I would recommend a starter if you want to assure fermentation and a proper product. Last year I had a batch of salami where I forgot to add the culture and I had to toss it.

Absolutely not. At around pH 5.2 gelification of the meat takes place. You can see that without using a pH meter. The meat, fat and water bind together to form a firm mass. This is what gives you the desirable texture and sliceability. If you do what you are propsing, you will have a crumbly sausage...

Definitely coming along. What is the casing on the larger sausage in the pic and what are the parameters in the chamber?

Beautiful work Stefan! At what temp do you sous vide and for how long?

Sausages look very nice! Something I'll have to try down the road. Regarding your issues in the batch where you broke the emulsification, can you describe what you did in the process and the temps at the start and end. I can't see the dextrose having any effect on the emulsion.

That's about as low as you can go. Looks like you added around
10g/kg of sugars. Taste will be quite tangy, Ok if you are making a Scandinavian salami, but not if you want a Southern European style salami.

Even in milliliters, it's still alot of liquid. We usually max out at 20% when making emulsified products.

Always shake it or mix it. Nitrite has a tendency to settle. I do that with regular Cure #1 as well.

So it's basically a boneless cured, not smoked ham. What makes it "Swedish" is the way it's cooked and served. Just one of the many many ways to prepare a ham. I prefer smoked ham which is then poached to temp, sliced and eaten cold or baked with a honey glaze and served hot. Occasionally I also pre...

While sugar does act as a preservative, help in colour retention, aid in lowering the pH and enhance flavour, it is not a curing agent. It's not an essential ingredient in the meat curing process.

Do you then poach the ham?

You are right, there are so many charts, methods and different ways in measuring salt and nitrite. The problem is that the charts are based on the uptake rate if the nitrite and it's not an exact science. I simplified my brining by making an 8% brine and brining the meats anywhere from four days to ...

Lower the humidity and make sure there is air movent in the chamber. Are you running a frost free unit?

Thanks for the detailed description of the process. The sausage looks amazing. Dispelled any myths that sausage needs to be smoked at low temps and gradually raised over several hours. The recipe you followed is how sausages were made by farmers' in Poland in earlier times. Often no nitrites were us...

Keep in mind this is for a double batch, 10lbs instead of 5. Even at that, the 5lb batch called for 30g or 3 Tbsp...It was a site called Taste of Artisan. Another reason why i do not like getting recipes off the internet. But I went about the process backwards and hopefully going forward will get a...