I wish I had a recipe.I know you could use pink salt now instead of saltpeter.Just wondering if it would be safe to make regular breakfast sausage,add in correct amount of pink salt,stuff in a permeable ( muslin,cheesecloth,etc.) casing and cold smoke and cure in a smoke house?.I have done hams and bacon but was always afraid to try the ground sausage.I have access to a smokehouse.Any guidance would be appreciated.Guess it would not be a lot different than salami or other sausages?
Absolutely, you can add cure to
any sausage formulation. In fact Cure #1 is used when the sausage will be smoke/cooked, and Cure #2 is used when the sausage will be cured/dried without cooking, think salami. Cure #1, in addition to providing food safety, will give your sausage a nice pink tint, as well as firming it up a bit. It was the length of time in the OP's post I was curious about.
The sausage bags I've seen are either marked with different color string, or have a stripe so you can tell batches apart. A lot of my hunting buddies add cure and smoke breakfast sausage from venison and elk cut with pork and it's delicious. If you want to a quick experiment, buy some Jimmy Dean breakfast logs, mix the correct amount of Cure #1 with water cool and mix into the sausage very well. Re-roll it in clear wrap and refrigerate 24 hours. Then cold smoke naked like a regular fatty. During the smoking cycle, you will have to take the internal to a minimum of 152° (I use 155° just for insurance). But you could cold smoke for 5 or 6 hours then finish to temp on a grill or in an oven.
Here is another thought if you decide to use cloth bags.... you could bag the cloth-stuffed cold smoked sausage bags and finish in a sous vide bath instead of your smoker or grill..., below is FB casing with bologna (with Cure #1) that I cold smoked, but you get the idea. Pasteurizing your cold smoked breakfast sausage means it's perfectly and fully cooked, keeps it super moist and when you slice and pan fry it, it picks up color. My processing water temp is 150°, I ramp up the temp over an hour, so ignore the 125° on my circulator.
Check out this video which used cloth bags to stuff both fresh and cured breakfast sausage.
https://youtu.be/l35fi-hKq8g