Homemade Sausage Making

I procrastinated for several months, but finally got around to my second ever trial batches of dry cured sausages. Did two of Len Poli's "favorite" salami, one stuffed in fibrous casing and the other in beef middle. Third sausage was according to cajuneric, recipe for Finocchiana. Fermented then dried for 30 days (38-40% weight loss). Final pH was 5.1. Both turned out quite good for an amateur! I seem incapable of remembering to take pictures, but here are the ones I got after they were done.

Hey jc your salami looks excellent! Good sliceability, nice fat to meat contrast, proper colour and desirable noble mould cover. And if the taste is what you like, you've nailed it.

As to your final pH being 5.1 it means that you fermented it to 4.8 or maybe a tad lower. Probably a bit of a tang, but that is to be expected when using Poli's recipes: high sugar amounts and fast fermentation. It all comes down to personal preference.

Looks like its time to make larger batches! Nice Job!.

redzed wrote:As to your final pH being 5.1 it means that you fermented it to 4.8 or maybe a tad lower

Thanks redzed and Bob K

You're right about the pH after fermentation of the Poli sausage . . . checked my record and it was 4.85. (I actually used B-LC-007 starter, reduced the corn syrup solids from 0.4% to 0.33% and fermented at 21°C for 30 hours. The Finocchiona had only 0.4% total sugar, and its pH was just a hair over 5.0 at the end of fermentation. I don't think I measured its pH after drying.