starter cultures that travel well

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sambal badjak
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starter cultures that travel well

Post by sambal badjak » Fri Jan 30, 2015 05:10

Do they exist?

Reason for asking is that I would like to try my hands on some semi cured sausages (and later on maybe at dry cured ham and sausage), but I can't find anything locally.
I can get people to bring me some from overseas, but obviously not frozen or not even cooled properly.
Is there anything I could go for?
I found out that chr hansen has a sales office in the netherlands and besides them (hopefully) I can get something called starter culture and rapid starter culture (no extra info given)
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redzed
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Post by redzed » Fri Jan 30, 2015 08:35

Yes that is a problem when we are dealing with frozen cultures. I order mine from a supplier who wraps then in a small ice pack and, since it's not too far, I get it the next. Other suppliers ship them and tell us that they are OK out of the freezer for up to 3 days. Hopefully our resident culture expert, the cultured Igor will pipe in here.

A couple of times when I was in the US, I brought back some cultures on a 3 day auto trip. I vaccuum packed the pouches, shoved them in one of those plastic picnic drink coolers, filled it with water and froze it. Stayed frozen until I got home.

If you have someone coming from Europe, I don't see a problem with the cultures being out the freezer for 24 hours or so. Wrap them around an ice pack or pack in dry ice and put into checked luggage.
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Post by sambal badjak » Fri Jan 30, 2015 08:42

Thanks Redzed,
I will see if I can get them in time.
What type culture would you advise I go for?

And I seem to recall someone telling me that fermento could be transported without being too worried about keeping it cold?
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Post by redzed » Sun Feb 01, 2015 08:04

sambal badjak wrote:Thanks Redzed,
I will see if I can get them in time.
What type culture would you advise I go for?

And I seem to recall someone telling me that fermento could be transported without being too worried about keeping it cold?
Sambal, Fermento is in powder form and is essentially dry buttermilk. There have been several discussions on the forum about it. Many people use it to add a bit of tang to semi dry sausages such as summer sausage. But it is not a culture and I have never seen any credible technical information that it ferments lactic bacteria. If you want to consider an alternate to starter cultures you may want to look into Glucono-lactone (GDL). Marianski writes:

Sugar, Glucono-lactone (GDL) and Citric Acid are important additives in the manufacturing of fast and medium-fermented salamis as in these sausages pH reduction (increasing acicity) is the main hurdle against bacteria growth. In slow-fermented sausages which are dried for a much longer time, lowering moisture (Aw) is the main hurdle employed to inhibit bacteria growth.

Glucono-delta-lactone is manufactured by microbial fermentation of pure glucose to gluconic acid but is also produced by the fermentation of glucose derived from rice. It is soluble in water and is non-toxic and completely metabolized in our bodies. It can be found in honey, fruit juices, wine and many fermented products. It is a natural food acid (it has roughly a third of the sourness of citric acid) and it contributes to the tangy flavor of various foods. Since it lowers the pH it also helps preserve the food from deterioration by enzymes and microorganisms. It is metabolized to glucose; one gram of GDL is equivalent to one gram of sugar. Glucono-Delta-Lactone is often used to make cottage cheese, Tofu, bakery products and fermented sausages.

About 1 g (0.1%) of GDL per 1 kg of meat lowers pH of meat by 0.1 pH. It shall be noted that the addition of sugar already lowers the pH of the meat and adding GDL will lower the pH even more. As it is a natural acid, adding more than 10 g may cause a bitter and sour flavor.
http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... ed-sausage

Again, this is not a substitute for starter cultures, but it does work for semi dried cured sausages and is easy to use and of course transport.

And if you tell me what kind of fermented sausages you would like to craft, I'll try and suggest an appropriate culture. Have you built a curing chamber and do you have a place to ferment the sausages?
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Post by sambal badjak » Sun Feb 01, 2015 11:41

Thank Redzed for taking the time to answer my questions!

For now, what I am looking at is making some semi dried cured sausages for which I wouldn't need a curing chamber. It more a process like making kabanosy.

I may (in the near future) be looking at dry sausages. At the moment I don't have a curing chamber. I would need to read more on dry sausages and ham before attempting this. I think that the climate I am at would be suitable at certain times of the year to work without a curing chamber, but I could make one if needed.

I have send out a couple of emails to see what I can get there. Just waitng for the replies.
I figured that FLC and F-RM-52 would be good ones, but not too sure. (I did read the thread about chr hansen cultures on this forum).

Availability of goods can be such a pain.....
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Post by sambal badjak » Thu Feb 05, 2015 09:34

I ordered 1 pack of FLC and 1 pack of T-SPX.
FLC seems pretty universal.
So now it is time to do some proper reading up and making a curing chamber if necessary.....
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Post by redzed » Sat Feb 07, 2015 04:53

Great to hear that Sambal! How are you getting the cultures? Not by snail mail I hope! F-LC is a great culture to have. You can ferment at both higher and lower temps to make more mild tasting Meditterrean style sausages, or at a higher temp to make Northern European and American tasting products. You should be able to make semi dry products with the F-LC without a curing chamber. But as far as the T-SPX goes, you will need to build that curing chamber, unless you have a cool damp cellar under your house.

Looking forward to seeing your first dry cured sausages!
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Post by sambal badjak » Sat Feb 07, 2015 05:03

Yes, by mail,
But only from the UK to theNetherlands. Should take a day, maybe 2.
Once they arrive they go straight into the freezer. It said that they had a shelf life of 14 days unrefridgerated, so hope it all goes OK.
I figured FLC was a good one (multifunctional) and actually only ordered the T-SPX because I had to pay shipment cost anyway......
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