My first Saucisson project

[Yohann]

First of all hello everyone and a great thank you to everyone here. I've been reading a lot of things on this forum and spent a lot of time reading meatandsaussage.com you guys are awsome meat geeks!

I've seen people starting threads on there projects and comenting at each stage. I found that very helpfull as a complete beginner to see what went right or wrong and what were the probleme met along the way.

I'm a super beginner, I have only made dried duck breast, classic saussage (Saucisse de Toulouse, my hometown) and recently pancetta.

Making Saucisson is a dream and I'm not expecting to succeed at first try but I usually learn more at failing than suceeding. I bought almost all my ste up exept the meat that I will buy here in Vermont when I'll be ready. I'm aiming for the recipe of Saucisson de l'Ardeche as it's what I miss the most from living in the U.S. Please coment/criticize tell me if you would do diferently it will be very helpfull. I plan on starting the stuffing next week.


My set Up

It's a wine fridge. I chose this because it as two chambers if I ever want to make two deferent batches. (And also because I have some wine to store eventually, and it's easier to reasell...)



I'll add this humidifier outside with a tube going inside to get high humidity. (I know it's very cute)




I will plug the fridge and the humidifier on this humidity and temperature controler




I'll use the exact recipie of the Saucisson d'Arcdeche here. but I still wonder if I should use both T-SPX cuture inside and bactofem-600 mold for the outside? My reflex is yes, but if you guys can tell me.

My plans for temp/humidity is ans the temperature descibe:

Ferment 72hours and 68F at 90% humidity
Dry at 58F at 85% humidity untill 30% weight loss



Alright, I'll post some pictures of the making next week but if you guys spot something is wrong in the idea feel free to tell me. I hope this thread will help other beginners.

Happy curing !

[Bob K]

Welcome Yohann!
Sounds like you are off to a good start.

I'll use the exact recipie of the Saucisson d'Arcdeche here. but I still wonder if I should use both T-SPX cuture inside and bactofem-600 mold for the outside? My reflex is yes, but if you guys can tell me.

Yes The culture will insure that good bacteria are at work and the mold will help to inhibit the growth of unwanted molds along with other flavor and drying benefits.

You should also have a way to check ph to see how the fermentation process is going.

Ferment 72hours and 68F at 90% humidity
Dry at 58F at 85% humidity untill 30% weight loss

70-71f would be a good choice for a margin of error in the temps, ferment until a ph of 5.3 is reached.

Again for safety 53-55 f is a good choice and you can start out at 85% and gradually decrease to 80-82%, the slightly lower humidity will speed up the drying a bit.

Have Fun!

[Yohann]

Just a question on Ph.

How do you mesure it with paper?
Do you cut one saussage and rub the meat on the paper, but you will lose the rest of the saussage... Maybe just do a small hole on one saussage and pressing would release some water?

I'm confused...

[Butterbean]

I save some meat from the stuffing horn and place in a small tuperware container and store this beside the stuffed salami.

[Bob K]

Like Butterbean said, save a sample of your mince, you can then dilute a portion of it with distilled water (make a slurry) and test that. You will need low or narrow range ph paper in the 4.0 to 6.5 range

[Yohann]

Nice! Thank you very much for the help!

[redzed]

Hi Yohann, welcome to the forum. I took a look at the recipe for Saucisson de l'Ardeche that you will be using, and have a couple of suggestions. I have never made this particular saicisson sec but have made numerous other French style dried sausages. To begin with, 10g/kg of garlic is a substantial amount, and unless you want that strong garlic flavour, I would cut back on it. And based on my experience with T-SPX, 3g dextrose and 3g. sucrose is also too much sugar. Try 3g dextrose only or 2g. dextrose and 2 g. sucrose. As Bob pointed out, the best way to determine when to move from the fermentation to drying stage is to test the pH, but if you have no means of doing that, ferment for 48h at 20-22° and humidity as high as you can get. The recipe calls for pork belly (which will make the saucisson smoother and softer), but here you really have to be careful when grinding and stuffing, to avoid fat smearing. And rather than grinding the pork belly a meat separately, semi freeze the pork belly and chill the meat to -2 or a bit lower and then grind together.

Best wishes and I look forward to hearing about your results.

[Yohann]

Alright so here are the results of my first saucisson project.

I have a mixed feeling about the results because it's not great but I learnt so much throughout the process that it definitly worth it. And I can eat my own Saucissons!



THE RECIPE

I respected my original Saucisson d'Ardeche recipe and lowered the garlic by half according to Redzed advice. I built a simple excel sheet to mesure the amout of spices based one the meat weight. HERE . We have great local farms here in vermont and I was so excited to drive in the morning of my day off to get the meat straight from the farm. The result is quite satisfying it's meaty, not too spicy and not too garlicy. I was afraid of the quatity of spices but they are difinitly well integraded. I used classic hog cassings because I didn't want to wait to long with larger casings but next time it's what I'll do since the saussage shrink a lot and is a bit to thin for me.
I would lower just a little bit the fatback proportion. Mine were a bit on the fattier side, but I guess it depends on people preference. Nothing awfull here, just details.



THE SETUP

That is where I learnt the most. I used the equipments list above. The humidifyer was injecting air into the fridge via a hose. I neatly torn a joint so the hose can get inside without having a big gap. Temperature and humidity were pretty acurate with this system. But I never thought about one super important detail: Air circulation ! There was not air circulation and nothing to get the air out. It resulted by a super damp environement. I had cleaned the fridge well before but the plastic odor was as well very strong. And that's the big bummer of my project. The saussage took some smell of this "new plastic smell".

THE PROCESS


After stuffing (including T-SPX culture) I started the fermentation. I respected my temperatures and tryed to mesure the Ph with paper. The problem is I'm color blind... I felt quite dumb but even my wife had a hard time distiguishing the color diferences since the Ph change is not that big. So I followed Redzed advices saying to wait 48H, I waited 3 days total before lowering the temperature to 58F.
I don't know if I did right but I started my bactofem-600 culture at day 2 to be ready morning of day 3. I soaked (in and out) the saussages in the Bactofem and put them back in the fridge. I waited and I was happy after 24 hours some mold started to appear. It was white and it smelled great. But after a week or so it didn't really spread. I sprayed some more after 15days to try to keep it alive but not much happened. You can see on the pictures that there is still a little bit left but everything died. Now I think it's because of the air flow, because penicilium need oxygen and my setupe was not good for this but I still wonder...

In the process I had so fridge issue that I had to fix so sossage have been lying dow horizontaly for a week.

The pictures show a 40% weight loss. I always prefered dried meat dryer and it was the case here. I tryed one at 30%. 35% and 40% and it was by far what I prefered.

WHAT I'LL CHAGE IN THE FUTURE

I don't think I'll keep this fridge for curing. I'll use it as a actual wine fridge... I will try to find a actual fridge and follow what Redzed did with hisHERE. Hopefully the mold problem was because of airflow...

I will use large casing since the classic hog shrink too much.

I still have to conviced my wife to add another fridge in our small apartment. But it should be ok...

The result is: I had a lot of fun, a lot of questions and some answers. I have a mixed feeling because I'm not where I wouyld have liked to be but I've never been so close to make my dream Saucisson.

I'll try to keep you posted on my new fridge hunt. Hopefully it will solve the mold problem...

If you guys have any advice or anything you see I could have done better or I'm missing please shout it out !

Thank you guys for your help with this!



This picture shows a little bit of white mold but almost nothing as I explained....

[Bob K]

The Recipe- There is a typo or miscalculation in many of the newer recipes posted to the Marianski site. The recipes state 5 grams cure#2 per kilo the correct amount is 2.5 grams or .25%. Cure calculator here: http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... calculator

It always pays to calculate your own %'s when it comes to salt and cure

The setup was fine. just opening the door a few times a day will provide enough air exchange. Even though not the optimum set up. Low air flow and high humidity are ideal conditions for mold growth. The problem was elsewhere.

Ideal temp would have been 52-54 F 58 F is on the high side. Maybe the wine fridge is not meant for food and its made from non food grade plastic, thus the odor

I would bring the total of fat + belly down to 20% total and make sure you are using lean pork.
A good size casing to use would be 50-55 middles

Actually the salami looks excellent!!! Nice work!!

Making only a few lbs as you did it's harder to get good fat distribution. you may want to try at least a 5lb batch next time.

[Sleebus]

Welcome Yohann!

Just a thought on your humidifier. Since it is located outside the chamber, blowing in, the chamber needs to have an exhaust hole in it, otherwise it probably won't get a whole lot of flow into the chamber...hard to pump air in when it has no place to go! The best solution is to have the humidifier inside the chamber, but I understand due to space requirements that's not always possible.

I also found with my chamber that the controller is frequently calling for more humidity when the cooling is off. That makes for almost zero circulation of the added moist air. I plugged a powerstrip into the controller output so it will run a circulation fan (small computer fan) when the humidifier is running. This way I don't get any stratification in the chamber. Maybe this contributed to your mold problems?

I save some meat from the stuffing horn and place in a small tuperware container and store this beside the stuffed salami.

Like Butterbean said, save a sample of your mince, you can then dilute a portion of it with distilled water (make a slurry) and test that. You will need low or narrow range ph paper in the 4.0 to 6.5 range

^^^^^ That right there is very helpful. I haven't made any fermented sausages yet, partly because I was unsure of how to test pH. Just wondering, I have a Hanna Instruments pHep 2 pH meter, will that work for sausages? I haven't used it in forever, so I'll need to rehydrate the probe.

10g/kg of garlic is a substantial amount, and unless you want that strong garlic flavour, I would cut back on it.

Mmmmm, well, it's only 1%, and that's in line with what I use in other sausages I've made. I don't think it's too strong, but then I do like garlic quite a bit!

It always pays to calculate your own %'s when it comes to salt and cure

Truer words were never spoken. I have a spreadsheet that I transfer all recipes that I find or develop so I can check percentages. Cure and Salt are almost always the worst offenders.

I think this may be my entry into fermented sausages. When we lived in the UK, we would get saucisson sec at Borough Market that was imported across the channel from France. That plus some Brie de Meaux made for a wonderful lunch. So good! It's really hard to find a good one here. Looks like my only part I'll get hung up on is sourcing the back fat...where/how do you guys get yours?

Nice effort Yohann, looking forward to what you'll do next!

[Bob K]

Looks like my only part I'll get hung up on is sourcing the back fat...where/how do you guys get yours?

If you have small butcher shops (rarer these days) in your area they can probably order it.

Better yet get to know someone that raises pigs...trade for salami

[Sleebus]

Better yet get to know someone that raises pigs...trade for salami

Ahhhhhhh you are a lucky feller there! There is a local butcher not too far from me, will have to ask and see.

[Bob K]

I have a Hanna Instruments pHep 2 pH meter, will that work for sausages? I haven't used it in forever, so I'll need to rehydrate the probe.

It will work but I would definitely calibrate it, or test for accuracy. The electrodes usually only last 1-2 years....if well cared for

[Sleebus]

I have a Hanna Instruments pHep 2 pH meter, will that work for sausages? I haven't used it in forever, so I'll need to rehydrate the probe.

It will work but I would definitely calibrate it, or test for accuracy. The electrodes usually only last 1-2 years....if well cared for

Hrum. Well, this has to be 7+ years old and not well cared for. Well, might as well get some cal solution/storage solution. If it doesn't work for this one, i'll need it for the next one.