Homemade Sausage Making

I thought I would share this with everyone:

My wife(Judy) has always liked "Cotto Salami" but we have pretty much abandoned purchasing any ground products, especially since I joined this forum and started to learn more about these products and how to produce a better product at home (I emphasize the "started to learn" part), thanks to everyone on the forum. I have been planning a fair sized grind/smoke for my brother, he wanted about 25 lbs of elk and bear meat turned into Kielbasa so I set that up for this week. Judy suggested that I make a small batch of Cotto Salami at the same time so I started digging for a recipe, with disappointing results. I found nothing on the forum and searching the web wasn't much help either, I found quite a few recipes but they all seemed to have a lot more spices than I thought I wanted to start with so I selected the spices that seemed most common to a few of the recipes and started from scratch.

I started with a pork only product as I wanted to keep it pretty basic to begin with. Here is what I came up with:

1000g Pork Butt (approx 80/20 fat to lean)
2.5g Pink Salt
15g Kosher Salt (we like the salt content as low as possible)
18g Milk powder
8g Dextrose
1g Nutmeg (ground)
.7g Cardamom (ground white)
3g Black Pepper corns (lightly cracked)
1g Garlic Flakes
65g Ice water

The pork was chilled in the freezer for a couple of hours and ground through a 3/8 plate, the pink salt was mixed with about 1/2 the water and blended well with the ground pork. I combined the other dry ingredients and added to the mix along with the remaining water and hand mixed to a good "bind". The sausage was stuffed into 3 inch salami casings and allowed to rest overnight. The next morning it went to the smoker, a couple of hours at 110° to dry well (it took awhile because it shared the smoker with 50lbs. of Kielbasa) then raised to 120° with heavy smoke for about an hour (hickory/apple combination with a few cherry chunks thrown in). I raised the smoker temp to 140° for another hour and then to 150° for an additional hour and then poached at 165° until I had an internal meat temp of 150°, chilled in ice water and then refrigerated.

In the smoker with the Kielbasa


On the plate with some Elk and some Bear Kielbasa


As you can see, I lost a little of the fat in the Kielbasa-because of the bear meat I poached it to a solid 165° and it looks like some of it may have went a bit higher, but the texture is good and the flavor was great. The Salami Cotto turned out nice, I will add more peppercorns next time but other than that I am very pleased for a first go on a new recipe and the wife was very happy with it.

If anyone has any suggestions or even better a tried recipe for the Cotto Salami it would be greatly appreciated.

My thanks to all for the forum and all the great info-

Pat

Well done Pat! It all looks great and I have never tried bear kielbasa, so if you were in the neighbourhood, I would be at your front door at lunch time.

I have recipe for cotto salami used by a well known Canadian sausage plant located on the prairies. My Dad makes it all the time and it's not too bad. When I get home in a month or so, I will post it.

Chris

Hey, hey, NorthForkPat! Nice goin` pal. Your recipe looks very nice and the photos are terrific. I`m sorry you had such a struggle finding a recipe for "cooked" salami. Lots of folks don`t realize that "cotto" simply means cooked in the Italian language. This type of "cured, cooked, and smoked" sausage is very popular and safe. I dug through my saddlebags and found an old favorite by Rytek Kutas that I`ve had since my "Las Vegas days" somewhere in the mid 1960`s. At that time, he was running a small place he called the Hickory Shop and was starting to gather recipes from all over the world. This one is very nice. I don't think the old master would mind a bit if I shared it with the members of this forum.

Cotto Salami
By Rytek Kutas

3-1/2 very lean pork butt
6-1/2 very lean beef
2 tspns. Cure #1
2 cups ice water
4 tblspns. salt
6 tblspns. corn syrup solids
2 tblspns. freshly ground black pepper
1 tblspn caraway seed
1/2 tspn. nutmeg
1/2 tspn. allspice
1/2 tspn. ginger
4 large cloves fresh garlic
2 cups soy protein concentrate

Grind meats through a 3/16" grinder and mix well. Stuff 3-1/2" x 24" synthetic-fibrous casings. Cool overnight at 38°F before smoking. Place into smokehouse preheated to 135°F for one hour. Introduce light smoke and gradually increase smokehouse temperature to 150°F during the next half hour. Hold this temperature until color is obtained in about 4 to 5 hours. Cut off smoke and cook salami until it reaches an internal temperature of 155°F. Finally, shower the salami with cold water until the internal meat temperature drops to 120°F. Bloom for an hour.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Thanks for the compliments-
redzed, please do forward or post your recipe when you get home. It's always nice to see some variations.

CW, I was going to post a query on the forum but when Judy suggested it I was already up to my ears in the kielbasa event and didn't have time to beg for help so I just did a couple of quick searches and went with what I could collect. Thanks for posting the recipe, I'll certainly give it a try.

Thanks again
Pat

The sausage looks great NorthFork. I like the wood smoker. It reminds me of my dad's old smoker. They smell great all year long.
kc

In the Rytek Kutas book there are two different cooked Salami recipes at least. There is Cotto Salami and Cooked Salami. I usually make the one named Cooked Salami as it has the whole pepper corns in it. I've made them both and they are both real good. I kind of like the "Cooked Salami" on a little better.

I have substituted cracked black pepper for the whole pepper corns. I feel it helps spread the pepper flavor better. I just never liked biting on a whole pepper corns.

pikeman_95
The sausage looks great NorthFork. I like the wood smoker. It reminds me of my dad's old smoker. They smell great all year long.
kc

Thanks Pikeman, I love the wood smokers-they each have their own character depending on the wood that you have used in construction, the wood used for smoking and what you have smoked in them. This one is cedar, one of these days I will get to the coast and bring back a load of Alder and build a larger alder log smokehouse.

sausagemaneric
PostPosted: Yesterday 20:35 Post subject:
In the Rytek Kutas book there are two different cooked Salami recipes at least. There is Cotto Salami and Cooked Salami. I usually make the one named Cooked Salami as it has the whole pepper corns in it. I've made them both and they are both real good. I kind of like the "Cooked Salami" on a little better.

sausagemaneric, I don't have that book yet, CW kindly replied with the Cotto Salami recipe-other than the pepper grind is there much difference in the recipes?

Thanks
Pat

I just looked in my two versions of Rytek's books and for "Cooked Salami" it provides a recipe and for "Cotto Salami" it says to used the Cooked Salami recipe and delete the Cardamon and add nutmeg, ginger, allspice and caraway seed. When I made the "Cotto" from the book I didn't like it as well, I think because of the missing cardamon. Send me an E-mail to sausagemaneric@yahoo.com and I will provide the recipes.

I just looked in my two versions of Rytek's books and for "Cooked Salami" it provides a recipe and for "Cotto Salami" it says to used the Cooked Salami recipe and delete the Cardamon and add nutmeg, ginger, allspice and caraway seed. When I made the "Cotto" from the book I didn't like it as well, I think because of the missing cardamon. Send me an E-mail to sausagemaneric@yahoo.com and I will provide the recipes.

Email sent-thank you

redzed wrote:Well done Pat! It all looks great and I have never tried bear kielbasa, so if you were in the neighbourhood, I would be at your front door at lunch time.

I have recipe for cotto salami used by a well known Canadian sausage plant located on the prairies. My Dad makes it all the time and it's not too bad. When I get home in a month or so, I will post it.

Chris

I know this is an old post red, but could I trouble you for this recipe ?

Thanks,
Wayne

Gray Goat wrote:I know this is an old post red, but could I trouble you for this recipe ?

I know I should have posted that recipe a long time ago, and would gladly do it. However, I am spending a couple of months in the southwest US, and did not bring my notes with me. Sorry, but I can't provide the info until February.

redzed wrote:

Gray Goat wrote:I know this is an old post red, but could I trouble you for this recipe ?

I know I should have posted that recipe a long time ago, and would gladly do it. However, I am spending a couple of months in the southwest US, and did not bring my notes with me. Sorry, but I can't provide the info until February.

No problem Red other than me being a bit envious. I would be some place warmer if I could Enjoy !

I love cotto salami! I've made this Len Poli recipe several times and liked it quite a bit. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cotto.

http://www.lpoli.50webs.com/index_files ... to%201.pdf

Changes I made:
35g salt per 5 lbs meat (I find his recipes are usually on the low salt side for my personal tastes)
Didn't use Barbera wine - used whatever bold dry red I had around at the time - and made sure it was ice cold and added very slowly as I mixed the grind with the seasonings
Whole black pepper
No powdered milk
No ascorbic acid


I tried it once with pure pork. It was good, but I didn't like it as much as with a mix of beef and pork.

Cheers,
Jeff