Sausage Question???

[muzzletim]

My Grandfather introduced me to smoking of fish and sausage when I was a teenager, and I really did not pay much attention to the process, more to eating of the product! I have a number of recipes that he used. Even though they are very simple recipes for venison sausage - and taste ok with my methods- I am trying to think through his process as I remember his as being better. He had a old refrigerator and a charcoal starter, he would shave off chips of alder to smoke with. He dried the sausage in the garage before smoking. I remember he would crack the door of the refrigerator and only plug in the charcoal starter enough to keep the sawdust and shavings going. This was in Minnesota during the winter.

We mixed 60 pounds of venison to 40 pounds of pork. His seasonings were Salt, Pepper, Sage and saltpeter and water. We stuffed it into Hog casings and formed a 1# to 1/2 # sausage ring. I seem to remember Grampa telling me you had to wait for the sausage to turn(color) when smoking, the casings would be a beautiful mahogney red, and the meat a nice reddish color. We had freezers so the sausage would be frozen.

Would this be considered cold smoking or would it have been more of getting the temperature of the meat over 145 degrees. We always cook the sausage to a boil and simmer for a half hour in water before we ate.

In those days we did not have insta cure#1, I realize they thought the saltpeter was the cure, could that affected the flavor that much?

I am 60 now so that was along time ago, wish I would have paid more attention back then.

Thanks in advance for your answers, there is so much knowledge on this forum I am sure you can get me thinking about what the old timers did.

[FLBentRider]

I am not a sausage expert by any means, but I think that saltpeter is what they used before they had cure #1.

I think that saltpeter is Potassium Nitrate. The active ingredient in cure #1 is sodium nitrate.

cure #1 does the same thing, only safer and you can't make gunpowder with it.  8)

check this link I found:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/nchfp/lit_rev/cure_smoke_cure.html

[Mr Walleye]

I am not a sausage expert by any means, but I think that saltpeter is what they used before they had cure #1.

I think that saltpeter is Potassium Nitrate. The active ingredient in cure #1 is sodium nitrate.

cure #1 does the same thing, only safer and you can't make gunpowder with it.  8)

check this link I found:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/nchfp/lit_rev/cure_smoke_cure.html

Just a spelling error FLB. It should read Sodium Nitrite for cure #1.

As I understand it Saltpeter is "pure" sodium nitrate. Sodium nitrate is used in Cure #2 for dry curing. Sodium Nitrite is also used in cure #2. Cure #1 uses only Sodium Nitrite.

Some of the old school methods that I have heard of used Saltpeter as the cure and they applied the amount of smoke they wanted on the sausage, then packaged and froze it. They would always cook it in some fashion before consuming it. I know one older guy here that still does it his way, although he does use cure #1 now. He just smokes for a couple of hours, waits for the color he is looking for, then packages and freezes it.

Not the way I do it but what the heck. He's done it that way forever.

Mike

[Mr Walleye]

Tim

Here is a link to a sausage making forum. A lot of the members are from the UK and there are a number of discussions regarding Saltpetre. I don't know if the use of Saltpetre is more prevalent in the UK or not. Maybe some of the UK members could comment on this. Some interesting reading for sure but for safety sakes I will stick to premixed cures such as #1 & #2.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/

Mike

[muzzletim]

I use all the modern techniques also, just was curious as to the old ways!

[FLBentRider]

I am not a sausage expert by any means, but I think that saltpeter is what they used before they had cure #1.

I think that saltpeter is Potassium Nitrate. The active ingredient in cure #1 is sodium nitrate.

cure #1 does the same thing, only safer and you can't make gunpowder with it.  8)

check this link I found:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/nchfp/lit_rev/cure_smoke_cure.html

Just a spelling error FLB. It should read Sodium Nitrite for cure #1.

As I understand it Saltpeter is "pure" Potassium nitrate. Sodium nitrate is used in Cure #2 for dry curing. Sodium Nitrite is also used in cure #2. Cure #1 uses only Sodium Nitrite.

Some of the old school methods that I have heard of used Saltpeter as the cure and they applied the amount of smoke they wanted on the sausage, then packaged and froze it. They would always cook it in some fashion before consuming it. I know one older guy here that still does it his way, although he does use cure #1 now. He just smokes for a couple of hours, waits for the color he is looking for, then packages and freezes it.

Not the way I do it but what the heck. He's done it that way forever.

Mike

I was close..

But it is potassium, not sodium ?

[Mr Walleye]

FLB

Good question. According to Sausage Maker and Butcher Packer web sites it is sodium.


Mike

[Habanero Smoker]

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate? It's curing properties are not always perdictable or stable, and you don't always get consistant results. That is why in the U.S. it is no longer used, and more stable cures such as sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite has replaced salt peter.

Salt peter should provide the same flavor as if you had used cure #1, because it is the chemical reaction of nitrites that produces that distinct flavor.

[muzzletim]

Thanks Habenero, I suspected it was close to the same in creating flavor.

[classicrockgriller]

great info......thanks