Homemade Sausage Making

Hi Everyone,

First post on this forum, but I've read many other posts and I'm impressed by the collective knowledge. I'm also part of the Sausage Debauchery group on Facebook.

I'll get to my point.

I started my second and third charcuterie projects this past weekend (the first was beef bresaola, which turned out fantastic). Both new projects use venison.

Project #1 - Venison bresaola
Project #2 - Venison dry sausage

I have a few questions. But first some details on the project.

1. I have minced very cold/semi-frozen venison thigh meat (75%) and frozen pork back fat (25%) with a KitchenAid Artisan. These were mixed (with paddle attachment) with spices and curing salt 2, wine, and kosher salt. Set in fridge to cool, then stuffed into hog casings. It is a 5lb recipe.

2. I did not add a starter culture to the venison mix prior to stuffing. I also didn't leave the stuffed sausages at room temperature before putting them in the curing fridge. They went straight in after being stuffed. Given that I live in Japan, also impossible to get Bactoferm products for mold.

3. I use a wine fridge for curing. It is set at 15 degrees Celsius and I use Auber instruments to control a dehumidifier inside the chamber. This results in a curing chamber that swings between 60-80% humidity over a period of about 5 minutes. Nothing that I can do about the swinging as it is a compressor-style wine fridge and when the compressor comes on to cool...the humidity goes out in a big way. Without the dehumidifier though, the humidity would ride close to 90-95%.


QUESTIONS

My questions relate to my second project and specifically about fermentation and molds applied to the exterior of the sausage.

1. When it comes to Bactoferm mold (600), i.e. penicillin, does this only get sprayed on pork meat products or can it also be sprayed on venison sausages for example, or sprayed other whole muscles, like the outside of a coppa or the outside of a bresaola?

2. I know that fermentation is HIGHLY recommended in this group and other hobby groups. And I understand the reasons why. And I'll do it next time (I promise). But I'd like to know if anyone here has any experience drying venison sausages simply using kosher salt, wine, and cure#2 in a recipe and what their experience has been. In other words, am I on course to poisoning myself



Disclosure. I read the thread here and found it super helpful:

http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... b9b20117aa

landofrice wrote: 2. I know that fermentation is HIGHLY recommended in this group and other hobby groups. And I understand the reasons why. And I'll do it next time (I promise). But I'd like to know if anyone here has any experience drying venison sausages simply using kosher salt, wine, and cure#2 in a recipe and what their experience has been. In other words, am I on course to poisoning myself



Disclosure. I read the thread here and found it super helpful:

http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... b9b20117aa

Mine was pretty similar. I used pork but i put cheap brandy, curing salt# 2 and no starter culture and no fermentation in a warm place. Just straight to the fridge. It turned out great. The sausages fermented because when i tried it, it had a nice sour flavor. Then again i put a lot of sugar (5 tbsp) in the sausages which helped in fermentation (wild bacteria eats the sugar then produce acid). Yours does not have sugar. I personally would eat that sausage raw but for you, cook it.

You can ferment sausages just by hanging it inside your house. Its pretty hot here, 26-30 c so i ferment the sausages in my kitchen for over 10 hours not the usual 24-48 hours. Sometimes i air dry sausages for an hour or two then ferment inside a pot for over 8 hours. Fermenting it outside for a long time tends to dry the sausages too fast.

Uxbal:

Thank you so much for the additional advice. Brandy! I'll need to try that one day. Curious as to what that might taste like...

I didn't end up putting sugar and come to think of it, that is a bit odd, as every other recipe calls for at least a little sugar or dextrose to feed the bacteria.

For your information, the recipe I used can be found here:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/ ... on-recipes

landofrice wrote:Uxbal:

Thank you so much for the additional advice. Brandy! I'll need to try that one day. Curious as to what that might taste like...

I didn't end up putting sugar and come to think of it, that is a bit odd, as every other recipe calls for at least a little sugar or dextrose to feed the bacteria.

For your information, the recipe I used can be found here:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/ ... on-recipes

I just make up my own recipes. I just make sure salt content is atleast 3% or near it. I also added soy sauce to those sausages btw. My goal was to make a sweet dried sausage which the chinese makes that is why i used 5 tbps sugar for 1.2 kg pork but it ended up fermenting even in fridge temp (10-15c). Since you are in Japan, adding miso would be nice even sake

landofrice wrote:I didn't end up putting sugar and come to think of it, that is a bit odd, as every other recipe calls for at least a little sugar or dextrose to feed the bacteria.

You are adding your sugar via the wine. Not sure what wine you used but here is some general info.

Bone dry wines have <1 gr/liter of sugar
Dry 1-10 g/liter of sugar
Off Dry 10-35 g/liter
Sweet 35-120 g/liter
Very Sweet 120-220 g/liter

To approximate how much sugar you added with this half cup you could divide the sugar content of the type wine you used by 8 and that should give you the grams of sugar you used per the 1/2 cup in the recipe.

So if you used a semisweet/off dry you used 35/8 = 4.75 gr to 4 lbs or 2.4 g per kilogram of mince which I think puts you at a little better than a 0.2% rate of sugar that is a pretty common amount.

(Please check my math, it may be off, am in a hurry but you get the drift)

There was an old Italian lady who always poured wine in her soppressata and when she was asked why she did this her reply was simply and bluntly, "For the bugs....for the bugs".

Hope this was helpful.

oh i forgot wine does contain sugar in the form of fructose. Some wines they add plain sugar. Meat also contain trace sugars.

I'm always amazed at how the old meat curers came up with the processes they did. Like this lady, she probably couldn't explain why she added the wine other than "for the bugs". Maybe its just me. Maybe I'm just easily amazed, but when I see old recipes validated by science I am just amazed at how they came up with this craft, this art of curing meat.

landofrice wrote:Hi Everyone,

First post on this forum, but I've read many other posts and I'm impressed by the collective knowledge. I'm also part of the Sausage Debauchery group on Facebook.

I'll get to my point.

I started my second and third charcuterie projects this past weekend (the first was beef bresaola, which turned out fantastic). Both new projects use venison.

Project #1 - Venison bresaola
Project #2 - Venison dry sausage

I have a few questions. But first some details on the project.

1. I have minced very cold/semi-frozen venison thigh meat (75%) and frozen pork back fat (25%) with a KitchenAid Artisan. These were mixed (with paddle attachment) with spices and curing salt 2, wine, and kosher salt. Set in fridge to cool, then stuffed into hog casings. It is a 5lb recipe.

2. I did not add a starter culture to the venison mix prior to stuffing. I also didn't leave the stuffed sausages at room temperature before putting them in the curing fridge. They went straight in after being stuffed. Given that I live in Japan, also impossible to get Bactoferm products for mold.

3. I use a wine fridge for curing. It is set at 15 degrees Celsius and I use Auber instruments to control a dehumidifier inside the chamber. This results in a curing chamber that swings between 60-80% humidity over a period of about 5 minutes. Nothing that I can do about the swinging as it is a compressor-style wine fridge and when the compressor comes on to cool...the humidity goes out in a big way. Without the dehumidifier though, the humidity would ride close to 90-95%.


QUESTIONS

My questions relate to my second project and specifically about fermentation and molds applied to the exterior of the sausage.

1. When it comes to Bactoferm mold (600), i.e. penicillin, does this only get sprayed on pork meat products or can it also be sprayed on venison sausages for example, or sprayed other whole muscles, like the outside of a coppa or the outside of a bresaola?

2. I know that fermentation is HIGHLY recommended in this group and other hobby groups. And I understand the reasons why. And I'll do it next time (I promise). But I'd like to know if anyone here has any experience drying venison sausages simply using kosher salt, wine, and cure#2 in a recipe and what their experience has been. In other words, am I on course to poisoning myself



Disclosure. I read the thread here and found it super helpful:

http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... b9b20117aa

Welcome to the forum. Bactoferm 600 (penicillium nalgiovense) may occur naturally or it may be sprayed on at any time that the meat is curing. It's found on both whole muscle cuts and sausages. Mould helps in drying the meat slower, adds flavour and P. nalgiovense keeps the unwanted moulds off your products. Once it is establishe in your chamber you usually don't need to inoculate your sausages. If you can't source Bactoferm 600, harvest some off salami skins. Take a look here: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?t=7194

As to your sausage, only time will tell. Without a starter culture or acid to lower the pH, it's a hit or miss. If your sausage is in a thinner casing and the meat was low in water content, you might be OK. The French make their saucisson sec like that all the time. And it is a good thing that you did not hang it at room temp. What would have been better was to have prepared the meat with the salt, #2 and 1% sugar and left it in the fridge for about three days before adding the other spices and stuffing. That way you would have have had protection with the salt and nitrites and given some of the native bacteria to grow. I know that it is quite cold but some strains can grow at temps as low as 4C. If you can't access starter cultures you might want to look at using GDL. It is cheap and effective at lowering the pH but will not have the flavour that a properly applied culture will give.

Butterbean wrote:I'm always amazed at how the old meat curers came up with the processes they did. Like this lady, she probably couldn't explain why she added the wine other than "for the bugs". Maybe its just me. Maybe I'm just easily amazed, but when I see old recipes validated by science I am just amazed at how they came up with this craft, this art of curing meat.

Just like my grandmother used to put naturally fermented palm wine in her rice cake batter. She does not know the science behind it but she used it to make rice cakes. The fermented palm wine is alive with yeast and other microbes and makes the batter bubbly or make it rise.

And one more thing David. I know that the recipe suggests drying at 60F, but I would lower that to 10-12C, drying will be slower but more even and possibly safer. One of our members, Brican, cures successfully without starters and dries at only 4C, RH of 70%. I have never tried an all venison salami, so I'm waiting to see how yours turns out.