Homemade Sausage Making

Hello friends,

My question is this, and I apologize if this has been answered, run into the ground etc.....

Fermento. I understand its a dairy based product that helps with the lactic acid process.

My wife purchased some cultured buttermilk (dry) product. Is it the same thing? Will it produce the latic acid or do I need true Fermento?

Does anyone know the ingredients in fermento that you can purchase and make your own? I see it all over the place, amazon, sausage maker etc....but it is kind of expensive. I'm doing this as a hobby, however, I'm also doing it to try and save money.

So far I've ground my own hamburger, sausage, etc and its definately assisting with the ol' food budget...

So, fire away if you will....like I said, so sorry if this topic has been run in the ground.

I have both. Just did a taste test and fermento has a distinctively stronger acidic bite than the powdered buttermilk but I think for all practical purposes you can get by with it.

Fermento is cheese whey mixed with non fat dry milk so it has the acidity of the cheese but cheese making and buttermilk making are essentially the same process only with similar differences.

You got me wondering more though so I took a equal parts of each and added to equal parts of water and tested the pH. Surprisingly the buttermilk is more acid than the fermento even though it doesn't taste so.

Bottom is buttermilk top is fermento.



What does this mean? IMO, I don't see why the buttermilk wouldn't work but someone else may know better.

Thank you very much! Going to try snack sticks next weekend. Will post the results!