For the casual sausage maker, sausage smokers don’t raise a great deal of concern. Your run-of-the-mill smoker from any “big box” store works just fine. But for the professional or for those who wish to make sausage like the pros, sausage smokers become a priority. Here’s a look at a few found on the ‘Net that might be of interest to the serious sausage makers among us.
Oregon-based Luhr Jensen (www.LuhrJensen.com) makes five, different-sized, embossed-aluminum smokers that work great as sausage smokers. With prices ranging from $128.95 for the largest-sized ones to $76.36 for the smallest, Luhr Jensen covers all the bases as far as sausage smokers are concerned. Both of the largest smoke up to 50 pounds, the two smaller smokers can handle 25 pounds, and the one, small smoker smokes up to 15 pounds. This company throws in a free recipe booklet and some hickory chips, as well, when you buy one of their sausage smokers.
Pleasant Hill Grain (www.PleasantHillGrain.com), from Nebraska, offers two products for which cooks who call themselves “sausage smokers” may consider. One is aluminum, smokes 20 pounds of meat, and sells for $274.95. The other one, which also smokes 20 pounds, sells for $425.95, making its stainless steel construction somewhat of a luxury, but perhaps a truly important factor to serious amateur sausage smokers.
The last sausage smokers considered for this short article hail from a company in Houston, Texas. Allied Kenco (http://www.AlliedKenco.com/) touts the Bradley smoker, a newfangled thing that boasts stainless steel on the outside, aluminum on the inside – a way, presumably, to capture the best of both worlds in the arena of sausage smokers. At $349(!), one must remember it falls right between the high and low prices of Pleasant Hill Grain.
That’s about it for sausage smokers – at least for this quick look at them. But go check them out for yourself! Literally hundreds (if not more!) are waiting to be tried, tested, and taken for a spin. But the most important thing of all? Make sure that with whichever of the sausage smokers you buy, get busy and go smoke some sausage! And lots of it!