Thanks for all the replies everyone!
Chuckwagon wrote:
"Greasing" (fat melting) in air dried and cooked sausage, can be caused by any of four common mistakes in procedure. First, an unstable meat mix which is low in binding quality is common, as is an excessive heating rate during the cooking process. Another very common mistake is providing excessive fermentation temperature. And finally, the overworking of raw meat in the mixing step may cause greasing. However, I don't really see any signs of this in your product.
What would cause this unstable low binding meat mix?
Chuckwagon wrote:
Just a question here. How much pressure are you using to stuff the casings. Is the meat rather loose?
They weren't so tight the casings would bust but not loose either.. I twisted as I stuffed. The landjager were sort of loose so they would squish down. You think I need to stuff tighter?
Chuckwagon wrote:Fred, you mentioned in your PM that you are also concerned with inconsistent acidification. This is definitely a concern to many sausage makers. Some of the problems causing it are:
1. Inadequate distribution, resulting in hot and cold spots in meat mixture.
2. Inadequate distribution of culture, salt, cure, spices, dextrose.
3. Diverse initial product temperature.
Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon
Thinking about this, the landjager and summer sausage sticks are fine other than a few pockets of emptiness here and there. But no loss of fat, or very very little. The pepperoni and sticks were the problem. The landjager and ss sticks were put in hog casings as well as the pepperoni. The small collagen casings were the worst.
So some things I'm going to try are no water. But does the cure need to be mixed in with say a tablespoons worth of water or is dry fine?
Keeping the mixture cold or very slightly frozen. Is very slight frozen OK when mixing the spices and more importantly the culture?
I ordered some F-LC last night but may try some tsp-x as well. However I think the F-LC can use lower Temps.
It's just really odd that the pepperoni and summer sausage sticks and landjager were made and fermented the same way but yet the pepperoni was leaking fat and water in fermentation and not the other two.