Anyone used ECA in Summer Sausage?

[Sailor]

I have 15 pounds of Summer sausage spices all mixed up and chilling in the fridge.  I will be mixing it with the meat later today.  I am thinking of adding ECA to the mix to give it a bit of a twang.  Wondering if anyone has made SS with ECA.  I would hate to make 15 pounds with it and then decide that it was the wrong thing to do.  If I do add it I was thinking of using the proportions that Pen's uses in his spicy sticks.  Any feed back?

[GusRobin]

uhhh -what is ECA? ???

[Sailor]

Encapsulated Citric Acid.  It gives a twang to meat.

[Smokin Soon]

Mixed here, I love the twang, wifey likes it more sweet. I do 5lbs ECA with added heat, and 5lbs regular for her.

[FLBentRider]

Make sure you mix in the ECA by hand after grinding everything, you don't want it to de-encapsulate on you.

[Sailor]

Just finished stuffing 10lb regular SS and 5LB with ECA.  In the fridge for an overnight rest then smoke tomorrow.  This will be the biggest load that I tried in the OBS butt  :o I am sure it will handle it.  Thanks for the response on the ECA.

[goblism]

Just made a 25lb batch last week, put in 3 oz of ECA...too much...good tang but next time I might use 1.5-2oz of ECA

[Sailor]

I used 1 Tablespoon for a 10 5 pound batch and it came out pretty good.

Edit.....I used 1 Tablespoon for 5 pounds.

[smokeNcanuck]

Thanks for the info guys.  The last batch of SS I made I was going to throw in some ECA and forgot.
I think I'll give it a try next time around.  I have always added it to my sticks, but really liked the SS
with out it.  should be interesting.

[lumpy]

I use fermento in my SS instead of ECA

fermento

[pikeman_95]

Sailor
Was this the 15 pounds that you said you made using my recipe. If so how did the addition of the ECA work out. Can you describe the taste and would you do it again. Did you take any pictures. I would like to see the results.

Kirby
PS feeling better heading back to work tomorrow.

[Sailor]

Sailor
Was this the 15 pounds that you said you made using my recipe. If so how did the addition of the ECA work out. Can you describe the taste and would you do it again. Did you take any pictures. I would like to see the results.

Kirby
PS feeling better heading back to work tomorrow.

Used your recipe for the 15 pounds.  I added 1 package of dry milk per 5 pounds for binder.  
The taste was just like the regular batch but had a bit of a twang to it.  Yes, I would do it again.  If you are making up a batch I would recommend that you make your normal amount and then make a chub or 2 with the ECA to see if you like it.  On the 15 pounds that I made 10 were normal recipe and 5 pounds got 1 Tablespoon of ECA.

What I noticed after the smoke is the 2 chubs that had the ECA had shrank a bit.  The casings had lots of wrinkles.  I had 1 regular chub on the same hanger and it was fine.  The other 3 chubs were also fine. I did rotate the hangers 1/2 way thru the process.  I don't know if the ECA caused a moisture loss but I did note that the ECA chubs were just a bit dryer than the regular chubs.  I did not give these a hot bath as I did not have a pot big enough.  So from start to finish they were in the Bradley.  I think smoking them and then into a hot bath to finish would have kept the ECA ones from losing moisture.  I don't know if the ECA reacts to moisture or not.  I just noted a difference in the Fibrous Casing after the smoke.

ECA chub in a vac bag.


ECA chub sliced