fermented sausage

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johnyd

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Mar 20, 2011
100
14
New Zealand
Well 12 days ago I made my first true blue fermented sausage. I made 3, foot long salami case sized sausages and enough left over to squeeze about a foot into some hogs casing I had, doing nothing.

I opted to do the hog case for another reason as well. I figured it would mature sooner, being of smaller diameter. And I would get to taste it and figure if the others would be worth perservering with or binning the lot
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So today I figured I would see what was happening on the inside, it has been taking a while to dry ....... I am using a wine fridge and the sausage still felt a little squishy ...... I think the humidity is a bit high at 75% but I think it will drop more as the salami cases slowly dry.

So I opted to place it in the fridge yesterday, I knew this would dry the surface but I just wanted to mix things up a bit.

Taste test was a huge success, I dont think I'll go back to cooked salami styles ever!
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Not sure if the ring around the sausage is from smoking or being in the fridge and drying the outside?

I had another thought as I snacked on some blue cheese, I wonder if it would make a good culture for starting the ferment?

I also discovered my wine cooler is too short for a foot long salami!! So after I hung them for a day at room temp when I went to put the in it was a case of "oh C...P! " so I managed to put a string tie around their middle  and bend them like an Ice hockey stick!

They look kinda weird but should be tasty tasty
 
If you play with your sausage a bit (no pun attended), meaning if you slightly squeeze it throughout the fermenting process it will not have a dangerous air pocket in the middle. That hole / air pocket can be very prone to bacteria growth.

Tell us about your recipe! can't wait!
 
Not sure if the ring around the sausage is from smoking or being in the fridge and drying the outside?
Looking at a blow up it looks like a heavy smoke ring and do not see any signs of case hardening

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hears what mine look like when dried (they had a five + hour smoke)

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Brican, thats most likely the cause! I did a longer 8 hr smoke

Recipe a cross over of a few recipes from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn 

Pepperone and Hungarian styles, heavy on the garlic light on the paprika and used my own smoked chile peppers. I also used 2 Tablespoons of butter milk as a starter as i didnt have bactoferm

Probably used 2 Tbls of garlic

pork butt coarse minced 4lb

back fat coarse minced  1/2lb

beef medium grind         2lb

1 1/4 tsp #2 cure

2 oz salt

5 Tbls cane sugar

2 tsp cayene

2 tspn chileflakes

1/3 cup water

1 Tbls paprika

2 Tbls Fine chopped garlic Maybe more
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2 Tbls butter milk

1/2 cup nonfat milk powder

1 tspn fennel seeds cracked

1 Tbls cracked black pepper

"Thoseguys" thanks for the tip on rolling / squeezing 

I had been thinking of running a sterilised needle through it all again but go a little deeper this time

I dont know how Nepas can do a sample and put it back, I just keep going back to it all day now!

Never got any mold growth ( yet) but thats prob cause I smoked it heavy ?
 
Wait a minute! No kiwi fruit extract added? 
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.......Just kidding mate. Well done, I like the buttermilk idea, the bactoferms are hard to get by in here.

I reckon that your smoke ring is caused by higher temperature of smoke, if you can manage to keep it below 27C you shoudn't get a smoke ring even if you smoke it for days.

From my experience the white mold will grow even on a very well smoked meat, the growth is greatly reduced by good airflow around surface of meat. At 75% RH you are on upper limit of humidity so you must have good airflow going in your wine fridge.

Cheers.
 
Hi ya Lazlo! Nah Kiwi fruit would've made it taste .....ya know like crap.
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I had the temp down low on the smoke it was a cold smoke and I did it at night. Maybe its to do with the native wood I used it produces a deep red smoke on fish and bacon

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My $20 wine cooler seems to be doing ok and the humidity is starting to drop a couple of % it can keep the temp at around 12 to 15 C When it starts out on day one the temps were higher but I fixed that with a couple of ice bricks in the bottom.

Its one of those thermo do dads so the fans kick in and out giving good flow. Not too worried about the mold situation its not been a fortnight yet so I think I have a few more weeks to go!
 
 
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Awesome looking piece of meat. Looks like a pork hock (knuckle), one of my favourites to make terrine or aspic.

Here is my curing chamber setup. Got some chorizos and smoked speck (salo) curing there. Next is lonzino, just waiting for weather to get a bit cooler

to cold smoke it.

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Cheers.

BTW my daughter used to live down in Dunedin for a while. Good place to cold smoke year round.
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Lazlo care to share where you got your electronics from?

As you know anything to do with this game is hard to come by in the south pacific eh!

Dunedin Brrrrr!! 

Nice shots on the bacon

Do you find that humidifier to be too big? 
 
Johny,

I'm planning to post a thread about my curing chamber in this forum when I find a bit of time. I'll compile all the gear I've used, possibly with links. Both controllers were sourced from eBay (Hongkong seller), I'd have to go and dig it out.

The humidifier is just about right size for the fridge volume (340L). Even smaller unit would handle the job, advantage of bigger unit is that I don't have to worry about water too much. Filled 3/4 full it lasted 3 full weeks. To keep water fresh, I change it once a week filling it to around 1/4 of capacity. The humidifier turns on when RH falls below 70% and stops at 75%. With vapor setting on minimum, the humidifier goes on at approximately every two hours for two-three minutes. Often less than that as when I open the chamber every morning for few seconds to check on thingies inside the humidity shoots up to 80% (we had bloody rainy summer here). If I set vapor setting to max, it produces massive amount of mist, way too much, it will shoot up RH to 90% in no time. I bought it on eBay for about $45, works like a charm.

Cheers.
 
Ta Laszlo good info there! Yep we've had a fairly wet summer too ( not the flooding though) I might try one of the smaller facial humidifiers I can get on Trademe for about 30 bucks, its the thermal and humidity switches that are costly.

I think through the winter I might need to add humidity. I like the little wine cooler it'll hold 12 bottles lying flat so thats how I'll place my salami's and rotate them when I check on them of coarse I will be severley limited when I do my 1st ham leg.....might have to do that in the dead of winter out in the shed!

With bird hunting season starting in May I cleaned out my last pheasant from the freezer, brined it and smoked it mmmmmmmm pheasant ham!
 
Just to update

Today, after 25 days fermenting I have decided to "pull" the remaining salami's.

They have reached what I have determined to be a good firmness.

I have been checking and sampling for the last week so when I took them out to be sliced there was only 1 1/2 left
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My friends all think it was pretty good

On the left it is still in its mahogany casing.

Next is ready to be sliced after having casing stripped off

On the right is the sliced product

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It still had a few air pockets in it so next time I will have to be more carefull when filling.

Lookde for some hog pliers and ties but the postage is a real killer!!

$42 usd to ship $19 worth of product !! No thanks I'll keep looking, and tying with string for now
 
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