# Didn’t add enough cure



## william white (Mar 16, 2018)

Hey guys. New to the forum and I have a question for a rookie mistake. I got a Hi Mountain Summer Sausage kit to try out and I didn’t add enough cure.  I mixed 5lbs of venison with 2lbs or pork. I added my flavors and 1.5 tablespoons of cure mix from (Hi Mountain Sausage Kit) which is a mix of cure salt, sugar, sodium nitrite (.85%) and caramel color. I realized after casing the meat that I only added 1.5 tablespoons of cure when the package calls for 3 tablespoons. The meat is sitting in the casings in the fridge to smoke tomorrow. My question is: Is this going to be a problem? Is there a way I can save the meat and still smoke it? Or is it a loss and try to redo it?


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## atomicsmoke (Mar 16, 2018)

Take it out of the casing and add the rest of the cure. Mix well and stuff again.


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## tallbm (Mar 16, 2018)

Hi there and welcome!

You don't have to throw it out BUT without the proper amount of cure I wouldn't smoke it the way normal smoked sausage is done.
I personally would just grill them up and eat them like fresh sausages, no harm there.  
I've never hot smoked sausage but some people seem to have done so.  I believe that would be smoking it so it hit 160F Internal Temp (IT) in under 4 hours.
Either way would work.

You may want to consider the fact that your sausage may be bland since you didn't add enough seasoning period.  If your total mix as to be 3 table spoons and you did 1.5 tablepoons, well you are only going to have half the flavor.
In this case I wouldn't cook them as is because they wouldn't have hardly enough for flavor.  

In your situation I would squeeze the meat out, add/mix in the extra seasoning and cure.  I would then form the meat  into a loaf or loaves and smoke with the process you would use regular sausage and then slice the loaf for sandwich meat or cut in big slices that were kind of sausage size.  This would be a middle ground approach to avoid all the rework of stuffing again and you should get great flavors.

I hope this helps :)


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## daveomak (Mar 16, 2018)

tallbm and I were posting at the same time.. He has a good solution also...

Atomic has you covered... 

7#'s X 454 = 3,178 grams weight of the meat....  
0.85% cure in a mix is added at 2% of the weight of the meat, which would be ~63 grams...
If 1 tsp. weighs ~5.5 grams....  then 1.5 TBS should weigh ~....   5.5 gm X 4.5 tsp. = ~25 grams
63 - 25 = ~ 38 grams need to be added....  ~ 7 additional tsp. of the cure mix...     If I did this correctly...
9 TBS. would be ~ 50 grams... 
Is the Hi-Mountain directions for 5#'s or 7#'s...  either way, the 50 gram addition to 7#'s would be "adequate"..  that would render about 120-125 Ppm nitrite...


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## william white (Mar 16, 2018)

The hi Mountain packages cure/flavor up to 15lbs.


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## chopsaw (Mar 16, 2018)

william white said:


> The hi Mountain packages cure/flavor up to 15lbs.


Yes but there is a chart that tells you how much per pound correct ?


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## william white (Mar 16, 2018)

chopsaw said:


> Yes but there is a chart that tells you how much per pound correct ?


Yeah sorry about that. Here is a screenshot of the chart.


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## william white (Mar 17, 2018)

Thanks for the advice gentlemen. I ran the smoker today and here is what the final product looks like.


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## tallbm (Mar 18, 2018)

I'm glad you came out with some success!  Keep it up.


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