Like that tang….

….in your summer sausage? I love a summer sausage with some smack to it and usually the best way to get sausage of this sort is to buy the old fashioned “dry cured” chubs or when making your own sticks by adding encapsulated citric acid to the meat just before stuffing. The citric acid works not too bad if you want to work up a recipe, but that will require several batches of sausage be made. Dry curing requires very stringent control of moisture in the meat, temperature of everything while the meat ferments and also requires the use of live bacteria. In short, dry curing is a royal pain. The citric acid can be a pain too because it requires that the stuffed sausage go immediately into the smoker, fine if you have time.

The concept behind the citric acid is that the coating on the acid itself breaks down and releases the acid into the product as the temperature of the meat increases in the smoker. That coating will dissolve if the sausage gets stuffed and is left to sit for much more than a couple hours and can start turning the stuffed meat a grey color. Not really fun to look at. So while the acid is a way to get you tangy sausage, it also has a learning curve. But there is yet another alternative.

Most summer sausage recipes or seasoning mixes will have what’s called “binder” in it. This is like an edible glue but it also helps hold moisture I the product will being smoked or processed. Lots of recipes either contain dry milk solids [powdered milk] or milk is added in lieu of water during the mixing process. Two birds can be killed with the one proverbial stone if one uses powdered buttermilk instead of binder flour /dry milk product. You’ll get the tasty tang and the benefit of the acid in the buttermilk. A pound and a half of dried buttermilk powder will zest up 50 pounds of meat. Cost for this amount will be about $8.00. Powdered buttermilk products are available in larger grocery stores too so shipping costs can be nixed.

So…..if you like a bit of smack to your summer sausage, try this instead of all the farting around that citric acid and/or dry curing brings with it. Quick, cheap, and tangy….can’t get much better than that eh?

Tom,
I have started using Walton’s Sure Gel Binder to add to my sausage to get a hint of tang to it, also add it to the snack sticks to get that nice snap of the casing when you take a bite!! You are right on the citric acid having a learning curve, I have since went away from using it. Just smoked up 10lbs of hot pepper hi-temp cheese goose snack sticks yesterday along with 5lbs of little smokie breakfast sausage links with shredded cheddar cheese..

Here are a couple pics of the finished product. Just gotta freeze the smokies a few hrs to stiffen up and then vac seal them. The fw really likes the snack sticks along with the venison ones I make. I bought 1 pig last yr for all my processing needs, it’s looking like 1 may need 2 this yr, along with making good homemade bacon, it doesn’t get any better than that.

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That bunch is a tempter Justin. I’ bought all the pork and have beef on hand to do my pepperoni when all the components get here, hopefully by mid-week. I may have a little set back since the doc has introduced me to the “C” word and surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning….sunscreen people!

I thought this was going to be about that good old orange drink the astronauts used to drink.

Thanks for sharing this tip. I hadn’t stumbled on powdered buttermilk.

Alagnak….if you go to this Sausage Maker site and click on the “curs and binders” on the left side of the page you’ll find what is called fermento. This fermento product does the same thing as powdered buttermilk and is in fact nothing more than a dried, cultured, buttermilk. Most all buttermilks sold today are cultured, or created, and all have the sour tang that comes from acetic acid used to start the culturing process. Acetic acid is what’s found in common vinegars. Both acetic and citric acids will achieve the same result but the acetic acid is way easier to use and the solids in the powder are helpful binder elements that assist in making a finished sausage that doesn’t get crumbly while cutting. Too much of the citric acid or citric acid used but incorrectly can yield sausage that crumbles while cutting or the meat itself will appear greyish.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

That bunch is a tempter Justin. I’ bought all the pork and have beef on hand to do my pepperoni when all the components get here, hopefully by mid-week. I may have a little set back since the doc has introduced me to the “C” word and surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning….sunscreen people!

hope all goes well there sir!!!!!!!!!!!