Salt ine recipe for Venison salami

[andrew barnes]

Hi!! I just discovered Umai dry site a couple three weeks ago and ordered a 50mm kit with some spice packets. I made two 5lb batches. one venison salami and one sopprasseta. I followed the Umai recipe exactly and hung the sausage to ferment. Afterwards, while going over Umai’s Venison recipe, I thought about the salt content Umai stated and it was 40 grams kosher salt to 5lbs of meat. That is only @ 1.8% (5lbs = 2250 g X .018% = 40.5g kosher salt) which is contrary to Umai’s recommended 2.5-3.0%….So…I don’t understand that at all. Am I still safe?
I also made a 5lb sopprasseta using Umai’s spice packet and 40g kosher salt. The book “Charcuterie” by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn use 40g Morton Kosher salt for their dry cured sopprasseta sausages so I figured it was okay to do so. I fried up a tiny piece and it was quite salty at that percent.
The sausages have been fermenting for 48 hours now. They look okay, bags are clinging to meat and getting that crinkled look and they smell good..although the sopprassetta does not look as reddish as the ones in Umais videos. Not sure why that is but I did add 1/2 tspn/2tblspn water starter and 1tspn cure #2 and mixed meat till tacky. I didn’t want to over mix and ruin that look of a traditional sopprasseta. The sausage didn’t have that tan color from the spice mix either. Again I am puzzled but at the same time I feel confident in these sausages. Any input or concerns from yall would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Jim]

The venison sausage recipe was one of the first recipes we developed and it does have a lower salt content than we started recommending in later recipes. Even if you put 1.8% salt into the formulation, your finished salt content will be close to 3%. The 5 lbs (2250g) will be dried down to 3 lbs (1350 g) after 40% of the weight evaporates. Thus to 1350g of finished sausage you will still have 40 g of salt = 2.9%.
Also, the sausage tastes very different after it has fermented and dried vs fresh “dough” mix. You will see this when they are done.
As for the colors, you can not go by colors you see on a computer screen, they can be deceiving. Depending on your computer and the lighting, camera setting, etc. you can come up with any color you want and it has nothing to do with the way the product looks to a naked eye.
It sounds like your sausage is coming along well.

[Bob]

Regardless of the salt content in the finished sausage, besides taste salt also provides one of the initial safety hurdles in a fermented sausage, reducing aW. Using only 2% (1.8% added + salt in cure) is questionable.

[andrew barnes]

Trebor. Thanku for your response. I hear you LOUD and CLEAR….did you happen to read Jim’s response to my Question? His explanation makes sense….so does yours…yet they conflict as well. Jim states(and it sounds to me like he works for UMAI) that the original venison recipe had a lower salt content “than we started recommending In later recipes” however going forward in their recipes they have not changed the salt content for that recipe? Why is that? Beats me why they still recommend 1.8% salt to 5lbs of venison sausage. But they do. If it is wrong and questionable then why don’t they change it? Just curious. Doesn’t make sense. Does it? Unless 1.8% plus cure salt really is satisfactory.?? All I have to go by is what I read here on UMAI and follow their recipes. They say the venison recipe is good to go…and they have not changed the recommended salt dosage of 1.8% to 2-3%. Why haven’t they?…Brian Polcyn from the book “Charcuterie” uses that exact 1.8% measurement as well. What am I to do?
I do not like conflicting information. Who is right? Who is wrong? This is serious stuff that we are dealing with.

[andrew barnes]

Sounds…..sound….to me. Ima eat it…but considering what u just said about the recipe don’t you think you should change it on all your literature? I mean your recipe has not changed to reflect your current view point?? I’m just making a point Jim. I definitely believe that I am safe but you really should change your recipe to reflect your views. Thanku for the input….You do work for UMAI don’t u? Sounds like u do.

[Jim]

Hey hunter, yes you have a point and we should consider changing the recipe. These recipes were borrowed from various sources and tested by us.
As you pointed out the Polcyn book uses lower salt amounts, though I am not very fond of that book.
Marianski guideline says 2.3 -3.0 %.

[Bob]

quote hunter” post=9356:

…Brian Polcyn from the book “Charcuterie” uses that exact 1.8% measurement as well. What am I to do?

They also recomend using 20 grams culture per 5 lbs sausage :ohmy:
Reguardless of the source of the recipe it is always best to calculate the amounts of cure and salt yourself. Even though you may trust the source typos happen. I use between 2.5 and 2.8% salt and .25% cure in fermented sausages

[andrew barnes]

I am familiar with Mariansky. I just went ahead and purchased some of UMAI’s prepared packets of cure/salt per 5lbs batches of meat for future use and until I get totally familiarized with everything UMAI I will use these. All in all we novice sausage makers depend on expert advice to keep us safe and believe you me I have seen some stuff online that is totally WRONG and outright scary!!
I have been making fresh and smoked wild game sausage for many years now and have never been ill. My motto is be clean and cold when processing any meat into sausages.
Thank you, Jim, for your advice.

[andrew barnes]

I caught that they were using 20 grams of culture and went UGG myself…Now i did notice it was called by a different name than Bactoferm but did not do any home work to see if the ingredients were the same or potentcy was the same etc.
Thank you Trebor for your responses to my queiries. Greatly appreciate it!

[Author]

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