Seasonings

[scott williams]

I have a question about my left over seasonings, once opened how long will they be good for? I have a vacuum packer so I can reseal them and should they be refrigerated? The seasonings in question are the jalapeño and cheddar cheese summer sausage blend. I noticed on my second time making the sausage that the texture was different ( not as good as my first time ) making it, does this come from over mixing or under mixing

[Jonathon]

scott williams What was wrong with the texture? Was it too coarse or too smooth, almost like a hot dog? Under mixing it will normally cause 2 issues.
First, the fat, meat , additives and water will not bind and if you are smoking them at lower temperatures for long periods of time the fat will render out of the meat and you will end up with a dry product. If you overmixed it (it is possible) you can end up with an odd texture as well, sort of seems rubbery if this happened.

I’m not sure about your seasoning as it doesn’t sound like one we carry, or maybe you meant the Jalapeno Seasoning and you added Hi-Temp Cheese? For Excaliburs, you could reseal it (vacuum packer is ideal) and store it in a cool dry place like a pantry and get another year out it. This is assuming that it was not introduced to a lot of moisture when you opened it previously.

[scott williams]

Jonathon it is jalapeno seasoning and added Hi temp cheese. I only made a half batch of sausage this time
because a full batch is hard to mix in my mixer. I will vacuum pack the rest of my seasoning and store it in the pantry. As far as the texture goes it seemed to be a little dry, not as appealing to the tongue, when I made the sausage I used 10lbs of venison 2.5lbs of pork fat and I cut all of the seasonings in half using tablespoon and 1/4cup measurements and 1 quart of water, when I smoked the sausage I started 120deg. For 1 hour 145deg. For 1 hour 175 deg. For 2 hours and then 190deg. Until temperature got to 160deg. The only thing I changed is I added a little more cheese than before, not sure what I did but it is different. Any other idea’s. Thanks for your help.

[Jonathon]

scott williams First, I’d recommend you use a binder like Sure Gel or Super Bind or a moisture retender like Carrot Fiber. This is always the first thing I recommend when someone has an issue with the texture of their sausage.

Your fat content is correct and it sounds like you used the correct amount of seasoning. 190° is a little higher than I would recommend, but we have all been there when it’s just taking too long so you dump it a little more than you really should! I don’t think that is the issue but check out this post titled Summer Sausage Nightmare specifically Parksider’s response to finishing it up in water. It’s a good tip and I am going to be doing some tests on it here to verify a few things.

What I think probably caused your issue was the mixing in some way. When adding pork fat to your venison I think the best time to add it is during the second grind, it’s possible that your fat didn’t really mix in well with the venison, that would explain why it seemed dry even though you had the correct fat content.

It also could have been lack of protein extraction, I looked through your posts and can’t tell if you have a mixer or are mixing by hand? With cured sausages, I always recommend using a meat mixer as getting the right level of protein extraction. I am guessing that you had some fat out where the fat renders and cooks out of the product.

Hope this helps!