After the sausage is stuffed, it is smoked about three hours at a temperature of 150° to 160° F., or until it is dry clear through. This sausage is not cooked. Keep it away from all water and moisture.
After the sausage is smoked allow it to cool in a dry airy room, but do not put it in a cooler. When it is thoroughly cool, pack into twenty-pound and fifty-pound packages, as desired, as follows: In twenty-pound cans, place sixteen pounds Bologna and four pounds oil. In fifty-pound cans, place thirty-six pounds Bologna and fourteen pounds oil.
In order to pack the cans properly, it is necessary to stuff different sized beef rounds, as mentioned above, so that they will fit in nicely without breaking the casings, and without filling the cans too full.
After the cans have been filled with the required amount of Bologna, crimp on the summer top, which has a two-inch hole and a cap to fit. Fill the cans as full as possible with deodorized cotton seed oil, which must be cold. Allow the cans to stand for thirty minutes, then refill so that the oil runs over the top through the hole, put on the cap immediately and solder right through the oil which will accumulate around the cap and on the top of the can. This will not hinder the process of soldering and it prevents the possibility of any air getting into the cans.
After the caps have been secured, solder around the crimps of the summer top. This can be done before the oil is put in if desired. Extreme care must be used in soldering the cans so that no air whatever gets in, or oil leaks out, as the sausage will spoil if this occurs.
The cans should also be fitted with the regular covers so as to protect the summer top. Pack in crates, the twenty-pound size, two to four to a crate; the fifty-pound size, one to two to a case.
The case should be large enough so as to admit of packing sawdust beneath the bottom, around the sides and on the tops. A crate large enough to permit one-half inch space around the cans is the size generally used and there should be a partition in the crates where more than one can is packed in a crate.
In freighting this class of merchandise in the south, in fact wherever it is shipped, it receives more or less rough handling and a great many freight handlers use box hooks, which they stick into the sides of the crates, and if there is not sufficient protection from the amount of sawdust put in, the cans are punctured, the oil leaks out and the sausage spoils. Sausage handled in the above manner has been known to keep two years in temperature ranging from 40° to 100° F.
Pork Sausage in Oil.
—Use the same formula as for regular pork sausage except that the trimmings must be moderately lean, and the sausage absolutely free from water. Use also the same spices. Stuff immediately after the sausage is chopped, using the same care as to moisture as for Bologna in oil, and smoke over a very cold smoke until the sausage seems dry all the way through. Allow it to cool, handling and packing in every other respect the same as Bologna Oil.