 to 5 hours, keeping the smoker below 50°F and ideally lower.
Snip between the links. Freeze them for later, or cook them right away.
To cook, smoke at 200 to 250°F until the sausages reach 160°F internal, about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. Rest a few minutes, slice and serve.

Pitmaster Notes

Prague powder no.1 is a curing salt. Weigh it carefully and follow the package label for the right amount for your batch of meat.
Keep the meat, fat and equipment as cold as possible the whole time. Warm fat smears and gives you a crumbly texture.
Cold smoking doesn't cook the sausage. Keep the smoker below 50°F during the cold smoke, and always cook the links to 160°F internal before eating.
Because it's cured, this keeps a lot longer in the fridge than fresh sausage, about a week. I vacuum seal and freeze most of the batch so it stays fresh for months, then thaw links in the fridge before cooking.
Mixing the cheese in last keeps the cubes whole so you get pockets of melted muenster when you slice.

Times and temps are my starting points. Every cooker and every cut runs a little different, so cook to temperature and feel, not the clock.

From dkcraftbbq.com/recipe/beef-and-pork-sausage-with-smoked-muenster