Starter culture advise needed

tinbutcher · Post by **tinbutcher** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 12:28

Hello folks,
I've been making sausage a long time ,never using stater cultures. We make an average of 1000 - 1500 lbs of fermented summer sausage/snack sticks a week, half of those numbers is deer sausage.
It's hard to control the temperature of my two smokehouses because I fire with all hickory wood and the temp reaches 90 to maybe 100 degrees tops when cold smoking summer sausage, 85 degrees when doing snack sticks.
I'm looking for a way to make my snack sticks turn out nice and round every time. I'm not educated in the science of sausage making , but I do know that my snack sticks always turn out better in the when the humidity is higher. However, I do not have a climate controlled environment....
We make 13 different flavors of snack sticks that we sell, but I want them to turn out the same every time,will a starter culture help with this problem ?
Would a starter culture help make my summer sausage more uniform in shape ?
I use 2" X 18" fiber casings for summer sausage. We stuff the sausage on Tues. let hang in a room at 65-70 degrees overnight and smoke the next day for around 18 hours. We hang the sausage in our drying room after smoking and the sausage is ready to eat in around 2 and a half or 3 weeks.

The snack sticks are stuffed in 21 MM collagen casings. We make them on Monday,hang over night at 65-70 degrees in our enclosed room, and cold smoke the next day for around 4-5 hours. We put the sticks in a drying room, temp is around 65 degrees and the sticks are ready to eat by Friday.
What starter culture would any of you recommend for either of these processes ?
Thanks again !

Post by **Bob K** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 14:07

Cultures affect flavor and color, not moisture retention. Without a climate controlled environment their use would be hit or miss. To get a more plump uniform stick you should look into binders/extenders like soy protein or NFDM powder and also phosphates.

tinbutcher wrote:The snack sticks are stuffed in 21 MM collagen casings. We make them on Monday,hang over night at 65-70 degrees in our enclosed room, and cold smoke the next day for around 4-5 hours. We put the sticks in a drying room, temp is around 65 degrees and the sticks are ready to eat by Friday.

Do you hot smoke /cook/bake them at all?

tinbutcher · Post by **tinbutcher** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 17:37

I have cooked them, but the cold smoked sticks are WAAAAY better.
It's really amazing how the smokies turn out sometimes,( depending on how much humidity there is in the outside air) it seems the more humidity, the better tasting the sticks are and they stay nice and round also.