Casings for Dry Curing Salumi / Sausage

When it comes to making sausage and salumi at home, you only need three things:

Meat + Casings + Time

Ok, you might need a bit more than that, but not much. Making sausage and salumi at home is easy, fun, and will save you lots of money. Not to mention you can create whatever flavors you like best!

Most people start out with a kit, for example the 50mm Sausage Making Kit, which comes with everything you need to make your favorite sausage or salumi. Paired with one of our traditional salumi spice blends, the UMAi Dry cure system is the easiest way to make homemade sausages and salumi.

Of course, you don’t have to purchase a Dry Sausage Making Kit to make delicious dry cured salumi and sausage at home. You can buy all your dry curing components separately. Find everything from the dry curing casings in 3 sizes:

30 ft. x 32mm diameter for 12-15 lbs. of sausage
30 ft. x 50mm diameter for 25-30 lbs. of sausage
15 ft. x 70mm diameter for 25-30 lbs. of sausage

Sure, there are other sausage casings on the market, but UMAi Dry offers product support directly through umaidry.com/help, which is an invaluable resource for first time salumi makers. There is also an exclusive Facebook group so you can crowd-source anything from tips and tricks, to recipes and recommendations. Help and support for any of your dry aging or dry curing projects is never more than a click away.

DrybagSteak has been in the dry age meat business for over 15 years, and our dry sausage casings for making cured sausage and salumi at home are the best on the market. Whether you want to explore the finer flavors of traditional meat preparation or are looking to impress guests at your next holiday gathering, it’s easy to get great results dry curing your own meats at home.

The process of dry curing meat is very simple, but understanding the science and logistics of the process will improve your experience. Let’s review an overview of the steps to making sausage at home. Remember to read and follow the detailed steps in your instruction booklet.

Step 1: Purchase a Meat Grinder

There are many great brands of meat grinders for making dry sausage at home on the market. Two of the best brands of grinders for quality dry sausage making are Chef’s Choice Grinder and LEM Big Bite Grinder. The Chef’s Choice may have a bit more trouble with large chunks of par-frozen pork shoulder and pork fat. Because of this the Chef’s Choice is recommended as a powerful starter grinder, while the LEM Big Bite is ideal for big sausage grinding jobs.

Once you have selected a grinder for your dry sausage making, the next step is making your sausage!

Step 2: Prep the Meat

Start with selecting the type of dry sausage you would like to make. For Mettwurst sausage,  start with UMAi Dry 50mm Casing Kit which come with everything you need, including the Bactoferm T-SPX Starter Culture, 50mm casing, and zip ties to seal casings.

Next, source your meat and fat (usually 5 lbs worth), wooden paddles, meat grinder with a large plate, and a 5-7 lb manual sausage stuffer to preserve the texture of the sausage. You’ll also need a digital scale if you will be weighing your own salt and Instacure #2. To make curing flavorful sausage easier try an UMAi Dry Sausage Spice Blend and the UMAi Dry Curing Salt Blend that has just the right proportions of ingredients for curing.

Start by par-freezing the meat to get a clear, crisp grind. Put the crispy, cold meat through a large grinding plate for well-defined particles of meat to ensure the highest quality fermented dry sausage experience.

Step 3: Spice it Up

Create the flavor of traditional salumi with a premixed spice blend or by following a recipe for traditional salumi.

Step 4: Stuffing the Sausage Casings

Now that the meat is prepped and seasoned, let’s talk dry sausage stuffing.

We cannot emphasize this enough–never stuff with a mixer attachment.

It is absolutely essential that you use a dedicated stuffer for dry sausage. As sausage attachment on a kitchen mixture will destroy your carefully created particle definition. Safe, successful fermentation and drying will be impaired. You will not have that beautiful stained glass appearance to the finished product.

Step 5: Fermentation Timeline

Upon stuffing, the ausage will start out as a greyish color. Hang in a protected room temperature area for 24-72 hours. You should notice the color change, or “blush,” from a slight pinke to a bright red. Once you notice the color change, but no longer than 72 hours, you can presume that fermentation has lowered the pH into the range of 5. This is the target. Once you see evidence of fermentation, or 72 hours has passed, place the chubs on an open wire rack or hang with excellent air flow in a modern frost-free fridge to dry.

UMAi Dry offers a wide range of traditional fermented dry sausage Spice Blends for 5 pounds, as well as Pre-mixed Curing Salts Blend. You will also find a wide range of recipes on our recipe page andon our YouTube channel. Soon enough you will be expertly drying sausage at home and impressing your friends with its high-quality taste!

How to use dry curing salumi and sausage casings

Do I need a vacuum sealer to seal sausage casings?

UMAi Dry Salumi or Sausage Casings do not require use of a vacuum sealer.