Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

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Scogar
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Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by Scogar » Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:43

Reading through a number of Marianski's Polish recipes, something concerns me and I'm wondering if there's a reason to follow the procedure. Many of the recipes require grinding the meat first followed by mixing the cure and spices into the batter. For example, see https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... licatessen and https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... raditional. So it seems the meat batter is allowed to cure for some length of time as a mass prior to stuffing.

I am distinguishing this practice from that of curing the cubed meat for a few days prior to grinding. But once ground and spiced, immediately stuffing and potentially allowing the cased sausage to sit a day or two prior to the finishing step.

Is there a value in allowing the cure to work in an uncased batter that offsets the difficulty of stuffing? I know once the batter cures it is much stiffer than simple ground meat. I did notice that these two sausages are cased in 60 mm casings. Perhaps the larger diameter casing minimizes the stiff batter concern. Or maybe the process allows a more thorough cure prior to casing that would otherwise not occur if one simply substituted aging in the casing vs aging as a batter.

As Butterbean, Redzed and StefanS have said there really are a lot of nuances that can make a difference and I'm wondering if this is one of them and why
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by redzed » Fri Feb 19, 2021 17:12

Good questions Scott. The two recipes that Marianski provided are from the Polish Government Recipe Book for sausage making plants in Poland in the 1950's. The intention, or should I say directive, was that all sausages were to be made in exactly the same way at each facility. While many of the recipes in the government publications from the Communist era are excellent and we try to recreate them, not all of them can be made at home. The recipes were designed for large scale production using industrial equipment. I looked at both recipes in their original Polish language, and I wouldn't try to follow the processing instructions if I were making them. To begin with, both are dry cured salami type sausages which are now made differently than in the 1950's, and one can can also question whether the Polish authors really knew much about those types of sausages.

What I would do here is pre-cure the meat for 48-72 hours add the spices, grind, stuff ferment at a temp of 68-70 for 48-72 hours, cold smoke and hang in chamber to a weight loss of 30-40%. A starter would assure proper fermentation and add a level of safety.
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by Scogar » Fri Feb 19, 2021 18:01

Awesome advice Chris. Thank you. I have recently joined the Polish side of the site and with 150% reliance on Google Translate I am astonished by the level of skill and knowledge I have found thus far. I don't know that I would ever have been able to determine the distinctions you make above no matter how deep a rabbit hole I ventured down on the Polish site, so I am much in debt to this.

Any advice on the starter? I have three Bactoferm products. F-LC, T-SPX, and M-EK-4. I suspect the M-EK isn't a starter as it claims to be a mold. All are best before 10-2020 but have remained in the freezer unopened to date. I suspect all will work and I imagine I want a slow ferment reather than a hot fast version. I know there's a great deal of info on our side of the site for this so I can research this pretty easily, but I haven't ventured down this path yet. I hope to do so before the weather turns in Atlanta (as I have said elsewhere).
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by Albertaed » Fri Feb 19, 2021 21:27

Good stuff! I’m going to try the Delicatessan pretty soon. That is after I eat 4 keys of salami cotto and 4 keys for Jagdwurst. Keys is street talk for kg in the sausage world :lol: :lol:
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by StefanS » Sat Feb 20, 2021 00:53

Just addition to Chris explanation - Polish government was totally dependent on USSR (Poland also lost most of researchers, professors and scientists during WW II) so many recipes from these documents are duplicates or very similar to Soviet Union directives from 1930-ish. Also keep in mind that these recipes not showing any usage of starter cultures so some extend time was needed to pick-up as more as possible "house flora" even in lower temperatures (used like a safety hurdle). If you check spreadsheet for F-LC then you will see that contains L. curvatus ( it start grow at +4*C (39F). Some from Staphylococcus group will start grow at +2*C ( 36F).
On another hand - there is nothing wrong to prepare batter night before staffing (except some stiffness ) but it is easier when you are staffing in normal room temperature.
About starter cultures - M-EK-4 - old name for Mold 600 (mold starter only).
F-Lc - for your purposes needs very low fermenting temperature (below 18*C (70F) and low dose of sugars.
T-SPX slow working in temp. below/around 20*C, low acidification. Good for Southern Europe style.
IMO - if you are planning to use cold smoke too - I will go with F-LC and 3g/kg sugars. If not smoking- T-SPX and 2 or 3 g/kg sugars.
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by Scogar » Sat Feb 20, 2021 21:16

Thank you Stefan, if I can get this lined up I'll go with your suggestions
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Re: Spice Today Grind Tomorrow

Post by Albertaed » Sun Feb 21, 2021 20:31

I’m planning on making Linguíça do Baixo Alentejo from meatsandsausages https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... o-alentejo
This calls for the same idea for fermentation. Am I correct to say that In either case of putting in the fridge, or using a starter and using a ferment chamber, a PH of 5.3 or lower is still the point in which it can start to be put in the drying chamber?
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