First time making sausage

scarps23 said:

I've been reading a lot about making sausage. I'm planning on making 2-3 different types. I'll start with recipes to fully explain where I'm trying to get to. This is my first time attempting this so please spell things out slowly for me if I'm heading completely down the wrong road.

Two recipes from Rytek book.

Smoked Venison Summer Sausage

1 tb ground black pepper

5 tb Salt

4 tb Powdered Dextrose

2 tsp Insta Cure No 1

1 Tb Ground Coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp garlic powder

6 tb corn syrup solids

8 lbs venison

2 lbs pork trimmings

1 1/4 cup fermento

Smoked Venison Breakfast Sausage

2 cups water

5 tb Salt

1 tsp ground white pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tb ground nutmeg

2 tb powdered dextrose

2 tsp insta cure 1

8 lbs venison

2 pounds pork fat

Venison Sausage recipe from sausage casing package

1 lb fine ground bacon

4 lbs venison

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp allspice

1 1/2 tsps mustard seed

8 cloves garlic pressed

2 tbsp black pepper

1 tsp marjoram

1 cup cold water or red wine

I'm using some substitutions and want to make sure I'm not screwing up a bunch of meat. I didn't realize some of these products weren't in grocery stores. Meat was already thawed out and I didn't want to make a 2 hour trip to get powdered dextrose, fermento, insta cure, and corn syrup solids.

1) Using half as much sugar as is called for in recipes with 2 tb powdered dextrose. So I'll use 1 tb sugar

2) Subbing Buttermilk Powder for fermento. I'm not sure of how to substitute the quantity so they are equal to 1 1/4 fermento as called for in first recipe?

3) I bought corn syrup instead of solids. Not sure how to substitute this from the 6 tb corn syrup solids?

4) I believe I can figure out how to use tender quick instead of insta cure. I realize they are different and I will go by morton's recommendations for lbs of meat in first two recipes.

I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to mix ingrediants and let sit to let cure work or make it into sausage right away. Need advice on this.

Also wondering why the last recipe doesn't call for any cure? I'll be smoking all of these recipes. I probably don't have a great understanding of what the cure is for?

Sorry for such a long first post, but I'm worried about ruining the meat and having it go to waste. 

I've been reading a lot of posts from this site while trying to learn. I've also used Bearcarvers recipe for dried venison and it is very good. That was my first experience curing anything.

Thanks in advance for helping the new guy out.

Click to expand...

On your 1st recipe you can sub corn syrup solids with 3.20 oz of Karo. Dextrose is half as sweet as sugar so use 1.5 T sugar. You can use Saco buttermilk powder the same as fermento.

Tender quick is used the following.

For 5 lbs of meat use 7.5 tsp

10 lbs use 5 Tbs

You can mix stuff smoke right away, fridge over night is you call.

As for the last recipe there is no cure because its a fresh sausage recipe. Fresh style dont use cure because your cooking at a high temp.

Here this may help.

CURES - Cures are used in sausage products for color and flavor development as well as retarding the development of bacteria in
the low temperature environment of smoked meats.
Salt and sugar both cure meat by osmosis. In addition to drawing the water from the food, they dehydrate and kill the bacteria that make food spoil. In general, though, use of the word "cure" refers to processing the meat with either sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate.
The primary and most important reason to use cures is to prevent BOTULISM POISONING (Food poisoning). It is very important that any kind of meat or sausage that will be cooked and smoked at low temperature be cured. To trigger botulism poisoning, the requirements are quite simple - lack of oxygen, the presence of moisture, and temperatures in range of 40-140° F. When smoking meats, the heat and smoke eliminates the oxygen. The meats have moisture and are traditionally smoked and cooked in the low ranges of 90 to 185° F. As you can see, these are ideal conditions for food poisoning if you don't use cures. There are two types of commercially used cures.

Prague Powder #1
Also called Insta-Cure and Modern Cure. Cures are used to prevent meats from spoiling when being cooked or smoked at low temperatures (under 200 degrees F). This cure is 1 part sodium nitrite (6.25%) and 16 parts salt (93.75%) and are combined and crystallized to assure even distribution. As the meat temperate rises during processing, the sodium nitrite changes to nitric oxide and starts to ‘gas out’ at about 130 degrees F. After the smoking /cooking process is complete only about 10-20% of the original nitrite remains. As the product is stored and later reheated for consumption, the decline of nitrite continues. 4 ounces of Prague powder #1 is required to cure 100 lbs of meat. A more typical measurement for home use is 1 level tsp per 5 lbs of meat. Mix with cold water, then mix into meat like you would mix seasonings into meat.

Prague Powder #2
Used to dry-cure products. Prague powder #2 is a mixture of 1 part sodium nitrite, .64 parts sodium nitrate and 16 parts salt. (1 oz. of sodium nitrite with .64 oz. of sodium nitrate to each lb. of salt.)
It is primarily used in dry-curing Use with products that do not require cooking, smoking, or refrigeration. This cure, which is sodium nitrate, acts like a time release, slowly breaking down into sodium nitrite, then into nitric oxide. This allows you to dry cure products that take much longer to cure. A cure with sodium nitrite would dissipate too quickly.
Use 1 oz. of cure for 25 lbs. of meat or 1 level teaspoon of cure for 5 lbs. of meat when mixing with meat.
When using a cure in a brine solution, follow a recipe.

SWEETENERS: Sugars are use to add flavor and to cover or mask salt. Sugars will cause browning when the product is pan fried or grilled. There are different forms of sugar. The most common is cane sugar. Cane is what we normally call table sugar. It can be used in meat brines but is not widely used in sausage because it has a tendency to burn or scorch. Brown sugar is used in most brines but sometimes used in meat because of its flavor.

DEXTROSE - 70% as sweet as cane sugar and quite a bit heavier. Helps reduce nitrate to nitrite as meats are cured. Used to counter salt in brines. Dextrose assists fermentation, which gives us the desired tang of flavor. The most common sugar used in meat is dextrose. Dextrose is corn sugar and it will not burn as easily as cane or beet sugar. When a recipe calls for cane sugar you can replace it with dextrose by adding 20% more dextrose than cane sugar due to the sweetness factor between cane sugar and dextrose.

CORN SYRUP / CORN SYRUP SOLIDS - Only about 40-50% as sweet as cane sugar. will help to hold water and color in meat, bind the meat when curing sausage at low temperatures, aid the fermentation process when semi-dry or dry curing. Add no more than 2% of the green weight of the meat.

NON-FAT DRY MILK - Milk powder has been used for years in sausage making. Acts as a binder by helping to retain the moisture of the meat. Although not highly effective as a binder, it can impart a creamier taste to some sausage products. You can use up to 12% (of the meat weight) without affecting the taste of the sausage. This product is good at hiding salt flavor in most sausage and is used in liver sausage, hot dogs and bologna

FERMENTO - Use to produce a tangy taste in sausage such as summer, pepperoni and thuringer. The recommended level to start with is 3%, add up to 6% to produce a more tangy taste, but do not exceed 6% or the sausage will become mushy. This product does not require refrigeration.