dry cure sausage questions...

[daveomak]

Why? I do not follow your reasoning for this.

The way I see it; water is water and whether it is added or from the meat cells, it will have to be evaporated out of the meat to reach your target weight loss. If you add a 1/2 cup extra water, than an extra 1/2 cup of water need to be evaporated, not left in the meat paste.....otherwise, if your target is 30% weight loss from water evaporation, doing it the way you describe, you'll end up with less than a 30% weigh loss because that extra 1/2 cup of water is still in the meat.
Or am I looking at this wrong?????

I guess the question is:
Are you looking for a 30% weight loss of the finished salami or a 30% weight loss of the meat used to make the link? There would be a difference as to how it is calculated. I do not know being relatively new to dry curing salamis.

Let me example....
You have 10# sausage.... You add 1# of water to it.... You are looking for a 30% weight loss in the stick....
You weigh the stick after X days and it weighs 7.7#'s.... That's a 30% weight loss from the 11# stick...
That's not what you want...
You want a stick that weighs 7#'s... a 30% weight loss from the original meat weight...
You are looking for an Aw, (water activity in the meat)... If you add water to the meat, you messed with nature.....

 

[indaswamp]

Gotcha Dave. We are now on the same page....thanks for the explanation.

 

[dernektambura]

I gotta admit I am a bit lost here with this bacteria culture business...Everything I know about smoking and meat preservation I learned from my old timer grandpa... Now, he was simple man who didn't care much about technological progress and he was a champion when it comes down to meat smoking and preservation.... I don't remember he ever used anything else except salt and salt peter back in old days....cure #1 & #2 nova days are substitute for salt peter... he would add sugar but sugar was only to preserve meat natural color.. No one ever got sick even thou he never used bacterial cultures.... I guess it's good thing but I am lost. . lol..

 

[indaswamp]

I gotta admit I am a bit lost here with this bacteria culture business...Everything I know about smoking and meat preservation I learned from my old timer grandpa... Now, he was simple man who didn't care much about technological progress and he was a champion when it comes down to meat smoking and preservation.... I don't remember he ever used anything else except salt and salt peter back in old days....cure #1 & #2 nova days are substitute for salt peter... he would add sugar but sugar was only to preserve meat natural color.. No one ever got sick even thou he never used bacterial cultures.... I guess it's good thing but I am lost. . lol..

Some environments naturally have a great balance of natural cultures. Adding culture ensures the good bacteria get a strong foot hold and multiply fast, lowering the risk of bad pathogens getting the upper hand.

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Some of mine are going on 5 years, always frozen and still work as normal. As usual the Gov best by date is a bunch of BS on these type of items.

So its your call on how long you keep your bacto.

 

[Cajuneric]

Starter cultures are the area where most people get hung up. Depending on what culture you use and what type of salami you are making you will ferment at different temperatures. When the fermentation has happened you will visibly see a change in the texture, smell, and color of the meat. If after fermentation you salami still feels like squishy ground mince then something went wrong. I made a quick video talking about a few of the most popular starter cultures in case you want some technical and sciency info on them... But to take a stab at your initial question anything under 5.3 is good to go for salami. Testing the pH is the way to go for solid peace of mind!!