Homemade Sausage Making

I just cut into this "Salami Calabrese" a Len Poli receipe. I made it back in November so it has been drying for about 2- 1/2 months. It has lost about 50% of it's green weight & the color looks great. The only thing I didn't like is that it is real tangy tasting so I checked the PH and it's low at 4.9 and it's not binding tight & breaks apart when I try cutting it. Any ideas what caused this.

To me it looks as if perhaps
- a bit more fat smearing took place during mixing than what you actually had expected (was the fat frozen?)
- too much fermentable sugar was added
- meat fibre denatured too fast, not enabeling any binding, which could be caused by too fast pH drop

Which starter culture was used?
How much fermentable sugar -and which kind did you add?
What was the temperature during fermentation?
Is there more dry rim than the pictures actually reveal? (...doesn´t seem like it)

Igor, I used Len Poli receipe http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Sal ... abrese.pdf

The fat was semi frozen when ground like always and I used 2-1/2 TBS of glucose for 10-lbs of meat including the fat. I suspect it may have been the cup of sweet vermouth that may be the culprit but i'm not sure. I used T-SPX for the starter culture. The PH did drop fast and never recovered like it ussually does on the slow fermented salamis. This one is kinda sour/tangy tasting probably because of the low PH.

There is no dry rim and I did also notice that it is a bit oily. Fermented @ 68-70 W/ humidity @ 92-95% for 5-days, total 60 lbs of salami. The other 3 batches (different recipes) were great and already have been eaten.

This batch is still kinda soft and shouldn't be after 2-1/2 months.

As all parametres seems right this case does look a bit odd

Especially as Len Poli´s 0,4% glucose (although I would use dextrose) dosage is one that I would use myself...

But I´m in no doubt that this is a case of fermentation running wild.
And it does require quite an (over)dosage of fermentable sugar to make T-SPX produce tangy sourness.

Mabye as you suggest the sweet vermuth toppled the fermentation proces by making the Pedioccocus as drunk as Danes (Here we say, drunk as a Swede )

Jokes apart - it IS possible to make starter culture bacteria go beserk by adding some special potion - that is in fact how the "fast" starter cultures were invented

For alcohol in fermented sausage I´d rather stick to wine which usually have a low rest sugar content.

However, if the vermuth should have a sugar content around 10% them it only makes up for a total of 0,9% sugar together with the glycose.
Not really enough to turn the T-SPX into a acid monster. Some other unknown factors must have joined in

Thanks for your imput Igor. and by the way I did use dextrose. Besides being a little acidy, it should still be safe to eat right??

My best guess is that the sourness adds to the safety because not many harmfull bacteria are likely to survive down there...