best storage practice and how long sausage keeps

[toolhawk]

Ok , Ring Bologna , summer sausage .... Best method of keeping it and for how long, If I vacuum pack the ring and summer sausage and freeze it how long will it keep , how long in the fridge ? Just a thought, Thanks!!

[renoman]

I'm not saying it's a good practice but I have kept summer sausage (and others) in the fridge for over two months vacuum sealed.

[Salmonsmoker]

If you vacuum pack and then freeze, the storage time is almost indefinite, depending on the mil thickness of the vac bags. The thicker, the longer the storage time. Quality will deteriorate over time. If the seal breaks all bets are off.

[pmmpete]

Pikeman taught me to package pieces of summer sausage for freezing by first wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap, and then wrapping it in aluminum foil to hold down the plastic wrap, and to provide another layer of protection against freezer burn.  I chop summer sausage into pieces about 6 inches long before wrapping it in that manner.  This method works well for cylindrical pieces of sausage, but not so well for ring sausages and other curved sausages.

You can also protect sausages from freezer burn by wrapping them in plastic wrap and then tightening the plastic wrap by heating it with a heat gun.  Another technique I learned from Pikeman.



I try to eat all my frozen meat within a year, but if it's packaged well it'll still be perfectly good after a year.

[tskeeter]

If you vacuum pack and then freeze, the storage time is almost indefinite, depending on the mil thickness of the vac bags. The thicker, the longer the storage time. Quality will deteriorate over time. If the seal breaks all bets are off.

I'm with SS, storage time in the freezer may be as much as a year.  Food stored in a manual defrost freezer will usually last longer than food stored in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator.  But you can expect some degradation of the product to occur.

I spent nearly 25 years working in the food processing industry.  During that time I learned a few things about the barrier properties of a variety of packaging materials.  The most important part of storing most food products is to keep air away from the product.  That's why vacuum packing is so effective.  The barrier properties of the packaging material you are using is key because that is what prevents the movement of air and moisture that causes degradation of what you are storing. 

Thicker is better than thinner.  A thick pouch will give you a longer storage life than a thin pouch.

In order of decreasing permeability:
Glass
Metal
Metal foil
Plastic
Waxed or other coated paper
Uncoated paper

Multiple layers can be used to improve the storage life of products.  So, if you wrap your sausage in tin foil, then vacuum seal in a high mil plastic pouch, your storage life will be longer than if you use either the metal foil or the plastic pouch by itself.  To provide a 12 month plus storage life for his wild Alaskan salmon, my brother-in-law wraps the salmon in plastic wrap, then vacuum seals the fish.

Another thing to consider is the speed with which you can get stuff frozen.  Remember growing crystals in high school science class?  The slower you cooled something, the bigger the crystals.  The same applies to crystal formation in the moisture in the food you are storing.  The longer it takes to freeze, the bigger the water crystals.  Bigger crystals damage the cell walls in what you are freezing, allowing moisture to escape when you defrost things.  So, the faster you can get something frozen, the better the quality will be when you go to use it.  (This is why frozen food processors use flash freezing.)  So, when you go to put your latest smoking triumph in the freezer, don't stack it in a pile in the corner of the freezer.  Spread it around a bit so will freeze as quickly as possible.  Once it's frozen, you can stack it in the corner of the freezer. 

[tskeeter]

Pikeman taught me to package pieces of summer sausage for freezing by first wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap, and then wrapping it in aluminum foil to hold down the plastic wrap, and to provide another layer of protection against freezer burn.  I chop summer sausage into pieces about 6 inches long before wrapping it in that manner.  This method works well for cylindrical pieces of sausage, but not so well for ring sausages and other curved sausages.

You can also protect sausages from freezer burn by wrapping them in plastic wrap and then tightening the plastic wrap by heating it with a heat gun.  Another technique I learned from Pikeman.



I try to eat all my frozen meat within a year, but if it's packaged well it'll still be perfectly good after a year.

Pete's comments raise another storage consideration that I neglected to address.  The question of how your package is sealed, so as to prevent air/moisture movement.  Of course heat bonded seals are one of the better seals.  I'm not quite sure how plastic wrap works, but I suspect that the seal is a type of low bonding adhesive seal.  Kind of a medium grade seal.  Then there are folded seals, like some of us gray haired guys remember from our breakfast cereal as kids.  I suspect that using a heat gun the way Pete describes converts the adhesive seal of plastic wrap into a heat bonded seal that resists air and moisture movement better than an adhesive seal. 

[Orion]

Tight wrap with saran, second wrap with coated butchers paper, well taped with packing tape, freeze items, then load into convenient sized cardboard boxes  and tape all seams. Write contents of box in black felt and stack boxes in freezer. I mix up the contents of boxes so I can open one and have a variety available to me. The right boxes will fit well in your freezer and make a huge difference in quality of product after a year.

As mentioned, it`s all about air contacting the food and air moving around it. Eliminate this and you`ve solved most of the problems. 

[pikeman_95]

What happens in the approach that Pete is showing is the plastic wrap sucks up tight to the casings and if you roll the ends on a wood cutting board while heating them they seal tight. By shrinking the plastic wrap tight against individual frankfurters no air is allowed next to the sausage. I can then put them into a one gallon freezer bag and get one or two out at a time without affecting the others. I would be awfully expensive to individually vacuum seal franks. I find these are fine after a year in the freezer but usually they don't last that long.
Kirby