Smooth acid with h summer

[Jonathon]

Did a batch for the reshoot of the how to make summer sausage. Couldn’t get it in the smoker until about 330 so I had to leave and come back to get it out of the smoker. Guys…it’s the best summer sausage I’ve ever made. 60 40 pork to beef H Summer Sausage Seasoning, smooth acid, cheddar cheese and oh my god it’s so good!

[Jonathon]

Though I guess I just called myself out for bringing a log home…I had a good reason though! I didn’t get the chance to bloom the ones I left at work, so I wanted to bloom one and look at the difference.

[bocephus]

Jonathon It looks pretty good from here.

[Jonathon]

bocephus little wet for how I would normally do it but like I said, the end of this got rushed, not as much drying time as I’d normally get on it

[calldoctoday]

Jonathon & it looks great too. I am going to have to try it.

[Dave in AZ]

Jonathon great to hear, looks yum! I just got a box of goodies from Waltons with some of the H summer sausage blend, based on what you and Austin said on last live chat. Can’t wait to try it!

Also got a great Walton’s cutting board today, thanks!

[wdaly]

Jonathon It looks amazing.

[Grimpuppy]

What is “smooth acid”?

[dawg]

Looks great! Remember to share with the rest of the employees. I am sure they have been working hard getting all those orders out!

[John Belvedere]

Jonathon, that looks great! Did you finish in Sous Vide or go all smoker? If Sous Vide did you pasteurize at 155 or did you go to 160-165 ? What is smooth acid!

[Jonathon]

John Belvedere Nope, I used to the smoker than can control humidity for that one. I have another batch in the Lousiana Smoker right now that I am going to pull at 130° and finish in the sous vide cooker. We will see if that is as good as last nights.

Grimpuppy Smooth Acid is a replacement for Encapsulated Citric Acid for people who don’t want as much of a tang but still want some pH drop and cure acceleration.

Here is something interesting though, I forgot the log at home so I will bring it back to verify but I “think” the ones that went almost right from the smoker to the cooler (no 1-2 hour for blooming) look similarly pinkish red as the one I took home last night and bloomed…I am probably wrong though cause that really wouldn’t make sense. I will remember to bring that log back after lunch and will update!

[Dave in AZ]

John Belvedere
Grimpuppy
Smooth Acid Blend is a blend of trehalose, Encapsulated Lactic Acid (ELA) Encapsulated Citric Acid.
I’ve been posting about it for a couple months, it is the only way Ive found to buy ELA in retail amounts. And the lactic acid is a way smoother more mellow tang, and is of course the actual acid produced when fermenting Summer Sausage, so much more true to taste than ECA.

I was able to source ELA from two large chemical suppliers, but in 50kg minimum and needed my LLC to do it.

If you search my posts and ELA or Lactic, you’ll find a few writeups using it for Taylor Pork Roll. Also using it for pepperoni, SS, really anything you want to just chemically acidify instead of doing a real ferment.

[gus4416]

Jonathon that sure is some good looking SS

[Jonathon]

So, the lack of blooming on the majority of the summer sausages had no noticeable effect with color. Few other notes the Smooth Acid states that it will get 25 lb of meat down to 4.9 pH. After testing it and talking to VP of Sales we have taken that off the website as there are too many factors to make that statement. The one with Smooth Acid had 40% beef and cheese and was 5.4 pH where as the all pork Encapsulated Citric Acid was down to 5. Interesting that the color didn’t change from blooming to no blooming…I have more testing to do.

[Ken1261]

Looks great.

[Grimpuppy]

So I have been using smoked meat stabilizer as an accelerator since I really dislike the tang. Any advantage to smooth acid over smoked meat stabilizer? My summer sausage is vac sealed and then frozen, so shelf life isn’t really a driving factor for me.

[Dave in AZ]

Grimpuppy
Nope, not unless you want acid tang. The purpose of smooth acid is not an accelerator, that is just a side effect. The purpose is to add lactic acid and citric acid yourself to get a fermented sourness tang, without fermenting.

Talking about Smooth acid blend, or even ECA, as accelerators, is like talking about gasoline as a good cologne for men who like cars… yeah, it has that random side effect, but is not in any way the intended purpose. Sodium Erythorbate, erythorbic acid, sodium ascorbate, Ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and plain citric acid are all cheap accelerators that are used in minute quantities. ECA and ELA are specifically coated in palm oils to attempt to isolate the acid exactly so it doesn’t react! It only happens to act as an accelerator because the palm coating is fragile, gets broken off the acid, and you put a boatload of it into sausage, so of course some of the acid is unfortunately exposed despite trying hard to prevent that. Their entire intended use is to delay chemical acidification of meat until after 130f when protein bonds have set from cooking, so the big rapid addition of acid doesn’t denature the meat and make it crumbly. And if you’re using it anyway to get a fermentation sourness simulation, well then it’s good to know it will also happen to act as an accelerator for sodium nitrite cure and you don’t need to add a specific accelerator.

Smoked meat stabilizer is:
INGREDIENTS:Dextrose, Salt, Ascorbic Acid (6.24%), Sodium Citrate (3.12%).

So just sugar and salt, and a bit of vitamin C ascorbic acid as an accelerator. Sodium citrate is just the salt of citric acid, it has 3 sodium ions, one or 2 of which will dissociate in water and neutralize other acids, acting as a buffer. Not sure why you’d add that, as vitamin C and sodium citrate are just 1/2 gram per kilogram meat.

So basically it’s just pure accelerator, and if you don’t like acid tang, it’s definitely what to use instead of ECA, or Smooth acid ECA/ELA blend.

[cdavis]

Jonathon looks great

[cdavis]

Dave in AZ congrats on the cutting board. Well deserved .

[cdavis]

Dave in AZ great explanation . Thank you for that writeup.