Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

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Dldalluge
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Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

Post by Dldalluge » Sat Jan 30, 2021 04:25

My family and the rest of our hunting party have been making the same cold-smoked “deer bologna” as we call it for several generations; often making 150-200 lbs each year. The recipe is as follows:

30 lbs of meat/fat (90% venison and 10% beef fat)
8 oz salt
2-3/4 oz. garlic salt
3 oz. pepper
3 oz. mustard seed

The mixture is then stuffed into hog casings and cold smoked for 3-4 days. Its then frozen after smoking. The sausage is eaten raw while still moist, or allowed to dry by hanging out at room temperature for several days. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever become sick after eating this sausage, but I am concerned that we are at risk since there is no cure and the meat is never cooked. I’m even more surprised that there haven’t been any known cases of food poisoning from this sausage as it has often been prepared in a partitioned end of our turkey barns, thus hygiene definitely could have been better.

I’ve researched in books by the Marianski’s, AD Livingston, and Rytek Kutas to find similar recipes. The closest recipes I’ve found are for Landjager and Polska kielbasa wedzona from books by the Marianski’s, and “Old-timey Smoked Sausage” in a book by Livingston. Most of these recipes however also include Cure #1, say that the salt that was used in the past was likely “contaminated” by saltpeter, and/or call for a starter culture.

I’m concerned about the risk with no cure or other method for killing bacteria. My initial thought is to swap out some of the salt for Cure #1 to get to the target of 156 ppm nitrite. I don’t want to considerably change the taste or texture of this sausage that is already well liked by our hunting party, but I would like to decrease the risk of food poisoning. Besides adding the Cure #1, are there any other suggestions on how I might improve the safety of this sausage?
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redzed
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Re: Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

Post by redzed » Mon Feb 01, 2021 17:18

Hi Dldalluge and welcome to the forum. Interesting recipe, but you are definitely right about it's safety. To begin with, I have never come across anything similar. Polska Kiełbasa Wędzona and Landjaeger are not even remotely related and I am not familiar with Livingston's sausage. At the very least, I would definitely start using using curing salt since it is a smoked product. The amount of salt is also very low for something that you are drying. The best advice that I can offer you is to familiarize yourself with fundamental sausage making practises and go from there. There is a plethora of info on this forum, and also here: https://www.meatsandsausages.com/ It also would be a good investment for you to buy a copy of Stan Marianski's Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages, It contains all the info you need to start making sausage safely and a ton of great recipes.
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Butterbean
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Re: Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

Post by Butterbean » Mon Feb 01, 2021 22:54

For what its worth, you say they have made this for generations, it may be that they were using as you said, "contaminated salt containing salt petre". They used to sell this type salt here at the grocer. It came in a 50 lb sacks and is what everyone used to cure their meats. The last bag of this I saw in a store was nearly 30 years ago at a small country grocer who is now closed so I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't what they used .... or maybe everyone has just been lucky since botulism in meat is a pretty rare thing ... although its an very unforgiving thing when it pops its head up. There was a case some years back where a guy took over a smoked fish operation and wanted to avoid using cure since his predecessors hadn't used cure. However, he changed the salt source for some reason and a lot of people got sick. I was also reading some information from the food safety folks in the UK and one of the things they were concerned about was the mindset so many have against using cure when smoking salmon. There concern wasn't with the local salmon since there had never been any incidence of botulism known to exist in these fish but they were concerned with the amount of salmon that is now imported to the UK and the risk this could pose. But if you are adamant about not adding cure then I'd suggest using the rawest sea salt you can purchase and hope it has enough nitrate in it to give you the hurdle you need to prevent botulism but the safest thing is to use a cure as suggested and not take the risk. Personally, I'd add the cure and remove all doubts. JMO
Dldalluge
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Re: Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

Post by Dldalluge » Sat Feb 06, 2021 21:37

Thank you both for the replies! I just finished my first batch with the cure and plan to give it a try in the near future. I don’t have any reservations about using cure, I just think I will have a more difficult time convincing the rest of my community to “change the recipe.”
This research for me all started after my dad passed away and I wanted to try his recipe. From everything I had read, it sounded like we needed to do something different to ensure it’s safety. I appreciate the information! I’ll pass it along to the rest of the guys and hope I can get them to make the change.
My grandpa, uncle, and cousins still like it best after allowing it to dry out at room temperature until it is quite dry. Will the cure still help to ensure its safety during this drying process, or is there still quite a risk of E Coli, salmonella, etc? Thanks again!
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redzed
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Re: Venison Bologna Food Safety Question

Post by redzed » Wed Feb 10, 2021 18:25

There are always risks when we are preapring meats that will not be heat treated. Review this section pertaining to making dried/fermented sausages:
https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... ty-hurdles

Drying sausage at room temperature is always risky. Take a look at recipes for mettwurst. In some ways similar to what you are doing, but the product is refrigerated after the cold smoking.
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