Wine in sausage

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Bob K
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Wine in sausage

Post by Bob K » Wed Feb 26, 2014 17:53

This topic about "alcohol in sausage" was split 022814 @12:50 hrs by CW and is a continuation from this link: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/modcp.php?t= ... 4e1da1100a

Those really look good Chris!
I have always loved hunting C.Geese...but never cared for eating them. I wish I had tried sausage.

On the Alcohol that seems to be a problem with sausage making, why not simmer and remove the alcohol from the wine......the taste will remain.
Last edited by Bob K on Fri Feb 28, 2014 21:03, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by sawhorseray » Wed Feb 26, 2014 18:14

Boy howdy Chris, your sausage looks great! I use a whole 750 bottle of ice cold cab when I make my standard 22lb batch of fresh Italian sausage along with a ton of fresh garlic. The one time I smoked some of that sausage it seemed the wine had a adverse effect and kind of over-powered things. Maybe smoke and wine don't mix well? RAY
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Post by redzed » Thu Feb 27, 2014 19:29

Bob K wrote:On the Alcohol that seems to be a problem with sausage making, why not simmer and remove the alcohol from the wine......the taste will remain.
Bob that makes a heck of a lot of sense because that is what we do when we cook with wine. But I wonder whether evaporating the alcohol out of the wine removes the acids as well? I had a similar result with the texture back in Project B1 when I made chorizo with the addition of vinegar.
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Post by ssorllih » Thu Feb 27, 2014 19:35

I believe that ethanol boils at about 175°F so you could heat it in a double boiler arrangement and be certain that you were not over heating it.
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Post by Bob K » Thu Feb 27, 2014 20:06

redzed wrote:
Bob K wrote:On the Alcohol that seems to be a problem with sausage making, why not simmer and remove the alcohol from the wine......the taste will remain.
Bob that makes a heck of a lot of sense because that is what we do when we cook with wine. But I wonder whether evaporating the alcohol out of the wine removes the acids as well? I had a similar result with the texture back in Project B1 when I made chorizo with the addition of vinegar.
Chris-
Ph of alcohol is neutral (7) and contains no sugars so I doubt it will effect the overall Ph
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Post by redzed » Thu Feb 27, 2014 20:50

Yes but wine itself has a pH of 4 or less, therefore high in acid. And I think that not only alcohol but acidity also prevents the meat from binding.
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Post by Bob K » Fri Feb 28, 2014 16:11

Well if you think the acidity is effecting the sausage you could try to use a base like baking soda to lower the Ph of the wine.

On the other hand with fermented sausages the lower Ph seems to firm up and bind the meat.
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Post by Igor Duńczyk » Sun Mar 02, 2014 14:12

Bob, it sounds like you are jumping from A to C without mentioning the importance of B: that the pH drop has to be gradual, smooth and even in order to provide the firmness and binding. If you read Nics´s thread "Oily cacciatore" that seems to be an example of what happens if pH drops too much and too qiuckly: The meat won´t bind at all.

If you allow me to turn the picture around for a moment; it you look at the average pH of typical Central European mold ripened salami from Hungary, Italy or Croatia processed without starter culture then you will find values ranging from just below 6 and even up to 6,5. And nothing is wrong with the binding, firmness OR keeping proprieties of those classical products. The reason for the high pH usually being that after the fermentation and pH drop below the essential 5,3 the prolonged mold activity will will reduce the acidity in the product caused by the lactic bacteria during fermentation. Hence pushing the pH up again. But, as in the meantime water activity has dropped and salt concentration increased, there ain´t much reason to worry about pathogenic bacteria hazards just because of the high pH.
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Post by el Ducko » Sun Mar 02, 2014 16:59

First, some quotes. (Let's see if we can confuse the website's pre-processor! WooHoo!)
Redzed wrote:
Bob K wrote:
On the Alcohol that seems to be a problem with sausage making, why not simmer and remove the alcohol from the wine......the taste will remain.

Bob that makes a heck of a lot of sense because that is what we do when we cook with wine. But I wonder whether evaporating the alcohol out of the wine removes the acids as well? I had a similar result with the texture back in Project B1 when I made chorizo with the addition of vinegar.
Then, Ssorlih wrote:
I believe that ethanol boils at about 175°F so you could heat it in a double boiler arrangement and be certain that you were not over heating it.
Bob K wrote back
Chris-
Ph of alcohol is neutral (7) and contains no sugars so I doubt it will effect the overall Ph
Redzed next.
Yes but wine itself has a pH of 4 or less, therefore high in acid. And I think that not only alcohol but acidity also prevents the meat from binding.
Back to Bob K:
Well if you think the acidity is effecting the sausage you could try to use a base like baking soda to lower the Ph of the wine.
On the other hand with fermented sausages the lower Ph seems to firm up and bind the meat.
Then Igor Duńczyk jumped in with some European context.
As in Clint Eastwood`s famous line, "Go ahead, Punk- - make my day," here`s a bit of punk-level chemical engineering. (Eeewww!)

Ross has it right when commenting on ethanol boiling at a lower temperature than water. Compounds tend to evaporate preferentially in order of boiling point. The lower-temperature ones come off first. (There`s a phenomenon called "vapor pressure"- - when a substance`s vapor pressure equals the surrounding pressure, it boils, displacing the surrounding gas, which in our case usually is air.) Because volatile substances like ethanol/water/acetic acid exhibit some sort of vapor pressure (which you might call, "tendency to boil"), what actually comes off is a mixture of the volatile stuff. The gas that comes off is richer in the more volatile stuff and poorer in the less volatile stuff than the liquid is, which is how distillation works. ...and because a mixture comes off, rather than the pure compounds, distillers often have to use several distillation steps to purify what they really want, avoiding the stuff that they really DON`T want.

...for example, methanol is in that first amount to come over when you distill a fermented beverage, so you normally throw away this "fore cut," even though there is some loss of ethanol. Likewise, the higher alcohols, "fusel oil," come over last if you push it too far and don`t stop collecting the distillation "mid cut" in time. The non-export-grade Russian vodkas used to be that way, and Russian friends have told me that they used to put ground pepper into their vodka to try to absorb the stuff. It`s too bad, because the fusel oil gave the rot-gut stuff a certain flavor that... well... it was good, but what a headache the next day! In a sense, it`s too bad that the FDA or the USDA or whoever is the biggest Big Brother in the alcoholic beverage business these days regulates vodka composition to exclude all the tasty stuff, but then, maybe it`s a good idea after all.

So, back to our thread. Quoting Bob K:
"Well if you think the acidity is effecting the sausage you could try to use a base like baking soda to lower the Ph of the wine.
"On the other hand with fermented sausages the lower Ph seems to firm up and bind the meat."
Sorry, Bob. Adding a base RAISES pH. The definition of pH is "minus log (base 10) of hydrogen ion content," which (if you dig out your old Algebra II book) says that, the higher the hydrogen ion content, the smaller the pH. It`s because of that pesky minus sign. Putting a base into the mixture chews up hydrogen ion, lowering its concentration, which raises the pH. Minus log(10) of 1, which is to say, pure hydrogen ion, would be a pH of zero. At the other end of the scale, minus Log(10) of zero is pretty small, call it 10 to the minus 14.

As to the "fermented, lower ph" bit, I`ll have to refer you to elsewhere in the forum. There was an excellent discussion on protein binding by that master of tall tales and technical technique, Chuckwagon, about how meat binding works. Early on in my participation on this forum, I wondered the same thing- - why adding vinegar to my chorizo resulted in a lack of binding. Try using the site's search function to find the discussion. It's well worth your while.

Seems like the answer by CW (after some technical explanation) and several others about how to tackle the problem was "Well... it just DOES" and "Deal with it." Perhaps the compaction that comes from reducing water content in fermented, semi-dry or dry sausages is what you are thinking of, rather than binding.

At any rate, thanks for questioning. That`s how we all learn. Keep up the good work.
:mrgreen:
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Post by Bob K » Sun Mar 02, 2014 19:03

el Ducko wrote:F

So, back to our thread. Quoting Bob K:
"Well if you think the acidity is effecting the sausage you could try to use a base like baking soda to lower the Ph of the wine.
"On the other hand with fermented sausages the lower Ph seems to firm up and bind the meat."
Sorry, Bob. Adding a base RAISES pH. The definition of pH is "minus log (base 10) of hydrogen ion content," which (if you dig out your old Algebra II book) says that, the higher the hydrogen ion content, the smaller the pH. It`s because of that pesky minus sign. Putting a base into the mixture chews up hydrogen ion, lowering its concentration, which raises the pH. Minus log(10) of 1, which is to say, pure hydrogen ion, would be a pH of zero. At the other end of the scale, minus Log(10) of zero is pretty small, call it 10 to the minus 14.

As to the "fermented, lower ph" bit, I`ll have to refer you to elsewhere in the forum. There was an excellent discussion on protein binding by that master of tall tales and technical technique, Chuckwagon, about how meat binding works. Early on in my participation on this forum, I wondered the same thing- - why adding vinegar to my chorizo resulted in a lack of binding. Try using the site's search function to find the discussion. It's well worth your while.

Seems like the answer by CW (after some technical explanation) and several others about how to tackle the problem was "Well... it just DOES" and "Deal with it." Perhaps the compaction that comes from reducing water content in fermented, semi-dry or dry sausages is what you are thinking of, rather than binding.

At any rate, thanks for questioning. That`s how we all learn. Keep up the good work.
:mrgreen:
Duck you are correct I meant to say raise the Ph :oops: {Which baking soda would do). It seems the abrupt lowering of the Ph is a problem with the wine.
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Re: Wine in sausage

Post by checkerfred » Mon Mar 03, 2014 06:58

Bob K wrote:This topic about "alcohol in sausage" was split 022814 @12:50 hrs by CW and is a continuation from this link: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/modcp.php?t= ... 4e1da1100a

Those really look good Chris!
I have always loved hunting C.Geese...but never cared for eating them. I wish I had tried sausage.

On the Alcohol that seems to be a problem with sausage making, why not simmer and remove the alcohol from the wine......the taste will remain.
The original link doesn't work for me.
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