Thanks
slavikborisov
, that means a lot! I was worried that I might be annoying folks by not letting the thread die out and posting updates on the thread without a solution. But if you'd like an update, here it is!
First, I studied my mixing approach. Instead of using the rule "stop when meat sticks to your hand when held upside down and pulls apart with 'threads'", I just ran the mixer for 8 mins. So when possible under-extraction was mentioned earlier, I made that worse! When I use the above rule, I stop mixing after like 4 mins, lol. So I was definitely over mixing. Not sure that explains why room temp hangs taste bad though...
Then, I read the Mariansky book to learn more about drying and sausage making. Two key things I've learned is (1)
Good fats vs. Bad Fats, and (2)
Principles of Drying.
The first part helped me to make a solid improvement to my sausages by ensuring that I trim the "bad" soft fat from Brisket, but keep the hard fat (I'll try pork back fat next). In addition, I save 20% of the hard fat in the freezer and manually chop it and add to my mix. Helps give these wonderful flavor chunks to the sausage (coarse grinds also help):
View attachment 693451
In terms of drying, the key thing I learned is about airflow and gradual moisture loss. Moisture loss is a function of air flow, humidity, temperature, and time. Set those parameters incorrectly and you get fat-out or a failure to fully dry the stick (since the exterior has hardened and prevents further moisture loss) or various other problems. In short, you can't dry a beef stick like you dry beef jerky.
So since I have humidity and temperature dialed in on my drying chamber, I set out to tackle the airflow part. Mariansky recommends a schedule of: (1) 0.8 - 1m/s first week, (2) 0.5m/s second week, and (3) 0.1-0.3m/s third week and beyond. I bought an anemometer that claims to measure at that level:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09TS8LF3L and gave it a go.
It enabled me to cringe at my past mistakes (trying to dry w/ a box fan, lol) and also to dial in the airflow in my drying chamber:
View attachment 693452
Since the meter has a bit of trouble reading below 0.3m/s, I put a big fan in there to temporarily get high speeds and calculated % airspeed loss over distance. I then put a high flow filter in front of the fan and noted how it reduces airflow and also helps spread it evenly over an area.
Using the above approach, I put smaller fans in front of the filter and got what I felt was a somewhat consistent 0.5-1m/s on the first part of my rack and 0.1-0.3m/s on the second part. So my process is to start on the first rack (closest to filter) and then move to second after a week.
So I made a new batch (batch #32). In this batch, I broke out three sticks and tried three different methods:
- Wet Dehydrator - Find out what setting on dehydrator gets sticks to 145IT. Set dehydrator at that setting, and wet the sticks every 30 minutes to keep outside dry. Stop after 40% weight loss. I lost the weight. Part of it was drying, part was fat, but the stick was bad. Took about 6hrs to lose 40% weight.
- Hanging Room Temp (~73F, 70%RH, Room Airflow) - Weight (initial) 53.38g -> 43.63g (cook) -> 34.61g (hang). Total loss: 35.1%. Again, this caused the stick to get darker, have off flavors, and generally oily. Despite losing much more weight than #3, this was a bad snack stick.
- Hanging Drying Chamber (~55F, 75% RH, 0.8-1m/s flow) - Weight (initial) 49.24g -> 40.09g (cook) -> 34.06g (hang). Total loss: 29.2%. The stick was less dry, but it still tastes good. It's not what I want (see target in center). I still can't get those wrinkles... maybe after more time.
View attachment 693453
I also tried beer instead of water in that batch... never again. I want to taste beef and not stale beer.
I then created a new batch (
batch #33) to try to test the difference between Fine-T collagen and sheep casings. The theory being that since these are both more permeable than my current collagen casings, then that could lead to better drying in the future.
The Fine-T casings were 2mm wider (at 17mm) sheep casings were much bigger (at 19mm-21mm), so that's a confounding variable there, but the experiment should still be useful.
View attachment 693459
Right now I have these in my drying chamber (75% RH/55F) with one Fine-T sacrificial piece hanging at room temp out of curiosity (I'm not wasting my sheep sticks! Those were hard to make!)
Lastly, I sought to find a way to measure relative Aw of my results. This is based on an FDA approach using
synthetic-hair hygrometers (
https://www.fda.gov/inspections-com...tion-technical-guides/water-activity-aw-foods)
I get the same
volume of beef stick and slice them in half. Add in the hygrometer (you can get these for 3$ on aliexpress) vacuum seal for only like 2 seconds. You want the same amount of air in each bag (this works in my chamber vac, but possibly not a bag sealer). Then you wait ~5hrs. As you can see, my target stick is ~67% and my stick is ~77%. So still a ways to go.
View attachment 693462
The idea being that the Aw denominator cancels itself out if you're using two bags filled with the same amount of the same air. (I tried the same approach with a bag and pure distilled water, but I couldn't get that to work reliably). Still, a useful solution to ballpark relative Aw for only $6.
In sum:
So I'm sort of where I've been for ages! I can make a good snack stick, but I can't make it both dryer and better! I'm hoping that with more time in the drying chamber 55F/75%RH, I'll start to see those wrinkles! But I think probably not... :(
So I'm still trying to figure out:
1. What's going on with room temp hangs? Why does it start tasting/looking bad after 3 days? This is cured and cooked meat!
2. Why can't I get better wrinkles?
Hopefully the dry chamber batches (shown with anemometer) will start looking better in a week or so. Will post if so!
