Making salami/summer sausage in natural hog casings

[bundy]

Looks like I will hop on the band wagon and try the hot bath Kirby, I have a Turkey fryer and that sounds like it will work. Was wondering what size casings do you use on the summer sausage and maybe recipe??
Thanks

[Mr Walleye]

Looks like I will hop on the band wagon and try the hot bath Kirby, I have a Turkey fryer and that sounds like it will work. Was wondering what size casings do you use on the summer sausage and maybe recipe??
Thanks

Kirby

I meant to ask you to post your recipe in my last post as well.

I'm always looking for something new and different.

Mike

[Scotty-G]

Okay - I'm inspired too!

Just got a stuffer and am contemplating what my first venture is going to be - brats or summer.
When I do a summer - will definitely try this..

When using the callogen casing, has anyone thought about putting the sausages/chubs into a ziplock type bag before putting into the waterbath?

Thanks
Scotty-G

[pikeman_95]

Mike

Glad things worked out great for you. You want to watch the bath very close and once that you sausage reaches 155, add a little cold water until the bath is also 155 degrees. This way the sausage will not continue on up to 160 and suffer any fat out. After a ten minute hold at 155 drop them in cold water or flush with cold water.

New stuffer design is working well so will post soon. I just am trying to figure which parts I might offer to build and design ways to speed up each parts building time. I have tested the new 6 pound stuffer as for leak test and pressure test and every thing worked fine. I am going to check on my supplier of "O" rings to check on their availability. All of the rest of the parts come off the shelf at your plumbing supply store. The nice thing about the new design is you can build any size you want. Just make the pipe longer or shorter to fit your wish. The two parts that I have had to make would fit any length stuffer so theoretically you could have a 5 # tube and a 15 pound tube and use the same interchangeable parts. 
Kirby

[pikeman_95]

Well guys I am glad that some of the members have had good success with the water bath method. I have shared our recipe with some members and some have tried our recipe and seem to have enjoyed it . We used to always make our sausage in synthetic 3 x 30 inch casings. When we did 500# at a time this was just too much for us to smoke so we found a shop to smoke it for us. This just ran up the cost of our sausage and besides most of the time we ¼ the slices so that they would fit on a Ritz cracker on a party platter. This is why I switched to natural hog casings as I don't find them hard to work with I think they are much easier to smoke and work well with the water bath system and besides they just fit on a Ritz cracker. I figured up the water bath system after reading Ryteck's book and picking up on the fact that larger operations use steam chest to speed up the curing process. This is why I came up with the water bath. It sure worked for me so I shared it with the group. I hate to break tradition of finishing the sausage in the smoker but it seemed like a better idea. If you want a drier sausage finish it in the smoker. I have very little experience with collagen casings and have not tried them in a water bath. One of the members scored some larger hog casing for me and that is my next try to see how they work. I will post the results.

Here is the SS recipe that we have worked up. My sausage making partner and myself bought the basic recipe from a spice manufacturer that went out of business. We have modified it some to our taste. We substituted cracked black pepper for whole peppercorns as neither of us liked the whole peppercorns. We both like lots of mustard seed to chew on so we really kicked that up. We are about middle of the road on garlic so if you like lots of garlic you could add up to a 1/3 cup of minced garlic for a 30# batch of sausage. Do not add garlic salt because the salt is where it needs to be with out adding anything more.
This is the recipe that we have made our large batches with. I would guess we have done more then 2000# over the years. I know that the group that we make sausage with swear buy it.

The recipe makes enough spice blend for 100# of Summer Sausage. You can cut the recipe in half or 1/4 and just use the calculated charge rate expressed in the formula. I work at a chemical plant so I treat everything like a chemical concoction. Sorry! The nice thing about doing it this way you multiply the pounds of meat that you have by 1.087 and this tells you how many ounces of the spice blend to add to your meat.

WILD GAME SUMMER SAUSAGE
BASIC SPICE ADJUSTED TO OUR TASTE
For 100 lbs. Of meat        50 lbs. of well-trimmed wild game meat chunks
50 lbs of trimmed pork shoulder.] [I use Costco Pork butt](Mix pork trim together with wild game chunks and grind with preferably a
3/16" plate or with a 1/4" plate if that is all that is available. I would prefer to use a 3/16th plate if you can get your hands on one.

The following is for 100# of summer sausage.

2.5 lbs. none Iodized salt
2    lbs. Corn syrup solids / or dextrose
5 oz.    Fine ground black pepper
2 oz.    Ground coriander
2.5 oz cracked black pepper
23 oz.  Mustard seed
4 oz.    Garlic powder [add extra minced garlic at the time of actual production if you care for more garlic. 1//3 cup of minced garlic seems about right for a 30 pound batch
.01 oz. ground Thyme .............[7.3/8 tablespoons / oz]
.02 oz    ground Clove .............[4 tablespoons / oz.]

USE 1.087 OZ. OF THIS SPICE BLEND PER POUND OF MEAT THAT YOU HAVE TO MAKE. THIS WILL TELL YOU HOW MANY OUNCES OF THE SPICE BLEND TO USE.

For 100 lbs of meat use 4 0z. Of preg powder # 1 [sodium nitrite] meat cure. This is .04 oz/lb. of meat. (.04 X the number of pounds of meat you are processing.) One ounce of meat cure is = to 5- level tsp  which enough for 25 # of sausage

Just remember one level tsp/5pounds of meat.

DO NOT eliminate or reduce the amount of meat cure that should be in the meat. This is what protects the meat during the smoking process!!! Mix the meat cure in the spices just before adding the spices to the ground meat.

10 tsp liquid smoke [mix with water]
   
Liquid measurements
2 lbs. (32 oz.) of cold water per 100 lbs. Of meat
(.32 oz of water per lb. of meat) Mix this water with the liquid smoke then add it to the meat while mixing in the spices.
10 tsp. Liquid smoke (mix with the water before adding to the meat.) all of this is for 100# of meat.

I have posted a conversion chart that converts 1 ounce of different spices to tablespoons for convince to those that do not have accurate scales.

kirby

[Sailor]

Kirby had shared his SS recipe with me and I did not feel right about posting it or giving it out.  Since he posted it I will post my conversions for a 5lb batch.  I don't have a gram weight scale so I kinda improvised using conversion charts.  I did change the amount of some of the ingredients to suit my taste.  I have made this several times and it is a keeper for sure.  I used the 2 1/2 by 20 inch fibrous casing which I peel off after the sausage is finished.  I added the non-fat dry milk for a binder but his recipe does not call for it.

5lbs of lean hamburger

5 tsp salt
2 Tbls Dextrose
½ tsp White Pepper
1 tsp Ground Coriander
1 Tbls Fresh grind Black Pepper
2 ½ tbs Mustard Seed
2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Thyme
1/4 tsp Ground Clove
1 package of non-fat dry milk
½ cup water

1 tsp cure #1

Kirby, Thank you for sharing your recipe.  My family has really enjoyed it.

[watchdog56]

Correct me if I am wrong but Can I use soy protein concentrate for the package of non fat dry milk and if so how big of package did you use?

[watchdog56]

Also I always thought I needed 1 teaspoon of cure #1 per 5 lbs of meat at least that is what I used in the past. The way I read your post is that it looks like I need 8 teaspoons per pound?

[NePaSmoKer]

Cure #1 amounts

1 level tsp per every 5 lbs of meat

10 pounds = 2 tsp
25 pounds = 5 tsp

Same for cure #2


MTQ

7.5 tsp for 5 pounds
10 pounds = 5 Tbs
25 pounds = 12.5 Tbs


Use some Apple Sauce as a binder too

4.0 oz for 5 pounds of meat
8.0 for 10
20 oz for 25 pounds

[watchdog56]

Thats what I thought. Thanks Nepas

[pikeman_95]

I stand corrected. Some of you old timers are correct. I got out my digital scale and you are correct it is

5 level tsp = 1 oz. which is enough cure for 25 pounds
or 1 level tsp for 5 pounds of meat.

I can only guess during those days that we worked this recipe up we only had a small postage scale. All the other spices were weighed with a accurate digital scale at the spice store but since the good food store wouldn't think of selling chemical meat cure I had to use the postage scale to figure this part out. I have had a good digital oz/gram scale for a long time now so this is how we now weigh our meat cure. I will correct my recipe and would suggest that everyone that copied it some where do the same.

I would guess that would explain how we could leave a stick in the back window of the car all summer and it was still good during our hunting season. [ just kidding]

Kirby

[Habanero Smoker]

Kirby;

I would have said I hit the wrong key while typing.  :)

I like the amount of coriander, I use to have a Coriander Sausage recipe. I've been looking for it for a while. In the meantime I'm definitely going to give this a try.