Mixing (big?) Mistake
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 23:24
To make a long story shorter: A few weeks ago I made up a batch of Landjaegers, exactly how I usually make them, except that when I took the bowl of freshly ground meat out of the fridge to mix in the culture and dry ingredients, I didn’t notice that some of the ground meat had become partially frozen (that was closest to the cold air circulator) until I was actually mixing it.
At first there were some grape-sized bits of semi-solid clumps that I managed to break down into just a few pea-sized bits. At that point, I didn’t really want to leave the bowl out at room temp, or return it to the fridge (to allow the few small bits to thaw better and remix), and I figured it would “all come out in the wash”, and went ahead and loaded the stuffer and made sausages...
Three days later, when I took them out of the fermentation chamber, it was fairly obvious that I had screwed up. Instead of being uniformly pink, there were noticeable grey spots in the meat.
I thought about just tossing them out, basically because I knew right away that some parts of the sausages weren’t properly fermented/cured, but I went ahead and cold smoked them and added them to my curing chamber anyway, just as an experiment to satisfy my curiosity.
After about three weeks of dry-curing, they are still spotty. Other than that, they look and smell exactly like they should.
I’m not really inquiring about whether or not they will be safe to eat (I’m pretty sure the answer is “no”). The most important initial safety hurdle wasn’t properly overcome (uniform drop in PH), so even if they develop a balanced salt/cure content and proper moisture loss, over time, I’d rather err on the side of caution, and just toss them.
I am curious enough, however, to throw caution to the wind sometimes. Therefore, I am actually still considering sampling them in a few more weeks. Is that a really bad idea?
At first there were some grape-sized bits of semi-solid clumps that I managed to break down into just a few pea-sized bits. At that point, I didn’t really want to leave the bowl out at room temp, or return it to the fridge (to allow the few small bits to thaw better and remix), and I figured it would “all come out in the wash”, and went ahead and loaded the stuffer and made sausages...
Three days later, when I took them out of the fermentation chamber, it was fairly obvious that I had screwed up. Instead of being uniformly pink, there were noticeable grey spots in the meat.
I thought about just tossing them out, basically because I knew right away that some parts of the sausages weren’t properly fermented/cured, but I went ahead and cold smoked them and added them to my curing chamber anyway, just as an experiment to satisfy my curiosity.
After about three weeks of dry-curing, they are still spotty. Other than that, they look and smell exactly like they should.
I’m not really inquiring about whether or not they will be safe to eat (I’m pretty sure the answer is “no”). The most important initial safety hurdle wasn’t properly overcome (uniform drop in PH), so even if they develop a balanced salt/cure content and proper moisture loss, over time, I’d rather err on the side of caution, and just toss them.
I am curious enough, however, to throw caution to the wind sometimes. Therefore, I am actually still considering sampling them in a few more weeks. Is that a really bad idea?