Semi Dry Cured Pepperoni

[jcflorida]

It's kind of sad that there has been no new activity on this GREAT site in over 10 days
So I decided to post the pepperoni we made over the last week or so. Nothing spectacular, but at least it lights up the board
Here's the recipe:


We've tried many dry cured and semi dry cured pepperoni recipes along with our own tweaks. We've decided that we can't beat the Butcher-Packer mix with a couple of tweaks. We like tangy pepperoni, so we add significant sugars and a high temperature F-LC ferment, here's the stuffed sausage after ferment:


Then a warmish pecan smoke:


Then 10 days in the mini fridge chamber to about 30% weight loss:


Done:

[jcflorida]

Forgot an important step in the above post. After smoking, the sausage was poached in a sous vide bath at 143ºF for 4 hours.

[Bob K]

Looks good JC ! You could try adding some paprika to the mix to give it more of the reddish-orange look of pepperoni, strictly cosmetic.

[redzed]

Hi jc and thanks for posting the pepperoni recipe and pics. You did a good job, looks good all around, nice bind and fat and meat distribution. That is a lot of sugar! There is a good lesson here with the amount of sugar you used to ferment. 10g/kg will almost always take the pH to 4.6. Your addition of 21g is a good demonstration that 4.6 is as low as you go, because the lactic acid bacteria are intolerant of a high acid environment and stop growing at that point. What you have there is a sausage with a serious tang, tempered with a good amount of back sweetness.

Things have been a bit slow on the forum. I have been working long hours this month and 14hr days ahead for the rest of the month. First time in years that I did not make any sausage for Easter. Did manage to cure and smoke a ham which we will be roasting and having for a family dinner later today.

Happy Easter everyone!

[jcflorida]

Hi redzed,

Hope you had a great Easter yourself . . . and also that work slacks off a bit soon. I vaguely remember those long hour days, but as an old retired guy, I have lots of time to post on forums that I like to learn from.

lactic acid bacteria are intolerant of a high acid environment

Thanks for the info, I didn't realize that the bacteria were intolerant to more acid environments. Next batch, I'll cut the sugars back to 1.0% and see what happens.

Anyway, as I said, we've tried a number of pepperoni recipes that we weren't particularly impressed with. We pretty much arrived at this one some years ago, but could never get the tang we wanted using ECA. Came across the semi dry pepperoni recipe in the Marianskis' book that uses F-LC and 2.0% sugars. Tried it with a little less sugar as I have no idea how much (if any) is in the B&P mix and loved the result. That's where the 1.5% sugars in the posted recipe came from. (Note that the 21g sugars if for a 3.1 pound batch). This is only the third batch I've used the sous vide bath for cooking . . . takes all the guesswork out of getting the desired IT.

(Turns out the Marianskis' recipe is also here: https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... i-semi-dry