Smoked Salami

[dubob]

I've had this recipe for more years than I can remember.  It came to me originally as a venison salami recipe and it produced some great eats way back when.  My first smoker was a Little Chief and I used to smoke the rolls there for a couple of hours and then finish them in the oven due to no control on the temperature with the Little Chief.  With the Bradley, I can do the whole process in it.  Here's the recipe.

5 lbs ground meat
4 ½ t mustard seed
2 t liquid smoke
1 – 2 t crushed red peppers
3 t garlic salt
4 ½ t course ground pepper
5 t Morton Tender Quick

Mix all ingredients together.  Let stand in the refrigerator for 3 days.  Mix thoroughly once a day.  After 3 days, make into rolls and place on a rack with a cookie sheet below to catch the drippings.  Bake for 8 hours at 150 degrees.

I've made this with ground antelope, ground venison, and ground beef.  It has always turned out great.  I'm going to try it this week using ground turkey breast meat and I'm going to leave out the liquid smoke.  I will do the whole process in the Bradley and smoke the first 3 hours with hickory.  I'll try to document the process on film and give a report when completed.  I hope you enjoy this treat as much as I do.

[dubob]

After some further research, I found the following on this website: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/is_it_done_yet/brochure_text/index.asp#5

USDA Recommended Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures

• Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming. For reasons of personal preference, consumers may choose to cook meat to higher temperatures.


• Cook all raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal to an internal temperature of 160 °F as measured with a food thermometer.


• Cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F as measured with a food thermometer.

I've decided in the interest of my own and others safety that I'm going to modify the cooking process to meet those recommendations.  I'll smoke at 150 degrees for 3 hours using hickory and then continue to bake at 150 degrees for another 5 hours.  This would meet the 8 hours specified in the original recipe.  Then I'm going to bump the temp up to 175 degrees and hold that until probe #2 (meat probe) registers 165 degrees (poultry).  Does that seem appropriate?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this approach.  I'm curing the meat until Monday and then I'll smoke/bake it.

[digitalsmoker]

Hey Bob glad you are following usda standards. However when cooking at home for yourself it is not required that you follow these standards. If I where you I would do as your first post said. As long as you get the meat cooked up to 165 for a min. of 2 min. to be safe you would have killed all the bacteria that grew IF any did grow. Just remember back in the old days they did not have these regulations to follow.

[Habanero Smoker]

A couple of things. What you posted if for uncured "fresh" meat, your recipe is cured sausage. For uncured meat it would not be safe to cook at 150°F at all for long periods of time; especially sausage.

Your original cooking temperatures are alright for cured sausage, but many of us use a slow increase in temperatures. Starting around 110 - 120°F for drying; 130 - 140 for applying smoke, and finishing with 160°F to 180°F.

Here is a reference chart for internal temperature for "fresh" meat:
When is it done?

[dubob]

Thank you both for your thoughts on this.  And yes, I'm doing cured meat.  I started doing the smoked method instead of the oven method back when I had my first Little Chief smoker.  The salami came out okay using that and nobody ever got sick from eating it.

After thinking it over some more and thinking about your comments, maybe an experiment is in order.  I'll form the 5 lbs of cured meat into 3 or 4 rolls to put in the smoker.  I'll do all but one role using the 8 hours at 150 degrees.  I'll continue on with the other roll at 175 degrees until the meat probe reaches 165 degrees.  Then I'll compare the two methods to see if there is any difference in taste, texture, or dryness.

That would kind of be like what you said HS about many folks using a slowly increasing temperature scale for cured sausage.  I'll let y'all know what I find out.

[dubob]

Got-R-Done!   :)

Put 4 rolls of salami sans casings into the DBS.



I set the Auber PID Controller to run at 150 degrees for 8.0 hours then go to 175 degrees until IT reached 165 degrees.  At the 8.0 hour point, the IT was at 125 degrees and slicing one of the rolls in half revealed that the meat was still mostly raw most of the way through.  Gulp!  What to do now.

Well I bumped the Auber second stage up to 235 degrees until 165 degrees was reached on the IT probe.  About an hour and 20 minutes later the alarm went off telling me 165 degrees had been reached.  Sliced again, and found the roll done to perfection.  Whew!

Here's a couple shots of the finished product.  We have a winner.  I took a sample over to the neighbors house for a second opinion and his wife (who in the past would not eat anything smoked) told her husband they had to make some of this stuff.  Anyway, I'll try some tomorrow after a night in the electric cooler box to make sure its fit to eat.





I hope to do some more trout this coming week.

[jbullard1]

Would it be OK for me to stuff this into a 2 1/2 inch casing then smoke it??
I have finished mixing everything for the first time

[dubob]

Never having done anything in casings, I wouldn't know for sure.  But I can't halp but think it wouldn't hurt anything.  The casing might prevent the smoke from permeating the actual meat as much as it does without any casing.  But I get some duck/goose sausage every year from a commercial butcher shop that smokes thier product in casings and they turn out pretty damn well.  I'd say 'Go for it.'  And let us know how it turns out.   :)