Homemade Sausage Making

After my recent Spanish chorizo disaster, I decided to wipe away my tears and get back on the horse. Bob K was nice enough to give me a recipe for dry cured pepperoni, so I thought that might be just the ticket for my comeback!

I decided on a 10 lb batch (4,536g) which would stuff six of my 14" long, 55-60mm cut and tied beef middle casings.

So I used 7.5 lbs of pork butt (I figured it had about 15% fat content) and 2.5 lb beef eye of round. Pork but was on sale for $0.99/lb and the eye of round was the same price as top round at $5.79/lb.

Ground the meat thru my smallest plate, 3/16" plate I think, ground all spices, and added the salt, cure #2, and spices to the meat, along with my B-LC-007 culture (1.0g) that had bloomed for 30 mins in 60ml of water (30ml for each 5lb of meat)

Stuffed into six cut and tied beef middles that were soaked cleaned and then soaked in water with quartered/squeezed oranges for an hour.

Since I don't have a purpose built fermenting chamber, and my cooler is too small to hang the salumi in, I decided to hang them in my oven. Oven is electric, no pilot light, so I left the oven light on to generate some heat. Also added a tub of sea salted water and my temp/humidity gauge. An hour into fermentation I am at 19.9C @ 76% RH.
If temp and humidity are not up to 22C @ 85% in the next couple of hours I will add some hot water to the sea salt water tub. May have to use an aquarium bubbler stone and pump in my tub of water to get the humidity up to 85%+....not sure yet.

My goal is to ferment at 22C @ 85% RH for 36-48 hours. Should this suffice?

I did save some meat mixture in a ramekin and put it in the oven to ferment as well.

I took 4g of this meat mixture and added 8g of distilled water (1:2 ratio meat to water), mixed with a spoon into a kind of slurry, and tested it with my PH strips. My strips are 4.5-8.5 range, and the color was just a tiny bit lighter than 6.0 color, but darker than the 5.5 color. So I figure I am starting around 5.8 PH. I will check PH again in 24 hours and see if I can see a color change in the strips. Hopefully PH will be around 5.0 or less by the 36 hour mark.

Anyone know if the -007 culture needs to ferment for 36 hours? or 48 hours? Or just until PH comes down to 5.3 or lower? Not sure how long to ferement these...

Thank again Bob K for the recipe!

As long as the oven remains closed the humidity should spike to 90+ overnight as moisture is drawn out by the salt. I don't add any water to my fermentation chamber, just close the vents.

Hard to tell on the fermentation time but 36-48 hrs should do. I would try to get the Ph down to 5.0 or even a bit lower if unsure testing with the Ph papers.

Pepperoni


Pork 60%
Beef 25%
Back fat 15%

Per 1000 gram (1 kilo)

Salt 25 grams
Cure #2 2.5 gr
Dextrose 4 gr
Sugar 3 gr
Black Pepper 3 gr
White Pepper 1 gr
Hungarian Paprika 8 gr
Fennel 3 gr
Anise 2 gr
55k Cayenne 2 gr

Tspx or Culture of choice
55-60mm Beef middles
Note: All spices are Ground

Use the directions on the Marianski site http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... peroni-dry

At 1g 007, keep an eye on it. At 73 degrees and 90% humidity, I was at 5.0-5.1 at 26 hours. It went alot faster than I thought

Thanks Lou.

1g is what the SafePro B-LC-007 0.022% formula calls for on my meat weight.

4,536g meat x 0.00022=0.998g so I rounded up to 1.0g

I will check the PH tomorrow evening at the 24 hour mark.

What I am worried about is the accuracy of my PH strips...strips are not ideal for making salumi. I really need an accurate PH meter. Maybe next month!

Thx
Jason

Thx Bob. My oven doesn't have any moveable vents...I just closed the oven door, that's all I can really do.

Sorry, I misunderstood. We already had a recent conversation about this. So you used approximately .22g per kilo. That is the correct dosage for higher volumes of meat. After all the discussions, I used 1g per kilo, so your fermentation will be closer to the 36-72 hour probably. After I did mine at 1g per kilo was everybody corrected the mistake. By that time, i was already in casings. Redzed told me no issue, but to keep a careful eye on it because fermentation would be very fast, which was why mine went bonkers at 26 hours

Hey Lou, no problem!

I got lucky because when I bought my culture from Craft Butcher Pantry,
Evan told me the formula multiplier to use (total meat weight x 0.00022)

So wrote it in my log book so I didn't forget!

Thx!

I bought a milwaukee with the better meat probe. Even those are quirky. If you have ANY oxygen around the surrounding meat when you probe it, you will get a higher than normal reading. Just a heads up.

I called Milwaukee and they confirmed the bulb has to be completely encased in meat

Lou -
You also used .6% dextrose. Dextrose is the fastest acting sugar for lowering Ph.

Jason-
Without adding the backfat you will have more of a traditional, lean sausage. It is actually quite good that way. Having made it both ways, with and without the added fat, the consensus was in favor of the fat added variety

The heat from the pepper and Cayenne and the hint of licorice flavor and aroma from the anise are the star of the show

Bob,

Yeah, I know, but my local butcher was closed on Saturday for a wedding, and they are closed on Sunday, and I just couldn't wait. I had to try to make something!

Mine actually looks like a good mix of 85/15 fat to meat, just at a glance.

My pork had some nice hard fat on the cap, so that may have contributed to the overall look after grinding.

Probably will be easier to judge the fat content once I cut one open in 4-6 weeks!

I checked the PH an hour ago, and it seems to still be the same green color shown on the 5.8 range. But that's impossible as I can smell fermenting, and I know the B-LC-007 is working.

So I think my strips are too old to be of any use...they are from the local scientific shop and look to be circa 1995!

If I don't get any PH color change on these old strips, should I femention for a total of 36 hours? Or 48 hours? I am at 26 hours right now, and have been at the ideal temp and humidity (23-24C @ 85-89% RH) for a good solid 20 hours now!

I have never used 007 but based on Lou's and Redzeds experience 36 hrs should be a safe bet.

I just went ahead and used my ninja style blender to blend the meat and distilled water into a smooth paste. Dipped my strip into the paste and it showed 5.0 on the color scale.

So I guess it is working. I think the hand mixing of the meat and water didn't emulsify it enough.

So I think I will check them tomorrow morning after 36 hours and see if it looks closer to the 4.5 color. Then I can hopefully assume they are around 4.8 PH, or at least under 5.0 to be safe.

I dont really want to ferment any longer than needed....I prefer to get to 4.8 or so and then into the lower temp drying chamber asap!

I think the first time I used 007and checked it after 20 hours there was only a slight drop but then it dropped fast and at 36hrs it was at 4.85. But if you can't take a proper pH reading, it won't hurt to leave it to 48hrs. Remember that you have more than the lactic bacteria in there which acidify the meat. You also have two strains of micrococci that act slower, break down the nitrite and develop colour, texture and flavour. And the activity will slow down only when the sugar is depleted.

Ok, thanks Red.

I put them into ferment at 5pm on Sunday.

So a full 48 hours would be 5pm on Tuesday (tomorrow).

I will check the PH again tomorrow morning, and then probably leave them fermenting until tomorrow night around 5pm. That would be a full 48 hrs and should be sufficient based on the average 23-24C @ 85% conditions.

I sprayed them with M600 this afternoon, so they should be ready to go by tomorrow evening.

Thx