This may seem like a silly question, but I'm feeling a little puzzled and having trouble finding information on this question: when we add salt (NaCl) to the meat and mix and proteins are extracted giving us the bind we desire, is it the sodium that's doing it, or the NaCl?

The reason I ask is...

Pretty much every recipe I see for beef sausage seems to include pork fat. I have people ask me for all-beef sausages, but I've read that beef fat behaves differently than pork fat once cooked and gets quite greasy and leaks. I don't want to use any binding agents if I can avoid it. A supplier near...

Hello, I am new to this forum and dry curing. I am have enjoyed reading this forum to learn about the process. I have made bacon and pancetta in the past and now have my first coppa drying in Umai bags in the fridge. My question concerns cure #2. I have 2 different cure #2s, one contains 1% sodium...

In curing whole-muscle cuts, I noticed that some recipes (e.g., the coppa and bresaola recipes on meatsandsausages.com) call for adding half the cure/spice mixture at the beginning of curing period, and then adding the other half roughly mid-way through the curing period. In that Italian
video...

I love pastrami but not the salt laden leather sold in grocery stores.

Traditional pastrami (ie. Katz) is made from beef navel. I have not been able to source beef navel at a reasonable price, so I've experimented with several cuts. Many use brisket, but I find the flat too lean. The point is...

Good Evening Smokers.

First post with a question and thank you in advance for your help!!

I want to learn to smoke bacon and sausage and I have been doing a bunch of reading on the topic before I jump in. For the most part I think I understand the need to use cure when smoking (to prevent food...

I made my first run of frankfurters this past weekend. I was very excited and looking forward to putting the bowl cutter through its paces. I read all that I could and was really aware of how my meat batter needed to remain really cold and when emulsified that I had an upper limit on my temp or...

Does anyone have any hints or tricks for this? I tried using lime juice once for a recipe but predictably it ended up mealy. I've tried using lemon extract but it seems to give a weird consistency to the sausage. Twice now I've used extract and the meat didn't behave like it usually does. It was...

Hello guys! Well... as the subject says.

I have made 7 batches of fresh sausages and they all have ended up dry and crumbly. Last week I wanted to try a Kielbasa recipe. After a month struggling to find the marjoram I got the meat and set everything up. Ground the meat, mixed it , stuff it, smoke...