first attempt at summer sausage

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Crunchie58
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first attempt at summer sausage

Post by Crunchie58 » Sun Jan 03, 2021 06:20

Hello everyone and Happy New Year. Having recently purchased a sausage stuffer and have produced some game sausage, this my first attempt at summer sausage. That being said, I really love the texture and taste of these gourmets, I often find them very salty, which, for me with slightly high blood pressure and actually not really liking the true taste of salt, would rather have a herb tasting rather than a salty tasting.

For my first batch of two rolls at about 3.25 lbs each, I used the recommended amount of spice. i processed the already ground moose meat, and the pork, through a food processor to get the more finer texture, using a ratio of 80-20 (Pork). The result was a success although my next experience will be with half the recommended amount of spice, the moose meat was hardly noticeable, the spices were a bit overpower full, When I made my breakfast sausage, I had cut back the spices by 50% and we loved the result, the moose meat was more apparent.
That being said, I believe that in the future, I'll probably be using only 50% of the recommended spices, I still want to be able to taste the meat over the spices. Of course, this is only my opinion.
Thanks for having me here.
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redzed
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by redzed » Sun Jan 03, 2021 08:04

Welcome Crunchie! We are happy to have you join us. Salt is definately an issue if are restricted for health reasons. But up to a point it is a necessity for safety and technological reasons. However, there are now other options availabe, and we can discuss them here. Can you post the complete recipe and process you used? What was the moose/pork ratio? It looks awfully lean.
Crunchie58
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by Crunchie58 » Sun Jan 03, 2021 19:46

We've made a few items with our stuffer so far. The recipe I used for the summer sausage was from LEM Backwoods Summer Sausage cured sausage seasonings. We followed the recipe on the packaging however found it very salty, next time I'll use only half of recommended amt, but will still add the required amount of cure for the total meat weight. I used 80% moose and 20% pork meat. It wasn't dry at all, in fact it was more moist than I had expected however we found that we couldn't really detect the taste of the moose meat through the seasoning.
As far as the process, I re-grounded the meat to get a more finer grain, mixed all the meat together, then added required amount of water to the seasoning and cure, mixed it well. Then poured the mixture over the meat and mashed it into the meat mixture for about 5 minutes until all the liquid was absorbed. Put in our stuffer and put in the fridge for 12 hours.
Next morning we filled the 2 casings, put into pre-heated oven at 190F, inserted a meat thermometer probe and setpoint at 176F. Took about 12 hours and ended up at 205F (5 degrees increments) at the end because the temp probe was flat lining at times. Took out of oven and let cool for a few hours.
We loved the texture.
https://imgur.com/a/lwAGkWb

Sorry about the rant but you asked, lol.
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redzed
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by redzed » Mon Jan 04, 2021 08:24

Crunchie58 wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 19:46
Next morning we filled the 2 casings, put into pre-heated oven at 190F, inserted a meat thermometer probe and setpoint at 176F. Took about 12 hours and ended up at 205F (5 degrees increments) at the end because the temp probe was flat lining at times. Took out of oven and let cool for a few hours.
We loved the texture.
Crunchie, you actually baked your sausage for 12 hours to an IT of 205? With venison you can take it up to 160, pork only 152. How about reading a little bit about sausage making here: https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage-making
Crunchie58
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by Crunchie58 » Mon Jan 04, 2021 13:17

redzed wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 08:24
Crunchie58 wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 19:46
Next morning we filled the 2 casings, put into pre-heated oven at 190F, inserted a meat thermometer probe and setpoint at 176F. Took about 12 hours and ended up at 205F (5 degrees increments) at the end because the temp probe was flat lining at times. Took out of oven and let cool for a few hours.
We loved the texture.
Crunchie, you actually baked your sausage for 12 hours to an IT of 205? With venison you can take it up to 160, pork only 152. How about reading a little bit about sausage making here: https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage-making
No, I did not cook it to 205f, that was the final oven temperature to enable me to get 176f on the meat probe. All i did was follow the instructions on the seasoning packaging, that's all I had to go with, other than one of my buddies who has more experience than me.
So you're saying I should disregard the 176f on the packaging and go with 160f?

and thank you for the link which I did read. However, didn't see anything about summer sausage or did I miss it?

My game meat will be utilized mainly for uncooked Italian style size sausage, summer sausage and at some point I'll be making some pepperettes, for which I bought a kit. I may be not at the right forum for what I want to produce as it will not only be regular sausage.
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by jcflorida » Tue Jan 05, 2021 02:06

I'm not an expert, but my advice would be to do as the instructions on the kit recommend. The companies that manufacture these have generally spent significant resources developing kits that balance quality and safety. For what its worth, the Backwoods kits sold here in the States recommend cooking at 180ºF to an IT of 165ºF. They may have to follow different rules in Canada.

Here is a discussion of reduced salt in sausage making https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... lt-sausage
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Re: first attempt at summer sausage

Post by Crunchie58 » Tue Jan 05, 2021 19:02

jcflorida wrote:
Tue Jan 05, 2021 02:06
I'm not an expert, but my advice would be to do as the instructions on the kit recommend. The companies that manufacture these have generally spent significant resources developing kits that balance quality and safety. For what its worth, the Backwoods kits sold here in the States recommend cooking at 180ºF to an IT of 165ºF. They may have to follow different rules in Canada.

Here is a discussion of reduced salt in sausage making https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... lt-sausage
I stand corrected and I apologize to all for misleading you. I don't know where I saw 176f for internal temp. I just checked the back of the Backwoods seasoning package and it clearly states 165F internal temp. I believe the package I have is the same as yours, it states the same temps. Except that it's in English and French. Thanks for the "link", pun intended.
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