sausage curing question

[NePaSmoKer]

Then just keep doing it the way you been doing.

Simple

[JZ]

My dad in all his years of making sausages and curing/drying by simple hanging hasn't ever made a batch like I did this year. 

I would take that as a warning sign. Maybe you have been lucky until now and perhaps your luck ran out this year. Why take that kind of risk. Do you have children that eat this stuff?

Some very good advice has been given by a well informed and experienced sausage maker. What you do with it is up to you.

[Habanero Smoker]

I understand your concern, he has been making sausages the same way since the days back in Italy.

I wish you the best and hope you resolve your problem. Back in the old days in Italy, as far as I know, most sausage makers used salt peter (sodium nitrate) at that time. Just one other word of caution. Botulism is a Latin term derived for the Latin word for sausage (botulus). Botulism was referred to as the "Sausage Disease".

[zoso1900]

Ok. Yes we have thought about it, maybe the time has come to introduce some level of salt peter. Yet I still don't understand why my sausages have turned brown? Unless the issue is lack of salt peter?

[Habanero Smoker]

The brown color is what uncured sausage (meat) looks like. Adding salt peter (modern sausage makers use Cure #2 or Prague Powder #2 for fermented/dry cured sausage) the sausage will develop that red color. If your father's sausage was red, the only common ingredient that can develop that red color would be he had to been using some type of cure. It goes by many names, and is formulated differently in different countries.

The following site has a great deal of information on sausage and meat safety.
Making Sausage

Here is some good information on Fermented Sausage (Dry Cured):
Fermented Sausage

More information on cures:
Curing
Towards the bottom, you will see a list of common names different countries call their cures.