Thread: Home made sausage

if you want to go skinless, wander on over to YouTube, and look for
"cevapcici jedan"

I would have posted the link, but being a newbie, I'm not familiar with the Forum's policy.

Grill on a BBQ, then serve on a bed of raw chopped onions.

Enjoy!

Doc,
I’ve been making salami, Salumi, and sausage most of my life. It’s a family tradition that probably dates back to Poggioreale, Sicily for my family. But anyway, we use old refrigerators fitted with thermostats, one for cold and another for hot. Saltpeter is a must if the you intend the meat to stay red/pink, and gray meat tasks good it just isn’t as appealing to look at, and plus you must watch your product for the bad signs(i.e. bad bacteria.) Always test out your product on yourself and wait before feeding it to others, and this is when a saying”When in doubt throw it out” comes into play.

I believe there’s a gentleman named Len Poli who used to maintain the best website for traditional cured meats making in my opinion. Google his name and you should find his site, if it still exists. We make Luzinu or Lozino(salumi), sausage, and type of genoa salami( which we call brandy salami.) Plus, if you really get into it; you’ll want to get a sausage stuffer, because… well you’ll figure it out. Once you make pastrami you’ll never want to eat store type again. I hope that you enjoy your journey it’s really a blast. I hope this helps.
Salumi(Whole pieces of meat in casing)
Salami( chopped/grind meat in casing)

any chance of a pic of you frig rigs? where are you pipeing the smoke in?

Doc,
I'll take a couple of pictures of the refrigs next time, I'll head over to my Dad's. The hot refrig. is not a true smoker, we tried that but it was really difficult maintaining a constant temp days on end. Instead, it's a hot plate wired into a thermostat, which you can buy McMaster-carr or a local brew your brew store, inside a old commercial refrig. The vents on the refrig took a couple of trys to get the placement right. I will head over to my Dad's house this week and take a picture, so it's a little more clear what I'm talking about.

you were talking about making yourself sick once any thing I should be looking for in hard sausages. I have saltpeter and frementor any other things to watch? oh and just got this for Christmas.
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...set=ISO-8859-1

Well, The best precaution is keeping a really clean site in the prep side of making cured meats. Wipe your counters down with bleach solution, and sterize all of your knives, spoons, and wear a hat/hairnet. That's the best way too keep safe. Know your recipe inside and out before you start. Do a mental dry run, because if have to stop that what leads to: placing a spoon,knife, or utensil down on a "dirty site" which a place where you haven't done a bleach solution. Heck if you have a restaurant supply house around pick up some vinyl gloves or just wash hands like a surgeon.

My "sick" situation came from when the power went out at my Dad's house and the salami final stage went too high in temp(couple of days.) We knew something was wrong and were checking out the salami( smelling it and feeling it), I made the mistake licking my hands. I knew I had made a mistake as a did it, my Dad said "Don't!" but it was too late. He licked his hand and said "We'll go together or somthing like that." The salami smelled bad. Smell is the real key. Bad bacteria is black with red outlines, but not all black bacteria is bad. Really go over Len Poli's site, and I remember he had some shots of bad bact. Salami, bread, and cheese is really just a battle of good bacteria over bad bacteria, and the maker just stacks the deck in the good bacteria's favor. If that makes sense. My mistake was pure stupidity, not thinking. But when you have 5 months of time invested in a Salami you just make sure it's bad before you throw it away, I just should've not made that mistake. I won't ever to do it again.

That looks like a great grinder, and Cabela's stuff is good. We use a commercial hand grinder, and I'll take some photos of that also. You'll have a blast making salami, it's a blast. Keep things clean and your salami will be fine. Also, later on you may want to buy Prague powder, I think there's a number 1 and number 2. Buy the number 2.

yeah I have some #1 and #2 for different things and the fermento. I ordered it all off line. who do you guys order from. I have used this website.

The Sausage Maker, Inc. - Sausage Making Equipment & Supplies - Cures & Cultures

You could experiment with personal tastes and preferences indefinitely on recipes, we like garlic and jalepeno, you would just have to experiment based on your personal likes.
Nice looking little grinder from Cabelas, looks like it has a stuffing tube but you will probably find that it takes a while, you may just want to get a stuffer. Not sure what you have up there Doc but if like many places you have a local volunteer fire department and if you know someone in there they probably have a nice stuffer that, if you can borrow you will find, will make things a lot nicer for you. Enjoy. Sounds like you are already.

Originally Posted by Doc

yeah I have some #1 and #2 for different things and the fermento. I ordered it all off line. who do you guys order from. I have used this website.

The Sausage Maker, Inc. - Sausage Making Equipment & Supplies - Cures & Cultures

I'm not sure where my Dad buys it now, I know the last time it was a large amount from an online source. In the past(before the internet) we used to go to Compound Pharmacies and ask for them to mix up a ratio. Thank you for the website, I'll tell my Pops about The Sausage Maker Inc, he also loves perusing new places.

heres another I use

Butcher & Packer