Homemade Sausage Making

Some moose meat ready for the grinder



Grinding



just into the smoker



finished smoking



now just to hang it to dry for 3-4 weeks.


my recipe

Summer Sausage



10 # Meat, 5 lbs venison/moose, 5 lbs. pork
5 TBS salt
2 tsp. cure#1
2 TBS. Onion Powder
2 TBS. Garlic Powder
2 TBS. Black Pepper coarsely ground
1 TBS. whole Mustard Seed
2 TBS. Sugar
2 tsp. Nutmeg
2 tsp. Basil
2 tsp. whole Coriander Seed
1 cup ice water
1 Cup fermento

Grind all meats thru a 3/16" plate. Add spices and ice water. Mix well then regrind thru 3/16" plate. Refrigerate for 48 hrs.
Stuff into cloth casings 4" x20"
Place in Smoker at 130 degrees F. for 2 Hours. No smoke.
turn smoker up to 150 smoke for 4 hrs. with a heavy smoke ( cherry wood)
Increase smoker to 175 and smoke until internal temp is 150, total time in smoker approx 12hrs.
Shower with cold water and hang at room temp for a couple of hours.
Refrigerate overnight. Hang in a cool place 3-4 weeks to dry to your likeing.

Big Guy, That looks fabulous! Thank you for sharing.
P.S. Are you still keeping your grinder clean?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

can you adjust this to make fresh sausage without smoking?What would you remove?

I wouldn't try this mix as a fresh sausage. its formulated to be smoked then dried. I just don't think the flavour profile would work in a fresh sausage. But I could be wrong. The only thing you could leave out would be the cure. try it and tell us how it turned out.

When you say hang for 3 to 4 weeks in cool place do you hang it in a refrigerator or chamber at a higher humidity? Or ? Thanks

Three to four weeks of drying might result in a sausage that can be too dry for for some people. Summer sausage is a semi-dry product, so standard practice is to dry it after smoking for three days at 22-16° C (60-70° F), 65-75% humidity. You can also dry it further to your liking at 10-15° C (50-59° F), 75% humidity. Another option is to cold smoke (temp no higher than 26C, 80F) for several hours after the three day drying period. Smoking will reduce the moisture considerably and by then you will probably have a weight drop of 20%. And semi-dry sausages are air cooled after smoking, that is you don't dunk them into cold water.

what is fermento? substitute?

revid-
Fermento is a whey/skim milk product. Its purpose is to add "tang" to the taste of the sausage. Substitutes you could use are encapsulated citric acid or GDL.
Those are all shortcuts to the traditional method of fermentation to add the tang.

With the fast acting cultures available today you can ferment in 24 hrs without any special equipment and produce a MUCH better tasting finished sem-dry cured product.

A great recipe to start with is here: http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... er-sausage

Thanks Bob K,any online canadian site where I can buy some fermento?By saying "tang" you mean spicey?

revid wrote:what is fermento? substitute?

If push comes to shove look in the Hispanic section of the grocery store and they have dehydrated buttermilk powder. I've used this before and its pretty cheap. Its sometimes around the flours for bread machines. Brand they carry here is SaCo.

I don't believe the "Fermento" you see in the recipes, especially if they originate from Rytek Kutas (he invented the stuff), can be purchased in Canada. You can order it from The Sausagemaker, and they do ship here. And as Butterbean already mentioned, Fermento, for the most part is cultured buttermilk powder. I doubt that too many stores on The Rock would have a Hispanic section, so if you are near a Bulk Barn, you can get some there.

And a word of caution. Stuffers Supply in Langley, which incidentally is where I get most of my supplies, also carries a product called Fermento. This stuff is totally different from what The Sausagemaker sells, in that it is GDL (glucono delta lactone). Bob already mentioned it since it can be effectively used to drop the pH, raising the acidity of the meat giving it that desired tang. And by tang we mean a slightly sour taste. So if you use the Stuffers version you add no more than 6g./kg. as opposed to the Sausagemaker version which is added by the cupful.

Walmart carries cultured buttermilk powder.

I obtain my "Fermento" from Halford Hide in Edmonton, Ab. It works well for my purposes. They have a plethora of spices and information for anyone who may be new to the game. (I am not a schill for them!!!) I have used their products for some 25 years, and have had nothing but the best, in all of quality of product, service and price.

https://www.halfordsmailorder.com/eSour ... lV1BS.aspx

Thanks for that uncle! I've looked at the Halford's site a number of times and have ordered from them, but somehow missed the Fermento!

thanks guys,so if I understand it right fermento doesn't make it "hot" or "spicey" but adds a different "tang" altogether?