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!
Are these casings OK
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Found a local meat market willing to sell hog casings. They do quiet a bit of sausage themselves. I put the casings in the pre-soak and it looked like they had tentacles coming off them. Maybe 1/2” long floating from (but still attached) to the casing. These casings are preloaded on a sleeve. I’ve got everything ready to go. Sure don’t look like the videos I’ve watched.
Any one got any thoughts? -
denny66 Yeah, they are called whisks or whiskers I think and they aren’t a problem, as far as if they are good other than that I don’t know but I’d assume if they are making their sausage out of the same stuff that you would be ok! I believe most of the ones you get from a company that processes these professionally will either trim them somehow or turn the casing inside out so they don’t show. You are good to go!
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Thanks again for your help. This type of stuff is the reason I tend to start off my post (questions) with “I’m new at this” etc.
I had decided to go ahead and stuff a little bit a see what the final product looked like with all those things sticking out. After doing so it didn’t look near as bad as it did when the casings were still on the sleeve.
Again Thank You for you help. Between the videos and this community Walton’s has really helped me.
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