Beginner with questions

[scheelk10]

Hi everybody. I just started smoking venison sausage with a killer recipe...pun intended if not done right from what i have been reading. My question is this...how long can i smoke sausage at 80-90 degrees when i've used prague powder #1 (in the proper proportion) to cure it. I would like to smoke for 3-4 days in as low a temp as i can in my smoker then eat the sausage without cooking it. Hopefully i can get some insight from all y'all thanks

 

[smokin phil]

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[scheelk10]

Ummm.... You're good right up until the part about not cooking your venison. Are you THAT sure about the source and cleanliness of your meat? Cure most definitely helps, and cooking the sausage to a reasonable temp would make me feel better.

But, that being said, you can smoke your sausage basically as long as you want. If it were me, I'd then take it to 157*F. But that's me. Now, I'll eat "uncooked" dried fermented salumi from pork. Why? I don't know. Just my weird hangup I guess.

I clean my own deer and the recipe is from an old family sausage shop but they only cold smoke in the winter. After 24 hrs i brought the IT up to 160. It turned out ok but nothing like the stuff ive eaten from the said source that gave me the recipe. Pretty sure they smoke it for 4 days at a colder temp like 40 degrees

 

[chef jimmyj]

Handled with extreme care, animal shot and gutted without breaking any part of the digestive tract, cooling the carcass below 40°F in 4 hours or less, following good sanitation during sausage production, and between the Salt, Cure and Smoke, there is little to worry about eating uncooked sausage of this type. This is not room temp stable but getting everything cold and keeping the sausage cold it can be eaten as is. This is not something the very old, very young or folks with suppressed immune systems should eat but the average healthy adult faces little risk. I would be interested in more detail. Can you share the recipe and procedure? There is no issue smoking Cured sausage for several days...JJ

 

[boykjo]

Prague powder #1 is recommended for meats that require short cures and will be cooked and eaten relatively quickly. 

Sodium nitrate found in Prague powder #2 gradually breaks down over time into sodium nitrite, and by that time, a dry cured sausage  is ready to be eaten, no sodium nitrate should be left.  For this reason it is recommended for meats that require long (weeks to months) cures, like hard salami and country ham.

I suggest you use Prague powder #2 if you are going to eat uncooked meat especially if its from the field. 

My 2 cents

Joe

 

[chef jimmyj]

 
Prague powder #1 is recommended for meats that require short cures and will be cooked and eaten relatively quickly. 

Sodium nitrate found in Prague powder #2 gradually breaks down over time into sodium nitrite, and by that time, a dry cured sausage  is ready to be eaten, no sodium nitrate should be left.  For this reason it is recommended for meats that require long (weeks to months) cures, like hard salami and country ham.

I suggest you use Prague powder #2 if you are going to eat uncooked meat especially if its from the field. 

My 2 cents

Joe

The reason I asked for more info/recipe, is I didn't get the impression this was a dry cured sausage. I had a discussion with another member and did some research on a German raw sausage called Mett. It is seasoned raw pork with salt and seasoning and no cure at all. It is meant to be made and eaten shortly after production as a spread. The Nitrate in Cure #2 is converted, by bacteria, to Nitrite so in effect offers no additional protection beyond that of the Nitrite in Cure #1. I guess there is no way to know if wild Venison contains any parasite or other disease since it is not inspected by a trained inspector who can recognize diease, so eaten raw may pose a risk beyond that which cure of any kind  could do anything about. Beyond that, proper and safe handling poses the same risk as eating Beef Tartare. Here is an interesting article on the subject of raw Venison...JJ

http://hunter-eater.com/2013/11/13/recipe-venison-tartare/

 

[daveomak]

:yeahthat: ... all the above and the salt content should be up around 2 1/2% and dried to an Aw (water activity) of about 0.91 or less.. so bacteria can no longer grow and it will die... there are recipes that call for a certain percent % moisture loss... and a curing culture would be good to use to lower the pH