In the past when I've made ring bologna, I've also used the hog rings in combination with twine in order to get them to hang over my smoking stick in the smoker. Invariably I've had the string or ring give way and found my chub or ring on the bottom floor of the smoker. I know there is a special...

I am making some peppered beef sticks this weekend. The recipe that I have calls for 1/2 C flavor binder for 10# ground meat. (80/20)
I ordered some and it didn't come in today.
Can I get by without it or is there a substitute or something else in place of it?
Thanks.

Ok I screwed up yesterday. I was making sausage yesterday and when I took my meat out of the freezer for grinding I didn't close the door all the way. I found it today at 3:30. I am just wondering is the meat in the freezer still good and can I refreeze it? I had some venison steaks in the door...

How To Measure Beef Rounds

Beef rounds usually come in 100 feet sets . Here is a table showing how many pounds of sausage you can put in 100 feet for different choices of diameters in casings.

Note: If you are able to order less than 100 feet, just adjust the figures in the right side of the...

So I finally bought an Amazn smoker and lit 'er up with a load of pellets. It faithfully produced a lovely thin stream of smoke for hours, though for how many hours I don't know because I fell asleep. I expected to get 11 hours, but I am guessing I got maybe half that. Too much draft probably. But...

Hi Sausagemakers,

And Speaking Of Salt...

Does kosher salt taste better than table salt? Interestingly, yes, it does. As kosher salt is pressed together by huge rollers, the grains become pyramid-shaped, allowing them to dissolve more easily so it does not linger on the tongue. It`s made without...

Ok i been buying my starter cultures from sausage makers but living in Canada I was wanting to find a Canadian source. What I keep coming up with is a product called Mondo Start Classic and Mondo Sp. These can be bought at dnrsausagesupplies.ca or halfordsmailorder.com. The problem for me is I...

Is there a definitive test for the viability of the sausage cultures before we use them in a batch of sausage. I have some that have been stored at minus 6° F for more than a year.

Is it that after I smoke my sausages, freeze them, take them out to use, they are much more salty tasting than when they come out of the smoker. Thanks in advance.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Did anyone happen to notice that in the news last Monday there was another reported case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy? Yup pards, this time it was in California. It was amazing to me that the second thing from the reporter`s mouth was, Officials state that...

Does anybody have experience with carrot fiber as a binder? The Sausage Maker sells it as C-bind. I am looking for alternatives to the nonfat dry milk powder and soy protein concentrate found in many formulations, and this product caught my attention.

Cheers,
Jeff

This is not an idle or trick question because I believe that the term anerobic means an absense of oxygen.
My smoker as it is built and used has several holes open to the air to supply air to the grill burner. My smoke is generated remotely in a separate fire chamber.
I often have a gas flame...

This week I prepared some chicken thighs as confit. The preparation was simple 1% salt, the grated rind of a lemon and two tablespoonsful of chopped fresh parsley and basil. Rub three chicken thighs with the salt mix and refridgerate at 34°F for two days. Place on a glass baking dish ,cover with...

Occassionally I am looking for a recipe for smoked sausage or meat and find no call for nitrite or nitrate. I consider the reputation of the author and conclude that it is a good recipe with an error that slipped past the author, the proof reader and the editor.
With the admonition that if it...

We have all sorts of oak trees in Wisconsin. Does it matter what type of oak wood you use for smoking meats?

A non-member has contacted me by email with a great question that I'd like to share with you folks. I'm sure many have wondered at times, if they could make their own penicillium nalgiovense mold for salami. Here is the question and my answer. Anyone else care to add to the subject, please do.

Q....

Currently I have two pounds of brisket curing for March 17.
Besides the salt and the cure # 1 there is mustard seed, cracked black pepper, coriander, and bay leaf. The meat was coated as uniformly as I could and placed in a zipper freezer bag that gets turned each day in the fridge. Two weeks ago I...

Here is a question concerning fat replacer and chicken fat. From a dietary standpoint chicken fat isn't bad but from a sausage making standpoint it isn't good. But could you/we beneficially use rendered chicken fat as the oil in the fat replacer emulsion?

It seems that EVERY time I use my smoker, my product IMT stalls out / reaches a plateau at about 135°. It can take several more hours of cooking to get to temperature, resulting in a very dehydrated sausage.

This happens with summer sausage, bologna, snack sticks, turkeys, pulled pork, and loins,...

I have been doing some research lately about smoke and its qualities and nuances. The experience was a rewarding one and I thought I'd share what I learned.

My first question was what wood comprised of and how does that impact the smoke that comes from that wood.

Wood is made up of three...

Hi Keymaster,
I cannot source any nonfat dry milk here but have available skim milk powder.
Does the maximum of 12% still apply without affecting the taste.
Regards,
Jan.

Hi Members,
I need some advise badly. I have left in my freezer about 3 kg of Snagmans Csabai mix, not minced yet but all the cubed pork is already mixed with the spices, salt and cure #1.
My mincer blew up(stripped a gear) and I had to freeze the unminced left overs.
The cure #1 has me worried as...

I found this on the USDA site concerning bacon.

Bacon

How much nitrite can be used in curing bacon?
The USDA is responsible for monitoring the proper use of nitrite by meat processors. While sodium nitrite cannot exceed 200 ppm going into dry-cured bacon, sodium nitrite cannot exceed 120 ppm...

My wife has high cholesterol. Has anyone here used the fat replacement product CKX Fat Reducer-Cholesterol Fighter from the Sausage Maker or other fat replacement products? If so what did you think of the finished product?

I think that we have all experienced a smoke filled conference room and also smelled tobacco smoke on the wind. The former stinks and the latter can be rather pleasing. The same seems to apply to wood smoke. Light a fire place with the damper closed and that wiff of wood smoke soon becomes...

Hey all, hope everything's been well :smile: I have a quick question, and I hope this is in the correct spot. (If not, I'll take 30 licks with a wet noodle CW :mrgreen: ) I have quite a few recipes, most of them from reputable books and the like, that call for certain amounts of saltpeter...

I discovered this web site this morning. and have read small portions:

I have made some observations that I think may be of some interest. I put meat in to my cure and then into a tightly closed plastic bag. For the first few days there is an abundance of liquid in the bag in quantities in excess of the few ounces that were present when I rubbed the cure into the...

Many of the recipes I read state light smoke for x period of time, or medium smoke for x quantity of time.

How do you define light vs. medium vs. heavy? :???:

I noted in the thread concerning butts, that the butts had lost about 16 to 20 % weight loss. Is this enough to extend shelf life?

Hi Sausagemakers and Smoke Addicts!
Are you stumped with a question or do you have a particular problem you just can't seem to solve? Find Hyde Park (that's our chat forum) and post your question. If you don't receive an answer from someone with knowledge in that particular area, then send me a PM...

Hi,
Shortly I would like to be making some old fashioned frankfurts without all super modern additives.
I like to use either smoke powder or liquid smoke as a trial, Do members have any guidlines of how much to use. I like the franks to have a noticeable smoke flavour but not overpowering....

I came across this web site and document in my bookmarks today and decided that i should share it.

I am planning on attempting to make some summer sausage. This will be my first attempt at making sausage that has to be cooked or smoked. The instructions I have say to cook the sausage in the oven at 170 degrees for 7 hours. Aside friom the obvious, what are the differences between using a smoker...

Hi everyone. I have been reading Meat Science and Applications by Y.H. Hui. I stumbled on something I thought interesting and curious. It is an overview on the process of making prosciutto di parma.

On pg. 404:

The Parma ham comes from one year old pigs weighing roughly 180 kg, raised in the...

We should all be aware of the botulism inhibiting effects of nitrites in smoked meat. Clostriduim Botulinium grows in the absence of oxygen and at temperatures comfortable for people. The most famous example was in some sauted onions held on the back of a grill at a celebration somewhere.
This...

Hi,
Have any members used this new-fangled cultured celery powder as a substitute in smoked and cured sausages.
Bolzano Meats uses it to make all sorts of wonderful charcuterie products.
As a bit of a health freak, I prefer to use this natural cure compared to the industrial
produced one.
Regards,...

We all understand the importance of having nearly frozen meat when we are grinding but having it soft frozen when cutting it in small chunks also works very well.
Then I learned the other night while looking for a celery sausage recipe and finding it on The Sausage Maker site as Nick's celery...

I kinda sorta struck out on the fermented sausage effort but tonight I made 5 pounds of Breakfast sausage by the Book recipe. Nancy declared that the patties I fried were great and said I should place a star beside that recipe. Over the years we have found that there is more versatility in the use...

On pg. 479 of mr. Marianski's HPQMS book it shows box cured bacon with a specific method of placing the bellies. For those out there without the book, the diagram shows placing 5 bellies on top of each other. Each belly is places skin side down except the one on top. I am trying to figure out why....

I just found this information: Seam Butchery is an old Continetal Europe-method of breaking down animals according to their muscle seams (which is still very popular in Austria, in spite of the additional time it takes to meticulously execute). With Seam Butchery, the mantra seems to be, If you`re...

With my ever growing experience in sausage making, I'm thinking about perhaps using different types of cheese (one at a time) for sausage making and then get stuck on which cheeses would be suitable for fresh sausage?
Maybe some sausage could be smoked with using cheese?

Intuition tells me to stay...

I'm curious to know how some of you guys face challenges of conflicting cooking, smoking or curing requirements when you've got more than one product to make.

For instance, if I was to want to make both Mysliwska and Podhalanska (Marianski's Home Production pages 239 and 241) but they have very...

I was trimming some pork butt meat for supper and found at least two glands and what appeared to be some lymph nodes. I excised them and threw them to the fox that visits every night.
Does everyone remove the glands from the meat before they grind it for sausage?

So after making about 56 lbs of sausage today I resalted about 40' of left-over casing, placed it back in the bag and forgot about it for about 4 hrs. Safe to use or toss? I understood it to be somewhat stable but would like ya'll's opinion.

I would appreciate some guidance on a topic that I have no experience on:- Re-freezing meat.

If I buy meat, and at that time it has 2 days before the use by date , vacuum pack and freeze it the day I buy it for about 1 or 2 weeks, then defrost to process to sausage, can the sausage be frozen?...

Hi, Im making pastrami with cure 1 at the moment BUT not smoking it. Will this have a big effect on its shelf life or not? Im not sure really.

Any advice out there

Thanks

Andrej

Hi, ive been curing coppa in fridge (2nd stage - 10 days or so)as per recipe and i seem to be getting a greenish liquid and tint to the meat. The smell and integrity of meat is fine. IS that normal, ie to do with the process, nitrates/nitrite?

Thanks

Andrej