Summer sausage help!
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Wierd. It looks like maybe 2 things. That looks like oxidized meat, and it only happening after slice tells me that the color hasn’t been firmly fixed, the myoglobin is oxidizing? and changing to look like meat without cure. So, my guess would be:
- Cure#1 sodium nitrate, probably called Sure Cure by Waltons, was not mixed in thoroughly. Looks like some areas didn’t get enough cure to fix theor myoglobin color to pink.
–solution, mix the cure1 with a bit of water first, spread it more evenly thru meat. Mix longer and more thoroughly. - Color weakly fixed. Didn’t use a cure accelerator like vitamin c or sodium erythorbate, whose primary use besides reducing cure time, is to fix the cure color so color degradation doesn’t happen. Waltons sells a vitamin C and citric acid accelerator they call hmm… smoked meat stabilizer or something. I don’t like it as you’re adding straight citric acid, which breaks down protein bonding and is whole reason folks use encapsulated citric acid ECA. But in any case, Marianski says primary use of accelerators commercially is good color fixing.
Just my two guesses, hope that helps? At least you say it tastes good, I just would leave whole until eating then eat quickly before color turn
- Cure#1 sodium nitrate, probably called Sure Cure by Waltons, was not mixed in thoroughly. Looks like some areas didn’t get enough cure to fix theor myoglobin color to pink.
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I made some summer sausage this year. I want some feed back on what may have gone wrong. I’ve made it before using LEM summer sausage seasoning with the Ghost pepper cheese from Walton’s. This time it was waltons H Summer sausage and ghost pepper cheese. I like to mix mine with beer instead of water. It was smoked to 160 internal temp. I made two 25lb batches. It was 80/20 whitetail/feral hog with only the feral hog fat. I like mine to be lean. The summer sausage tastes fine it’s nice and spicy. It looks good upon initial slice. Unfortunately when I slice the whole log and bag it, it’s starts to turn color by the next day! I have eaten some of it and yet to die or get sick!! Can someone please explain to me what I may have done wrong? I doubt there is a big difference between the lem seasoning and Walton’s. They were mixed according to directions stuffed in fibrous casisings and sat in the fridge 24-48 hours prior to smoking. There does not appear to be a difference in either batch. Here are some pictures. 
FXSTBI i would also say lack of proper mixing with sure cure. There was also something else where the cheese affected the protien, i cant quite remember right off hand. However, unfortunately i would not eat it personally.
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Agree with above. Cure not mixed in properly, or as T Williams said, something in the cheese affected it. I mix all my spices and cure (except ECA when I use it) with the water before adding to the meat. I’ve used the cheese on occasion, and never had an issue like that. Are you mixing by hand, or with a mixer of some type?
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I agree with the above comments it just wasn’t mixed enough, when you think you have mixed enough keep going a little more. Under mixing always will cause more issues than over mixing.
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Just as a side note. Do you mix all your spices and cure and water together to make a slurry. It really helps in getting a good mix.
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Just as a side note. Do you mix all your spices and cure and water together to make a slurry. It really helps in getting a good mix.
mdseaside said in Summer sausage help!:
to make a slurry.
A couple of books I have recommend that, but I do not since we didn’t at the meat plant I worked at years ago. I mix to the point of complete protein extraction, so the other than meat ingredients get mixed very well every time.
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Might be worth a try, just saying.
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Just as a side note. Do you mix all your spices and cure and water together to make a slurry. It really helps in getting a good mix.
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mdseaside pretty sure I just poured everything in the meat mixer and mixed till I thought I reached protein extraction.
FXSTBI for what its worth, I mix cure/spices with water and dump over meat. I always make 25# batches so I put half the meat in 2 meat lugs, dump 1/2 and 1/2 of the spice liquid in each tub, mix, then put the two together and mix more
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The amount of cure is so small as compared to the rest of the spices it is almost impossible to get even distribution through out tour meat mix. That is where the water comes into play.
mdseaside said in Summer sausage help!:
The amount of cure is so small as compared to the rest of the spices it is almost impossible to get even distribution through out tour meat mix. That is where the water comes into play.
I believe this to be the case as well. Mixing the small amount of cure with some water will make it easier to get even distribution throughout the entire mix. To a slightly lesser degree, it will improve the distribution of the other dry ingredients as well.
I always put some mix water in a blender, add all the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly to dissolve the soluble stuff and suspend the rest in a slurry. Then add gradually while mixing. -
Whether a small batch or large the ingredients and cure percentages remains the same. If I add 17g of cure and 120g of salt at home or 5lbs of cure and 45lbs of salt to 2,400lbs of meat the percentage remains the same the only difference would be the mixing technique at home compared to the professional.
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You just summed it up in two words “mixing technique”.
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The mixing techniques at a commercial level are much more efficient and thorough than what is available to the average home processor. Probably no real advantage or need for the commercial processors dissolve dry ingredients into a solution.
Paul
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The mixing techniques at a commercial level are much more efficient and thorough than what is available to the average home processor. Probably no real advantage or need for the commercial processors dissolve dry ingredients into a solution.
processhead I agree with what you have said, You just beat me to it.
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I agree to be on the safe side most home processors should premix the cure/spices since most don’t mix as thoroughly. As far as as a home processors equipment it can be done just as well with a stand mixer as I have done for years you just have to be willing to go longer than most are willing to. As far as a difference in commercial equipment the 2500lb mixers that I used commercially were almost identical to the Walton’s 50# mixer I just bought a couple months ago. We didn’t tip the tub over to empty, but instead it pushed through a small door, but the paddle design are really close and from the two batch’s I have done it mixes just as efficiently as I did on a much larger scale.
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I agree to be on the safe side most home processors should premix the cure/spices since most don’t mix as thoroughly. As far as as a home processors equipment it can be done just as well with a stand mixer as I have done for years you just have to be willing to go longer than most are willing to. As far as a difference in commercial equipment the 2500lb mixers that I used commercially were almost identical to the Walton’s 50# mixer I just bought a couple months ago. We didn’t tip the tub over to empty, but instead it pushed through a small door, but the paddle design are really close and from the two batch’s I have done it mixes just as efficiently as I did on a much larger scale.
Here I am using a Kitchen Aid 6.5 qt mixer to do my recent meat sticks. One pic shows the spice, cure mixed in water, and accelerator Vitamin C, 3 tablets I think, ground and mixed in water waiting to go in last.
You can see that 7.3 lbs of meat and water doesn’t really fit too well, it climbed the paddle. The bread hook didn’t work at all, but the paddle did great. I just held a spatula horizontal and kept the meat down in the bowl as it mixed.
Actually I would say the mixing action was better with this than my 20 lb Waltons style mixer, though I do love that one. I decided a 5lb batch would be perfect for the 6.5 qt KA mixer. Also, the 16mm collagen casing from Walton’s held 7.2 lbs, I ended up using 24" of a 2nd stick, which was a pain. -
Here I am using a Kitchen Aid 6.5 qt mixer to do my recent meat sticks. One pic shows the spice, cure mixed in water, and accelerator Vitamin C, 3 tablets I think, ground and mixed in water waiting to go in last.
You can see that 7.3 lbs of meat and water doesn’t really fit too well, it climbed the paddle. The bread hook didn’t work at all, but the paddle did great. I just held a spatula horizontal and kept the meat down in the bowl as it mixed.
Actually I would say the mixing action was better with this than my 20 lb Waltons style mixer, though I do love that one. I decided a 5lb batch would be perfect for the 6.5 qt KA mixer. Also, the 16mm collagen casing from Walton’s held 7.2 lbs, I ended up using 24" of a 2nd stick, which was a pain.Dave in AZ I never found the dough hook to be useful either, but the paddle does very well as you have found also. I think mine is 7 qt and I tried 10lbs once and never did that again, meat was every where. The sweet spot for mine to keep everything clean and where I could walk away from it and mix efficiently was 5lbs.
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