Dried cured sausage seasoning and casings suggestions

[Zupe]

I want to try my hand at making dried cured sausage in my basement this winter. For those of you with any experience, what seasoning blend and casings would you recommend?

[YooperDog]

Zupe I would recommend creating/getting a curing chamber. There is no way to control the temp’s and humidity. My great grandparents, grandparents, etc… did it but your results are inconsistent and could be a dangerous product. Someone always needed to be the one to try the first bite to wait and see if there is a problem.

[banger king]

Zupe, Try UMAI products. This allows for the curing in a frost free refrigerator. The sausage making kit comes with everything you will need to make excellent dry cured salami. I don’t know if Waltons sell the product but easy to find on Amazon. I have had great luck with many varieties of this wonderful product. Try it.

[YooperDog]

banger king my brother has had success with that product, I haven’t tried it myself, definitely another option.

[Mcjagger]

I just started my first 5# batch of UMAI dry cured pepperoni…it just went into the refrigerator today until it loses 35-40% of it’s weight…fun little experiment

[srg158]

My friend uses UMAI and they make for an easy and consistent way to make charcuterie. Probably safer too. Most recipes you find use sodium nitrate (pink curing salt #2) to protect from bad things. There are books on charcuterie you can read, but I never bought any yet. I found a lot of good teaching info on the internet and recipes too. I usually make soppresat and chorizo. We are making lanjaeger and metworst this year after my friend made some smaller batch and it was great. YooperDog and banger king are right in that using a controlled system is better to get good results. I have made a few batches hanging in my garage in the winter. That usually is fine for temperature but I the humidity is uncontrollable. Also, most recipes ferment the sausage before drying/curing. Don’t be afraid to to hang the sausage at room temperature for the period of time the recipe calls for (usually a half a day to a day). Fermenting is also tricky. To do it right people use an instrument to measure the pH to tell when the fermentation is right. Last year I made Chorizo and I over fermented. It had the consistency and sour taste of pepperoni. They were rock hard. Oh and if you decide to use casings Waltons has 2.4x12" salami casings that are pre cut and have a string on one end. They are really nice for this. Good luck!