But Grandpa Didn't Use Nitrates And Cultures...

User avatar
Chuckwagon
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4494
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 04:51
Location: Rocky Mountains

Post by Chuckwagon » Sun Jul 10, 2011 09:37

Well said Gentlemen! Hear, hear!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
Rand
Beginner
Beginner
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 18:30
Location: iowa

preservation

Post by Rand » Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:27

I have to agree with what I am reading, that is one of the reasons I am trying to learn as much as I can about making dry sausages. The one question I have is what happens if one can not get a bactoferm culture? The early settlers must have used another technique that didn't require the use of a culture or white mold?

Rand
ssorllih
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4331
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2011 19:32
Location: maryland

Post by ssorllih » Sun Jul 10, 2011 13:53

When you have read far enough in the books you will know that the early sausage maker did their best and prayed for good sausage. We can save the prayers for other stuff and pony up 20 bucks for the Bactoferm.
You can get it here: http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php ... =85_94_107

Or here: http://www.sausagemaker.com/contact-us.aspx
Ross- tightwad home cook
crustyo44
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 1089
Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 06:21
Location: Brisbane

Post by crustyo44 » Mon Jul 11, 2011 00:46

When I came to Australia in 1965, I became rather good friends with an Italian family and finished up helping them in making salamis and sausages.
They were keen to teach me everything they knew as they saw that I was really interested.
The salamis were made without any cure at all, just plain salt and spices.
Nobody ever thought about botulism or any other contractable bug and as far as I know, these friends still make these salamis the same old way, with no side effects at all.
Mind you, they lived in the south of Australia and only made salamis in May, the coldest month of the year.
I have changed my mind about using cures since I live now in the sub-tropics and very cold weather is unheard of.
Health and peace of mind is now more important, especially as I give some of my products away to my grandkids.
Regards,
Jan.
Brisbane.
User avatar
Chuckwagon
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4494
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 04:51
Location: Rocky Mountains

Post by Chuckwagon » Mon Jul 11, 2011 05:04

Rand wrote:
The early settlers must have used another technique that didn't require the use of a culture or white mold?
A few weeks ago, Stan Marianski wrote the following:
"Some eight years ago I stopped at the real Italian deli and saw a great variety of salamis. The owner proudly announced that the family makes all those sausages right on the premises. She even took me inside the kitchen where sausages were hanging in all over the kitchen and the oscillating fan was blasting air at them. I bought different salamis to find out how a real home-made salami compares with sausages I knew. Well, they were really bad, putrefied and all my friends agreed with me. They were simply not edible, too much spoilage. At that time I had a little knowledge about making fermented products and the above incident gave me plenty of motivation to study fermented products in more detail."

Allow me to defend Bactoferm, then make up your own mind. Long ago, man discovered that by adding salt to meat, it somehow preserved it! It took man literally ages to realize that "binding `available water` (Aw) in sausage", effectively confines it to the point where harmful pathogenic bacteria are no longer able to survive. The process is known as dehydration or limiting water activity. For centuries, this process, along with the chance addition of lactic acid-producing bacteria to increase acidity, has been responsible for safely preparing air-dried, fermented, sausages.

Today, adding carefully chosen strains of lactobacilli or pediococci, reducing the pH acidity to safe levels in fermented sausage has been most effective in destroying competing pathogenic bacteria. Historically, as the sausage maker unwittingly created ideal conditions for competing beneficial bacteria to thrive, pathogenic bacteria were deprived of nutrients by being literally crowded out of the way. By providing optimum temperatures and relative humidity for any number of previously unknown lactobacilli and pediococci bacteria, safe and tasty fermented, air-dried sausages have been crafted by man for centuries. Yet, only since about the middle of the nineteenth century have we known what was actually taking place inside the fermentation process. Without beneficial bacteria declaring war on pathogenic bacteria, we would not have salami, pepperoni, summer sausage, or any number of other tangy, fermented air-dried sausages."

Bactoferm™ is the trade name of bio-protective starter cultures made in Denmark and distributed in Germany by the Chr. Hansen Laboratories for use in the food and sausage making industries. Initially, Americans developed a lactobacilli culture just before entering World War II. Although patents were granted, experimenting continued with pediococcus cerevisiae, as commercial food processors preferred using cultures not needing activation from deep freezing. We non-commercial, small "home" operations had no accessibility whatsoever to such products.

Perhaps the cultures of the 1940`s and 1950`s were "too effective" as they produced lactic acid so quickly, they robbed other curing bacteria of greatly needed time to develop the milder flavor Europeans have always accepted and actually demanded, even to this day. Consequently, the use of bio-cultures in fermented sausage throughout Europe, have been minimal. In America, although slow to catch on, the overly sour taste of rapidly produced, dry-cured, fermented sausage has become more accepted as commercial producers offered little alternative to the quickly fermented products to the general public.

In 1957, the bacteria strain known as micrococcus was produced (greatly improving flavor) and became the first real major step in mass-produced salami. Three years later, staphylococcus carnosus was developed and finally in 1966, lactobacillus plantarum was introduced as America`s first widely used culture. Food scientists and researchers throughout the `70`s continued to improve air-dried meats and sausages by developing multi-strain bacteria cultures. For the first time in history, we had a safe, consistent, and reliable culture containing lactic acid bacteria with the addition of other beneficial bacteria strains. Since that time, research has continued and improvements have been made continually.

So, why do we use bio-cultures these days in making fermented meat products? Safety, reliability, and consistent fermentation in much less time, are good reasons. The guesswork has been removed by the standard addition of up to 10 million bacteria per gram. Harmful pathogenic bacteria competing for nutrition are simply crowded out and finally eliminated.

Yes, although raw-meat, air-dried, fermented sausages have been made relatively safely without it for centuries, today`s modern cultures guarantee safety consistently! Best of all, as of late, it has become available to home hobbyists and smaller sausage kitchens in convenient packets at affordable prices.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
ssorllih
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4331
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2011 19:32
Location: maryland

Post by ssorllih » Mon Jul 11, 2011 14:01

Chuckwagon, It is for those same reasons that bakers prefer to use commercially produced yeast cultures for bread making. Some places can make very good sourdough bread. They are granted the righjt atmospheric and biological conditions for a favorable mix of wild yeast and bacteria. In other places efforts to produce a starter culture result in spoiled flour and water mixes.
I make the same bread recipe 8 to 12 times a year and I can depend on it always being the same loaf summer and winter.
I can't make a good sourdough starter here.
Ross- tightwad home cook
Post Reply