Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

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Fatdog
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Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

Post by Fatdog » Thu Jan 14, 2021 15:56

Hi

Well - I have just joined the forum and this is my first post! I have however spent the last couple weeks browsing the forum and it really is excellent, so Im glad to be part :)

I live in Singapore and been making wet sausages for over 10years. We actually have a small group of home sausage makers, one has gone on to open a commercial factory. So on matters of wet sausages I could add some value, and if anyone enjoys ginger beer (yeast or pro-biotic fermented) get in contact!

I am about to start my first fermented sausage (Chorizo) and have spent quite some time getting all the bits and pieces together. I have one major hurdle left- I cannot source Prague Powder #2. Nor Potassium Nitrate. Not even by mail order. I do have Prague Powder #1. So im left with a problem and need some advice. I have searched through the forums but nothing I have found really answers the question(s):

1) What is the best substitute or work around that delivers the flavours of a long fermented sausage and avoids the sour notes that I understand using Nitrite will do by dropping PH to far/fast and inhibiting the Staphylococcus and Micrococcaceae cultures (im using T-SPX starter) ?

Is celery Salt an option (the various discussions seemed to veer from whether it contains Nitrites or Nitrates) and if so - is it a better alternative than using salt #1 ? If I use salt#1 what quantity should I use based on recipe below. Or...is there another way?

For completeness I put the Chorizo recipe below (courtesy of Marianski)

Ingredients per 5 kg (11 lb) of meat
salt, 3%, 140 g
cure #2, 12 g
dextrose, 0.2%, 10 g
sugar, 0.2%, 10 g
pepper, 30 g
pimentón (smoked paprika), 100 g
oregano, 10 g
garlic, 45 g
T-SPX culture, 0.6 g (¼ tsp)
Indaswamp
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Re: Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

Post by Indaswamp » Fri Jan 15, 2021 02:46

Until you can source either potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate, You can use cure #1 (nitrite) and restrict your salami making to those that dry within one month. That would be those stuffed in 42mm hog casings or smaller. So good news is you can make your chorizo. I'll let those more knowledgeable than me point you to the amount to use per kilo....I've never used celery products.
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Re: Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

Post by Indaswamp » Fri Jan 15, 2021 09:01

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redzed
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Re: Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

Post by redzed » Fri Jan 15, 2021 09:34

Hello Fatdog and welcome to the forum. You can safely and comfortably make your chorizo using nitrites only. And nitrites have nothing to do with "sour notes" in the salami. That is the work of lactic acid bacteria and you control their growth with the amount of sugars added to the farce and adjust the speed of their growth with temperature. 2g glucose and 2g sucrose should work, although I would add only 1g sucrose if the pH is 5.8 or lower. Ferment at 18-19C for 48 hours and the pH should not drop below 5 and then will go back up again. Nitrates are really quite useless in the whole process until they are converted by bacteria to nitrite. The main reason in adding nitrates to dry cured products is that they provide a reserve of nitrites to the curing meat over a longer period of time. But if you use Cure#2, the salami has already been cured, the colour has been set, and the defences against bacteria have been set up, before the nitrates do anything. Once the nitrates start converting to nitrites their role in the process is to act as a preservative and anti-oxidant. This helps in colour retention, but in a narrow gauge product it probably will not make any difference. You can always add ascorbates such as sodium erythorbate as an anti-oxidant. Most hobbyists in Europe don't use nitrates at all when making dry cured sausages. Gerhard Feiner in his manual on commercial salami making writes that nitrates are added only when the salami is dried over a long period, that is months, and not weeks. He also points out that before nitrites are broken down to nitric oxide a large portion of them are first oxydized to nitrate, (then back to nitrite and eventually nitric oxide).

You could probably add nitrate in the celery juice form, but the problem is how much do you add, and it's not always made clear whether the dried celery juice has already been converted to nitrite or is it still nitrate.

We certainly would love to see some of the fresh sausages you have been making. It would be great if you could post some pics and recipes.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.
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Fatdog
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Re: Curing Powder#2 Subsitute for slow ferment

Post by Fatdog » Wed Feb 03, 2021 15:07

Thanks Redzed and other people who have commented. Apologies for late reply. After much angst I managed to get cure#2 - so I will stick with this for now! I will make my first cured sausage this Saturday. Has been a fascinating journey reading all about it (and indeed I read the entire string on using yogurt culture and your experiment!).

Been trying to figure out how to insert some pics of the crew here, might have go back and read the instructions as can seem to figure out how to insert.

Let me revert!
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