To cure or not to cure that is the question

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johnn9

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2011
19
10
virginia
Hi Johnn9 Here

newbie to this game as I am  I have a question. I am going to make some venison/pork summer sausage with low melt Cheddar cheese and I will be using the Morton's tender quick in the ingredients. However some recipes call for letting the sausage "cure" in the frig for 24-48 hours b4 you smoke them other seem to go right from the stuffing tube to the smoker. which is correct to produce "safe" summer sausage. also does this type of sausage need to be refrigerated after is cooked/smoked?? 
 
Any sausage that contains Cure #1 and is going to be Low Temp Smoked ( <200*F ) needs 24 hours rest for the cure to do it's job...This time also lets the flavors Bloom...I let every sausage I make rest 24 hours for this reason. Shoot Nepas a PM with your sausage questions, he one of our resident Guru's...JJ
 
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JJ gave ya some good advice there. I'm sure 1 of the resident sausage pros will be along shortly and steer ya in the right direction.
 
According to the rytek kutaz book,  you do not have to cure/season your sausage over night b4 smoking, he also says best to stuff sausage as soon as your done mixing all your ingredients, says if you wait to stuff the cure and binders stiffen your sausage and make it difficult to stuff specially into smaller casings
 
As what JJ said and yes, you will need to refrigerate it for it is a cured sausage only.

Some dry sausages are shelf stable (in other words, they do not need to be refrigerated or frozen to be stored safely). Dry sausages require more production time than other types of sausage and result in a concentrated form of meat. If the product is shelf stable and ready to eat, the product is not required to have a safe handling statement, cooking directions or a "Keep Refrigerated" statement.

Joe
 
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Now everyone has given you some really good advice but I think Craig has the best advice. Read up on curing meats for it can be really dangerous. You might not like the waking up dead part of learning how to cure meats. 
 
Not true

You do not have to cure overnight. Its more of personal preference is all. You can mix, stuff smoke right away.......Hey I'm still kicking, well one of the 3 anyways.....HA

The times when i mix and fridge is because its late or i have other things to do.
 
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Not true

You do not have to cure overnight. Its more of personal preference is all. You can mix, stuff smoke right away.......Hey I'm still kicking, well one of the 3 anyways.....HA

The times when i mix and fridge is because its late or i have other things to do.
It seems to be a big time saver to be able to stuff and smoke it the same day, as long as you get an early start, but like Nepas says sometimes there just isn't enough time in one day
 
According to the rytek kutaz book,  you do not have to cure/season your sausage over night b4 smoking, he also says best to stuff sausage as soon as your done mixing all your ingredients, says if you wait to stuff the cure and binders stiffen your sausage and make it difficult to stuff specially into smaller casings
Kutas is an authority that I would trust and would follow his directions for his sausages. I have not read his books. It is important for Beginners to understand...Each authors recipe you look at determines which direction to go.... I have always taught my students, " Follow the Directions as written, they are the Experts and know why they gave a specific instruction! " If it says," Rest for 24 hours before smoking", there must be a reason. So for Safety Purposes do what it says.

I got to agree with the second part of this statement...I had my Students mix up batches of Kielbasa and Andouille Sausage, we ran out of time and could not stuff until the next day. In the morning we had 10 pounds of set Concrete...Lesson learned there...We stuffed some then the patties made a great lunch...JJ
 
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Kutas is an authority that I would trust and would follow his directions for his sausages. I have not read his books. It is important for Beginners to understand...Each authors recipe you look at determines which direction to go.... I have always taught my students, " Follow the Directions as written, they are the Experts and know why they gave a specific instruction! " If it says," Rest for 24 hours before smoking", there must be a reason. So for Safety Purposes do what it says.

I got to agree with the second part of this statement...I had my Students mix up batches of Kielbasa and Andouille Sausage, we ran out of time and could not stuff until the next day. In the morning we had 10 pounds of set Concrete...Lesson learned there...We stuffed some then the patties made a great lunch...JJ
If you ever get a chance his "great sausage recipes and meat curing, 4th edition" book is one  of my favorites, and I have yet to find a recipe in it that I didn't like
 
 
I have tried it both ways & like to stuff them & let them sit in the fridge overnight uncovered, then smoke them in the morning.
 
Is there a video in the works perhaps?........EH

Mix, stuff, smoke?

WOOOHOOO

JJ has you right though, If you are a new sausage maker and have his book, try to follow it.

Been there.

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