Homemade Sausage Making

I have some saucision sec that will be ready in a few weeks and wanted to add a pepper or roasted garlic coating to the sausage like they do in France. I haven't read anywhere exactly how to do this. I assume it involves dipping the salami in some type of gelantine and rolling it in the herbs. Has anyone tried this or have a process?

Hello Links and welcome to the forum! We are happy to have you here and looking forward to seeing your creations. Your question about getting that pepper crust on sausage is something that always baffles hobbyists. I've also eaten a few heavily herb crusted "Saucisson Sec Enrobé aux Herbes" in my travels to France, but still haven't gotten around to making that type of product. The pepper crusted sausages are now usually made with casings that have the pepper inside. Here Eric demonstrates how to use these prepared casings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6TC7Ls3GkY

You could also use a type of meat glue in the process, where you roll the sausages in the pepper or herb mix after drying. When reading the ingredient list of some of the French crusted saucissons, they include "edible coating". That could be transglutaminase, gelatin, carrageenan or something else used by the meat industry. In this video a homemade meat glue is compounded and it's probably worth a try.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iPuMGPSdNQ

Interesting videos. I don’t think I want to put corn syrup on salami. I remember to talking to a Swiss sausage maker once during a Christmas market who told me he used gelatin. I told him I didn’t think gelatin alone could hold the spice. Before he could elaborate he got really busy selling to a bus load of people that came to his stall. It’s strange that none of the sausage making books cover this topic. I think I might do some experiments with herbs, pepper, and toasted garlic using gelatin alone and with some kind of compound.

You are quite right about the lack of info in publications on this subject. None of the popular charcuterie books discuss the method nor are there any recipes available. I further searched through professional meat science literature and found nothing of value. None of Fidel Toldra's volumes even touch on the subject and there's no mention of it in the 1,600 page Encyclopedia of Meat Science. Gerhard Feiner in His manual Salami: Practical Science and Processing Technology makes only a passing reference to spice coated casings. And here is a quote from The Meat Processors Journal, Vol. 2 DRY AND SEMI-DRY SAUSAGE PRODUCTION :

In recent years, spice-coated casings are
becoming more readily available to the processed
meat industry. The spice range also has grown
over the years, now making a variety of more
than 100 standard spices available in the casing.
Prior to the availability of spice-coated casings,
processors were left with primitive coating methods
such as the removal of the traditional casing,
dipping the sausage in a gelatin dispersion and
coating the sausage surface with the selected
spice blend. This methodology raises food safety
concerns. Therefore, the spice-coated casing
utilizes sterilized spice blends (as is typically used
in the production of sausage) and the product
goes through other food safety parameters to
ensure the production of a safe processed sausage
batter. The casing is then easily peeled off
from the finished sausage, and the spice layer
remains fixed on the surface of the product. Since
the spice particles are deeply embedded in the
surface of the sausage, sausages can be sliced
without removing the spices.


The use of pre-seasoned casings is now widespread in the industry and I am inclined to think that most of what is today available in French Charcuterie shops is now made using that method. If you open up the link here you will see therange that Wiberg has to offer.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... lJ5kTM0DRy

The Wiberg product line is great. My needs are small so I’ll focus on finding a gelatin dispersion to adhere the different coatings.

Please post the results of your experiments. I'm very much interested in seeing them.