Moscow Sausage no cure on fatback?

[alblancher]

Ok this is a new one on me,

I am looking around at new recipes and found a recipe for Moscow sausage.

The recipe calls for 75% beef and 25% pork fatback.

What I found interesting is that the recipe says to add cure and salt to the beef but salt only to the fatback because fat does not accept Cure 1.

12 grams of cure 1 to 3750 grams of meat   + 1250 grams fat back   works out to 200 ppm cure if fat does not absorb cure

12 grams of cure 1 to 5000 grams   works out to 150 ppm cure for total meat weight.

If the fatback does not absorb cure should we calculate the cure for the meat only?  Looks like they are using too much cure.

Any comments? 

The recipe      Sorry I can't credit it properly.

1.	meat selection	75% beef - 3.75 kg 25% pork fatback - 1.25 kg Meat total:  5 kg	salt black pepper sugar nutmeg water cure #1	90 g 7.5 g 10 g 1 g 240 g 12 g	5 Tbs. 4 tsp 2 tsp ½ tsp 1 cup 2 tsp
ingredients
2.	curing	Cut meat and fat into 5-6 cm (2") pieces, mix with salt and cure #1. Fatback will be salted only as cure #1 (sodium nitrite) reacts with meat myoglobin only. Place in a container, cover with a cloth and leave for 48 hours in a refrigerator.
3.	grinding	Grind beef with 3/8" (10 mm) plate. Cut manually fatback into¼" (6 mm) cubes.
4.	mixing	Mix with meat all ingredients, adding water. Mix until all water is absorbed by the mixture. Then add fat and mix everything together.
5.	stuffing	Stuff into beef middles or fibrous synthetic casings 40-60 mm and form 12" (30cm) long links.
6.	drying(aging)	60 min
7.	smoking	With hot smoke for 110-130 min until casings develop brown color with a red tint.
8.	baking	In the last stage of smoking the sausage is baked at 75-90º C (167-194º F) until internal meat temperature is 68-70º C (154-158º F).
9.	cooling	Shower with cold water for about 5 min, then lower sausage temperature to below 12º C (53º F).
Notes	If curing with European Peklosol, use 100 g of Peklosol and no salt. (Peklosol contains 99.4% salt)

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Calculating for just the meat weight is just asking for trouble, not only will folks be mis-judging the amount of fat or meat, slabs of fat can have streaks of meat running through.
Calculate a safe level of cure for the total weight of the cut(s).
Where is the recipe from?


Edited to add: 2 1/2 tsp of cure #1 (12.5g) is the proper amount for 5kg.

 

[alblancher]

Yea, they correctly calculate the amount of cure for total meat and fat weight to provide 150 ppm for communited meats.  But they say to apply the cure only to the meat, not the added fatback.  

 

[daveomak]

Cut meat and fat into 5-6 cm (2") pieces, mix with salt and cure #1. Fatback will be salted only as cure #1 (sodium nitrite) reacts with meat myoglobin only.

I wonder what they define the word "react".... do they mean, "turns pink or red", and due to fat not having myoglobin there will not be a color change ???? 

I think cure penetrates fat..... otherwise a fat cap would not allow cure to penetrate to the meat.... 

Strange wording and concept.....   Good job on pointing that out Al....

 

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Fat back i recently bought. And yes the FB wont take the cure, thats why they use salt.

All the FB i have seen, even at the butcher has very little or no meat attached. You do have to cut the skin off to use it in sausage.

Down here they make cracklins from the FB.

 

[alblancher]

If I do this recipe I will calculate and use the cure for total meat and fat weight.  I know when doing dry cures for bacon we use 10% less cure for rind on bacon because the rind does not accept cure but we do not try and decide if the bacon is particularly lean or fatty and make adjustments

Goes back to a prior thread when we warned about using old recipes.   You need to understand the process and ask your fellow forum members for their good advice.

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Recommended safe levels of cure are for the total weight of meat and fat.
Who ever wrote that recipe is promoting bad practice.

 

[alblancher]

Nepas the question now becomes when you mix the fatback into the sausage do you add cure for total meat and fat weight or just meat weight.   The recipe calls for 200 ppm (over recommended amts) if not including the fat.

 

[diggingdogfarm]

In the case of salted fatback, I would adjust the salt in the recipe, but calculate the cure for the total weight of meat and fat.

 

[daveomak]

Is there a difference between "fat back" and the "fat" in meat muscle ??  Dave

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Nepas the question now becomes when you mix the fatback into the sausage do you add cure for total meat and fat weight or just meat weight.   The recipe calls for 200 ppm (over recommended amts) if not including the fat.

Yes add the cure as you would normally to the amount of pounds you have. Since the FB has salt on it you may have to adjust the salt content to the recipe. I did try to soak the FB in water for a few days to loose some of the salt but it dont work very good.

The Moscow recipe seems to be missing a few ingredients, looks kinda blah and bland to me.

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Is there a difference between "fat back" and the "fat" in meat muscle ??  Dave

Yes

The FB is more dense. The fat you have on the outer part of a butt is the dense fat, Inner fat is softer with conective tissue and membrane. The membrane (fatty soft) i cut and toss.

 

[alblancher]

Thanks for clearing that up guys, good discussion

The source of the recipe as I remember it is was an organization attempting to preserve old European recipes.  Wish I still had the link, I saved a bunch of the recipes for forgot to save the link.

 

[daveomak]

Al, here is a version of the recipe you posted..... 

http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-recipes/moscow-sausage

 

[alblancher]

Looks like the historical recipe is very light on the nutmeg and a bit light on the black pepper.  I'll probably use the recipe you found Dave, thanks for posting it.