Homemade Sausage Making

I have sliced my first banquet bag cacciatore as it has reached the right weight loss. Flavour is good but the mouth feel of the fat maybe not so nice. The bags were the 50mm size as my first salamis were a bit hard for my preference, and I tried to make this batch with bigger pieces. Will the salami continue to dry and harden now the bag is removed? Chunks of fat along the outside are a little soft. Any suggestions welcomed.
The batch of chorizo from the same date are much slower to dry. Is this because of the paprika content?

Welcome to the forum! When the target weight loss is reached it is an indication that the sausage is safe to eat. As far as personal preference it is something you learn by trial and error or just sampling a section at a time until it is to your liking, then record the % loss for future reference. You would need to re-bag to dry further.

Different formulations can dry at different rates.

Thanks. Ok, I will make sure that the rest dry off a bit longer.

Hi Woylie, and welcome to the forum! Your chunks of fat will always remain soft. Unlike meat, fat contains very little water and it has very little of it to loose. Fat will be more firm when refrigerated but will be soft at room temp, whether it's in a smoked sausage or dry cured sausage. If you have a bit of an aversion to fat, you can reduce the amount, (but don't go below 15%), and grind it through a finer plate, such as 4.5mm. To make sure that the fat will mix with the rest of the ground meat and not smear, cube it into 3cm pieces, add an equal amount of semi frozen meat into it and grind together through the 4.5cm plate. Keeping it very cold, mix this with the rest of the meat that you ground for the cacciatore. That way the fat will be visible like grains of rice in the sausage. It is also important that you attain a good bind, so make sure that your dry cured sausage ferments to a pH of 5.2. Gelation of the salami occurs while the pH of the meat between is 5.4 and 5.2. Even without a meter you will know if this occurred as the sausage will be a lot firmer to the touch. Proper gelation will bind the fat particles with the meat and will result in a better mouthfeel.

Thanks for the tips. I will try some fat and meat ground together next time. You have given me some useful things to consider for my next experiment.