Homemade Sausage Making

Assuming that a recipe has been followed correctly what would make a salame taste cheesy?

Does the recipe have milk powder in it?

Salami and cheese are in many ways related. They are both products of lactic bacteria. Both need to mature to a certain point and some types of salami and cheeses wear a coat of mould. IMHO a salami will have a "cheesy flavour" imparted by natural or commercial bacteria and moulds.

No milk powder just black pepper, chilli flakes, dextrose and F-LC starter. Could it be that the meat didn't bind enough? or smearing occurred that might have caused it?

Ped, possible reasons for "off" or cheesy flavor might include any of the following:

1. Microbial contaminants either growing during fermentation or post-packaging.
2. Use of spoiled raw materials (meat).
3. Poor sanitation post-processing.
4. Chemical contaminant.

Think back and ponder any of these reasons. If the product has "sour" flavor of any type, it could be:

1. Insufficient heat treatment to destroy microorganisms (cooking process) .
2. Residual carbohydrates in excess that permits secondary fermentation.
3. Excessive moisture and residual carbohydrates in non-cooked product.
4. Insufficient drying.
5. Temperature abuse post-packaging.

Do you recognize any of these? If not, would you provide a little more information about your product?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Think I may have found the problem! You know that there is always a bit of meat left in the sausage maker at the end, well what I usually do is roll into a sausage shape using cling film/ ceran wrap, trying to compact as much as poss, then I wrap in muslin and hang along with the correctly (chitterling/hog middle in this case) cased salume. I initially opened the muslin covered one to test and this is the one which is cheesy flavoured, today I have opened a chitterling cased one and it is good ,I assume therefore that because the meat was looser than should be, fermentation or something? was the cause?
What do you think.

Sounds like you are a pretty good detective Ped! Glad you located the problem.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon