Homemade Sausage Making

Hello, I was wondering if I can hang my cooked summer sausage in my curing cabinet at 58 degrees with a 65% humidity. The sausage has curing salt #1 and as been cooked in my smoker. It seems a bit soft so I was wondering if I can hang it in my curing box?

Thanks

Yes, you can. Especially if you also fermented them to lower the Ph prior to “cooking” them. If they’re not fermented, you could still hang them for a day or so to firm them up a bit, but a lower temperature would probably be advisable.

Agoracritus thanks for the reply.

I do semi dry cured pepperoni similar to what you asked about, but its always either fermented to reduce the pH, or I use encapsulated citric acid (ECA) to reduce the pH. I cook to an internal temperature of about 145º if fermented, or 155º if using ECA. (The melting point of the coating on ECA is variously stated to be anywhere from 135º to 150º, so when I use it, I add a few degrees of margin). I then dry in a chamber at 60º, 75% humidity for about 10 days (~35% weight loss).

For the last couple of years, I've used F-LC culture with 1% dextrose to ferment and "poached" at 145º for 4 hours in a sous vide machine.

I made summer sausage once using the same sort of process, but I don't like the "tang" introduced by the heavily sugared fermentation.

If you have done nothing to reduce the pH, then I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether drying is advisable, but I wouldn't do it.

DHoltgrave wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 03:52

my curing cabinet at 58 degrees with a 65% humidity.

Summer sausage is a semi-dry product, so a period of drying is usually necessary, to a weight loss of anywhere between 20-30%. 58F for a three dys or so should be fine, but if you can lower the temp to 50F it would be a bit better.