Hi all, found this forum yesterday and decided to join in. I’m here to lean and share experiences!
A little bit about me: I’m Joe and live in Rhode Island USA- love family, near shore living and the outdoors, particularly boating/near shore/deep sea fishing. About 15 years ago I was given the opportunity to utilize professional shop equipment to build an offset smoker using primarily recycle metal. Four months later had an overbuilt offset smoker for less than $400. Well, I’ve smoking all kinds of meat cuts, roasted whole pigs and smoking home made Portuguese sausage (chouriço) a couple times a year which we share with family and friends. Our “old school method” consists of hand cutting the meat and fat, blending all ingredients, keeping it refrigerated for four days, mixing it and sample tasting tiny portions once per day before stuffing, subsequently these sausages are hung overnight then smoked for about ten hours, starting at 100F then up to 125F finishing at 150F/until good smoking appearance and internal temp reads approx. 130F( partially cooked), then vacuum packed and frozen.
Our recipe is simple:
Never had an issue with spoilage and/or with Morton tender-quick which contains small portions of nitrates and nitrites. I’ve leaned recently that one should not taste sausage samplings before sodium nitrates are fully converted for a minimum of 30 days. conversely, TenderQuick contains small portions of nitrates & nitrites and since we start tasting tiny bits of our chouriço 24 hours after blending the ingredients, I wonder now if our practices of tasting these little bits of sausage are fully safe? I’ve considered replacing the TenderQuick with Cure #1 (sodium Nitrite) at proper amounts which gets converted in less than 24 hours and not worrying about getting poisoned?
Guys and gals, I realize that I’m coming in a bit loaded for my introduction but any educational on this subject from this group will be much appreciated.
Kind regards
Joe
A little bit about me: I’m Joe and live in Rhode Island USA- love family, near shore living and the outdoors, particularly boating/near shore/deep sea fishing. About 15 years ago I was given the opportunity to utilize professional shop equipment to build an offset smoker using primarily recycle metal. Four months later had an overbuilt offset smoker for less than $400. Well, I’ve smoking all kinds of meat cuts, roasted whole pigs and smoking home made Portuguese sausage (chouriço) a couple times a year which we share with family and friends. Our “old school method” consists of hand cutting the meat and fat, blending all ingredients, keeping it refrigerated for four days, mixing it and sample tasting tiny portions once per day before stuffing, subsequently these sausages are hung overnight then smoked for about ten hours, starting at 100F then up to 125F finishing at 150F/until good smoking appearance and internal temp reads approx. 130F( partially cooked), then vacuum packed and frozen.
Our recipe is simple:
- 30 lbs pork butts (trimmed) cubed
- 1 lbs skinned back fat
- Approx. 1/2 gallon of freshly ground mix of chili peppers (to taste)
- 3 small heads of garlic (to taste)
- 2 cups of white wine
- Sweet pepper paste
- 20 tsp Morton TenderQuick salt
- 10 tsp sea salt (to check and adjust)
Never had an issue with spoilage and/or with Morton tender-quick which contains small portions of nitrates and nitrites. I’ve leaned recently that one should not taste sausage samplings before sodium nitrates are fully converted for a minimum of 30 days. conversely, TenderQuick contains small portions of nitrates & nitrites and since we start tasting tiny bits of our chouriço 24 hours after blending the ingredients, I wonder now if our practices of tasting these little bits of sausage are fully safe? I’ve considered replacing the TenderQuick with Cure #1 (sodium Nitrite) at proper amounts which gets converted in less than 24 hours and not worrying about getting poisoned?
Guys and gals, I realize that I’m coming in a bit loaded for my introduction but any educational on this subject from this group will be much appreciated.
Kind regards
Joe
