Amount of F-RM-52 for Recipes??

[buht-smkr]

After looking everything over, I am not sure if it is the heaters that caused this problem or not. I will take some pictures of the layout tonight, but this is even showing up on the items in the furthest part of the cabinet away from the heaters. The fans are blowing air down and they are located aproximately 12-15" away(lateral), so they are not blowing directly onto the product. Humidifier/dehumidifier are directly below the fans. Fans have been on about 50%, which equates to about 30cfm in a 20cu ft fridge. I turned off the fans and the humidifier this morning in an attempt to see if anything changes.

I do know for future mods I am going to be changing the heater layout so that they act more in convection, basically using a fan to distribute heat only when the heaters are on and placing baffles within the cabinet to help control the air flow (no direct airflow over the sausage). I am also thinking about adding more heaters and tapering down the temp output, less intense heat but more overall output.

[Habanero Smoker]

Sorry so far I have not found anything on this problem. Pictures will help.

I have a 16.7 cubic foot refrigerator. I'm looking for a smaller convection heater with a fan. The 900/1500 watt heater was the lowest BTU I could find. It works fairly well. Once the cabinet gets up to the set temperature it stays there for a while, so the heater doesn't cycle on/off too frequently during an 8 - 12 hour incubation period, and the Ranco does a good job maintaining the right temperature. When I first turn the heater on I just need to set the Ranco 10° lower then what I want the actual cabinet temperature to be. After the initial warm up period, I then adjust the Ranco to shut off 5°, prior to reaching the set temperature. That is to compensate for the residual heat that is given off from the heater once it is shut off.

I like your idea. I've been thinking of purchasing a portable DC car heater, and experiment with that to see it that will provide enough heat.

[buht-smkr]

Well, Here are the pictures, Don't have much time right now but I think you can get the idea. i placed the dehumidifier on top of the humidifier two days ago to try and get it further away from the sausage. Also, it is hard to see in the picture but on the left portion of the sausage you can see is dried out while the right hand side is still moist. I left off the dehumidifier yesterday along with the fans. When I got home humidity was in the 90's. Seemed to help a bit on the less severe ones, though I would say about 70% show some slight signs of dryness, and the other 30% have noticeable dryness. Also, noticed a little white fuzzy mold starting to form, washed it off with some red wine (something I used to watch my grandfather do with his coppa).

After doing a bit of thinking and reading and looking over my layout yesterday, I made some observations and I came up with a hypothesis. First, the humidifier has a built in humidistat, while testing it would bring up the humidity well beyond 90%. This was from a dry condition to a humidified condition. Well, i tried it again yesterday and it was kicking off at around 80% (value registered at my humidistat), which is not horribly low but this compounded with another fact. One thing that I was unaware of and was counter to my belief is that humid air is less dense than dry air. All of my measurement devices are located in the upper region. This would explain why the bottoms seemed much more dry than the tops. So in reality the value at the humidifier is probably in the 70's. My hypothesis is that, the heat from the heater, coupled with humidity lower than 80% created a drying effect on the face of the sausages. I believe Marianksi (if i remember correctly) states that you want to have humidity in the 90's!!

The modifications that I am going to be making are as follows:

-Override built in humidistat in humidifier to allow higher than 70's%
-Create a baffle system with fans to allow heating without any direct exposure.
-Locate humidistat sensor in the lower portion of the cabinet


We'll see if any of this stuff turns out, since the damage is pretty much done, I am keeping my fingers crossed for maybe a 50% turn out. Not what I really wanted for my first run but nonetheless, it has been a learning experience.

[Habanero Smoker]

Thanks for the pictures and update. I'm going to have to look at them later. I not sure if it is the forum, or my ISP; but this particular site is extremely slow this afternoon, so I believe the site is giving me problems.

I'm logging off but will take a look at your information and pictures tomorrow.

[Habanero Smoker]

I'm going to copy your reply and give you a better response later. This site is still agonizingly slow. I believe I can see the drying effect on the sausage in your first photo. I'll place the picture in one of my graphic programs and study it further.

For your first run, you took on an ambitious project. The cabinet is so small that I am surprised there is a significant variance from top to bottom in such a small space; especially with the use of fans. It there is a variance, then the warmer air will be at the top. Warmer air does hold more moisture, so the humidity will be higher towards the ceiling. Marianksi does recommend the higher humidity, but that is when I have the greatest problem with mold; I have better control using 60% - 65% with no problems of the casings hardening prematurely. Many other sources will state 55% - 60% RH. By the way using red wine to wash is a good/unique idea.

[buht-smkr]

Well, hindsight being what it is. I should have run a test run using 1 or 2#'s of ground beef and sheep casings, cycle through the hole process to make sure there is no missteps or problems. i can't remember where i read it but somewhere it said that if you cannot tolerate things not turning out this is the wrong thing to be doing. As much as I am disappointed, it has been a learning experience. As for the sausage that I have in there now, i think I may be able to get something to at least try. As far as I am aware of, there are no health or safety concerns with trying any of this sausage. The nitrates should have me covered correct? obviously if it doesn't taste good, I am not going to force feed myself but at the same time, if I take a bite and it taste OK I should not be at risk of anything. Is this correct?

[Habanero Smoker]

Twenty pounds for the first time is quite a bit to take on, but I don't think that 1 or 2 pounds of ground meat in sheep's casings would have caught this problem. My first batch I made 10 pounds of sausage, and I was ready to throw out, but I held out long enough and all my sausages survived.

I studied the pictures, and I have never had the problem of partial drying. If the humidity is too low, my casing harden evenly. I'm not sure if you are using a separate humidistat to control the humidity. I have a Line Voltage Humidistat to control my humidifier or dehumidifier and place it about center height along the wall opposite of the humidifier or dehumidifier. You can't depend on the built in humidistat for either device on accuracy. I also found that I didn't need to turn on my humidifier, since the moisture for the sausage alone would keep my cabinet in the 90's, in turn was creating a mold problem. When hanging you sausage, get a box of large plastic coated paper clips and fasten them into hooks. That way you can hang each sausage individually, which makes it easier to take them out to wash, or to move around for better drying. The uncoated paper clips will rust.

I don't believe your problem is being caused by low humidity. If by chance the radiant heat cooked the front part of the sausage, then the protein structure has been altered and it is not going to rehydrate. If you are going to stay with the radiant heat, then a baffle system should work. Or the problem could be cause by the way the refrigerator flow cold air throw the cabinet, and the air movement is drying the sausages on the front side.

I can't give you a definite answer if the sausage in it's current state is safe to eat. Do you have any idea of how much weight the sausages have lost? If you have a 30% weight lost in you sausages, then they are fully cured. I like to go to 35% - 40%, because I like a firmer sausage. You can not always go by taste, if there is any spoilage the meat will begin to turn greenish; usually from the center out. If there are any signs of spoilage, that whole sausage needs to be thrown away.

As far as being safe to eat depends on several factors, pH level, water activity level, how long they have been curing. Nitrite and nitrates will protect you from most harmful bacteria for a period of time. It is the low pH level and low level of active water that provides long term protection. If there is no spoilage, and I don't believe there would be any for the time you had been dry curing, and they haven't fully cured, then they won't have too long of a self life with or without refrigeration, and they must be kept refrigerated or frozen until ready to use.

I won't be logging back on until Sunday morning or evening. This evening I will do some research on the safety question you have asked.

[Habanero Smoker]

I haven't found any information about safety concerns on tasting the sausage before it is fully dried (30% Weight loss). All the safety concerns have to do with, before, during and after dry curing. If there are no signs of meat spoilage, and the pH level is low then it should be safe to taste.