Pork butt or pork shoulder

[Rick]

Sausage can be made from any cut of pork. Most of the time pork butt is used because of the meat to fat ratio is just about perfect, However some recipes call for lean pork with a back fat cut in.

As for pH testing and smoking with the UMAi bags.The UMAi bags helps the beginner salami maker, make great tasting salami at home without all the expensive controls and equipment. Remember way back in the day the salumi maker did not have all this equipment, they just used the environment that they had. Cutting the UMAi bag to test for pH, you will loose the integrity of the seal. Yes i know that you can cut the end off a natural casing to test for pH.

You can make dry cured spanish chorizo with the UMAi bag with great results and use just about any recipe you find online or in books. Its a small learning curve but just follow the UMAi instructions and you will be fine.

Smoking?

As of now the UMAi bags are not intended for smoking in a smoker. They will not let the smoke permeate to the meat, If your wanting smoke taste i would suggest adding liquid smoke to the meat mix (no its not bad) just get good LS like from LEM or Sausage Maker.

Cold smoking? Yes you could try it with temps below 80* Here in Florida right now its very hard to cold smoke, soon i’m going to try it around Oct.

Fermenting.

You will need to ferment any of the recipes that you are using that use a Bactoferm product. I guess you could try the smoking in natural casings then un case and seal in the UMAi, I have not done this yet.

If you do some of this please post the process and pics.

I am a full time RV’r so i dont have access to my cure fridge and equipment back up in PA.

Please forgive me if i have overlooked anything.

Good luck and have fun.