Summer Sausage without casing
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Hello all, im new to the site. I tried my hand at making summer sausage around Christmas and am very happy with the results. I have just been making small batches (5#) at a time, mixing byu hand and smoking it on my Traeger pellet grill. I use 3-3.5# venison and then mix in Italian sausage(cut casing off) and mix in Morton tender quick and other seasoning that i found off the internet. I usually leave in fridge for 3 days, mixing morning and evening. Before i put on grill i have saran wrap and roll out 1# at a time to make a decent looking log roll and then take wrap off and smoke til internal temp is 160. Again I am very satisfied with the results. I ordered some High Temp cheese and the Jalapeno summer sausage seasonings to try. My question is that the seasoning package will mix up to 25# of meat and the sure cure package which I believe is 1 oz. What if i only want to make 5# of this? I know i can do the math and figure it out but my concern is with the sure cure, 1 oz divided by 5 is very little. So, can i just use the Jalapeno seasonings which i believe would weigh out to be about 34 ounces and add Mortons tender quick cure? As i get everything fine tuned im gonna start making bigger batches as i will be getting a grinder, casings, accessories to do it more professional. Thanks for your info.
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im sorry seasoning for 5# would weigh to be 0.34 oz.
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Jonathon Team Blue Admin Walton's Employee Power User Kansas Dry Cured Sausagereplied to Bluemtnman on last edited by
Bluemtnman Glad to have you on the board! For your sure cure question the 1 oz packages have 6 teaspoons of cure per package so if you were to use 1/5 (for 5 lb of product) then you should use just over a teaspoon. If you are using https://www.waltonsinc.com/jalapeno-summer-sausage as your jalapeno summer sausage that is 1.5 lb of seasoning for 25 lb of meat. So for a 5 lb batch you would divide the 1.5 by 25 to get the amount of seasoning per pound of meat which is .06 of a lb and then multiply that by the number of lb you are using which would be 5 in this case which gives us .3 lb or 4.8 oz.
The Sure Cure is a different product than the Morton’s Tender Cure, the Sure Cure only needs to be held for 12 hours before smoking,. I don’t use the morton’s tender quick cure but I do know that it has different usage rates and I think hold times as well. So my recommendation to you would be to use the sure cure (1/5 of an ounce for 5 lb) and follow these instructions (https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/208/how-to-make-homemade-summer-sausage-recipe) just skip the stuffing part as you are not making a stuffed product.
Let us know if you need anything else!
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Jonathon
Ok great , thanks for the info. So is it ok to leave in fridge for a few days after mixing before I put on smoker? I don’t plan on using the accelerator. As far as adding the cheese, if I do leave in fridge should I go ahead and add cheese then or add right before I roll it up and put on smoker? -
Jonathon Team Blue Admin Walton's Employee Power User Kansas Dry Cured Sausagereplied to Bluemtnman on last edited by
Bluemtnman If you are using the sure cure then do not hold it for a few days, hold it for 12 hours only then move it to the smoker. Holding it much longer than that and the cure will no longer be effective. The cheese would be okay if you were holding it for 12 hours for sure. Since we don’t use the Mortons Tender Quick (which might have a longer cure time) so I am not sure if the cheese would cause a problem or not. I tend to think that having the cheese in the meat for 3 days (even in the fridge) with a slower acting cure might cause a problem but I’m not 100% sure on that.
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Wow, I didn’t realize that. I had the thought process that the longer it set the seasonings would have longer to work into the meat per say like marinating. Again Thanks for the info
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Jonathon Team Blue Admin Walton's Employee Power User Kansas Dry Cured Sausagereplied to Bluemtnman on last edited by
Bluemtnman That’s what we are here for, and like I said the Morton’s might have different properties but with Sure Cure or what alot of people call pink salts 12 hours is ideal, 18 is starting to push it but by 3 days the cure would no longer be viable. If you make it and it turns out good take pics and post them!
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1 ounce sure cure equals 28 grams Divide by 25 lbs ====1.12 grams per pound. I use little digital scale … all waltons packages come with"x " amount of seasoning for 25 or 100 lbs meat batch… to get grams per pound Take “x” times 448 then divide by 25 … or 100 depending on size unit you bought…so for example if it’s .5 lbs for 25 pound (.5 x 448)/25 =8.96 grams/ pound… peace
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Bluemtnman If you’re using a seasoning blend it’s definitely best to use pink salt instead of tender quick - here’s why -
Tender quick is mostly salt with 0.5% nitrate and 0.5% nitrite, their package calls for 1 Tablespoon (3 Teaspoons) per lb of meat.Cure #1 is also mostly salt, but is 6.25% nitrite and calls for 1 Teaspoon per 5lbs of meat (or 0.2 tsp per lb of meat)
If you used tender quick AND a seasoning blend it’s gonna be way too salty!
Plus, depending on what you’re making with your spice blend, pink salt gives you the option of using cure #1(nitrite) for quick cure items like snack sticks & summer sausage (nitrAte is not usually needed for these items, but there might be times you would want to add it) or cure #2(nitrate) (nitrAte converts to nitrite over time and acts as a “time release” cure) for long cure items like prosciutto, pancetta & fermented sausages like salami etc…
Best of luck!
