Sausage Curing Course @ Save On Meats

[Iron Glove]

The kids gave us two tickets to a sausage curing class at Save On Meats on Hastings so we went last night.
Great class, super instructor.
We covered the basics of prep, curing,spices, etc. then everyone dove in and made Salami, pepperoni and duck breast prociutto. We ground the meat ourselves, added spices and stuffed the sausages in turns ( I pretty well failed the stuffing lesson :( ) made the links, the whole works.
Left with @ 5 lbs of product each.
It was great, as beginners, to actually be shown how to do something and then actually have the opportunity to do it.
The prosciutto has two weeks to go in the fridge, the pepperoni & salami are hanging in the garage, will be for quite awhile.
Highly recommend it.
Now I'm figuring out just what to do with some left over venison.

[lip_ripper00]

http://saveonmeats.ca/classes/


Thanks for the heads up

[Gateholio]

Great to hear. I saw a few episodes of their "Gastown Gamble" Tv show, I was hoping they would be successful. How did you do the duck breast proscuitto? Just cover with salt to cure?

[nuadixion]

The kids gave us two tickets to a sausage curing class at Save On Meats on Hastings so we went last night.
Great class, super instructor.
We covered the basics of prep, curing,spices, etc. then everyone dove in and made Salami, pepperoni and duck breast prociutto. We ground the meat ourselves, added spices and stuffed the sausages in turns ( I pretty well failed the stuffing lesson :( ) made the links, the whole works.
Left with @ 5 lbs of product each.
It was great, as beginners, to actually be shown how to do something and then actually have the opportunity to do it.
The prosciutto has two weeks to go in the fridge, the pepperoni & salami are hanging in the garage, will be for quite awhile.
Highly recommend it.
Now I'm figuring out just what to do with some left over venison.

So after some "enlightenment" what would be your no 1 advise .....tip.....recommendation....
I will look into signing up one day.....

[Iron Glove]

Great to hear. I saw a few episodes of their "Gastown Gamble" Tv show, I was hoping they would be successful. How did you do the duck breast proscuitto? Just cover with salt to cure?

The duck breast was so easy even I got it right.
Lightly score the back of the boneless breast with a sharp knife.
Use the salt mix - salt, sugar & nitrate ( I'll have to dig around for the % of each but it's the "standard" mix )
Toss Duck in a big plastic bag, toss the "salt" in along with your choices of dried spices and shake it all up.
Lay the duck onto a big piece of cheesecloth and roll it up.
Tie both ends of the cloth off right next to the duck with string. Make one of the strings long so you can hang it.
Hang it in the fridge for 2 weeks.
I'll report back in two weeks. :)

[Iron Glove]

So after some "enlightenment" what would be your no 1 advise .....tip.....recommendation....
I will look into signing up one day.....

Hmm, buy fresh meat, use no additives and practice stuffing.
There's something kinda erotic about watching a good looking female holding onto a casing with her hand while the meat fills it up and then working the meat around in the stuffing. And no, I wasn't watching my wife at the time. ;)

[BiG Boar]

the pepperoni & salami are hanging in the garage, will be for quite awhile.

Can you go further into explaining why these two would be hung in the garage? I've made pep before, after 24 hours in the fridge in cases, they get smoked/cooked. What state are they hung in the garage? Are we not talking Peperoni sticks? Have they been cooked at this point? Or are they just cured?

id be interested in an advanced type course if they offered something like that.

[nano]

Good on ya for getting started. It's a lot of fun and a great feeling to enjoy a product that you have made. This weekend I have 10 pork legs order to make salami , sausage and proscuitto

[nuadixion]

Hmm, buy fresh meat, use no additives and practice stuffing.
There's something kinda erotic about watching a good looking female holding onto a casing with her hand while the meat fills it up and then working the meat around in the stuffing. And no, I wasn't watching my wife at the time. ;)

......but how to utilize game meat for those purposes ? anything out of ordinary?

[Iron Glove]

Can you go further into explaining why these two would be hung in the garage? I've made pep before, after 24 hours in the fridge in cases, they get smoked/cooked. What state are they hung in the garage? Are we not talking Peperoni sticks? Have they been cooked at this point? Or are they just cured?

id be interested in an advanced type course if they offered something like that.

The class was about curing, not smoking tho' we could easily smoke what we made.
The sausages are hung, unsmoked, uncooked, to be cured.
Check the Save On Meats web site, they list the courses and I believe they have a second class that deals more with smoking / cooking.
I checked the ingredients for the "cure" and its:
1b. Kosher salt
8 oz. sugar
2 oz. "pink" salt, i.e. the nitre.

[Iron Glove]

......but how to utilize game meat for those purposes ? anything out of ordinary?

Substitute the pork or beef with game meat of your choice but you'll need to add fat as game meat is generally quite lean and you don't really want venison fat in your product. They suggest a 70 / 30 mix, with the 30% being pork fat. Otherwise, everything else is the same.
The dogs were quite interested in my hanging the sausages in the garage. Had to take down the ladder as one of the dogs is pretty smart and I could see her climbing it to get at the meat. :)

[Whonnock Boy]

Thanks for posting. I've wanted to check the store out ever since I saw it on triple D. Might have to enroll. I just hope I don't get knifed when coming or going. Shady part of town that is for sure.

[The Dude]

What a great thing to do for a grocery store. First time i've heard this. Might help us all in the long run if you think about it........
Apple-fed bear ham proscuitto would be nice.....mmmmm...

[Iron Glove]

Thanks for posting. I've wanted to check the store out ever since I saw it on triple D. Might have to enroll. I just hope I don't get knifed when coming or going. Shady part of town that is for sure.

Ah, it's not really that bad. :mrgreen:
The whole Downtown East Side is becoming gentrified and other than a few blocks around Main & Hastings ( particularly the lanes ) it's pretty safe. Daughter and Son-In-Law took our 2 year old Grandaughter to Save On recently for a weekend lunch, no problems at all.
I work downtown at the edge of the seedier area and in 10 years I have yet to be mugged, knifed or offered services by a lady.
Planning on picking up a couple of freezer packs to give to the kids, seems like decent meat at a fair price.

[BCLongshot]

That little restaraunt kicks ass.

My lil'woman and I always go for eats there. Walk around Gastown and head over to Robson after.

The people are interesting for sure.

Good to get around and see different things. :)

[Gateholio]

..
Apple-fed bear ham proscuitto would be nice.....mmmmm...

Until you got trich. ;)

[The Dude]

Until you got trich. ;)

You're a "Glass half-empty" kinda guy, aintcha, Clarke? ;-)

[Gateholio]

A good friend of mine's father almost died after contracting trich from a cured bear sausage. I wouldn't ever eat a cured bear product without a lab analysis of the individual bear.

[Iron Glove]

A good friend of mine's father almost died after contracting trich from a cured bear sausage. I wouldn't ever eat a cured bear product without a lab analysis of the individual bear.

That's interesting, I would've thought the salt & nitre mix would kill almost any parasite ?
Bear is one type of raw game meat that we will not feed to our dogs, too many problems can arise.

[Gateholio]

The nitrates might indeed kill it, but I dont know enough about it to be sure. Trich in bears is resistant to freezing so I'd want firm data that it would kill it before eating cured and not cooked bear.

[Lionhill]

That's interesting, I would've thought the salt & nitre mix would kill almost any parasite ?
Bear is one type of raw game meat that we will not feed to our dogs, too many problems can arise.

The nitrites are for bacteria growth. The only thing that kills Trich is heat to 160°F for a minimum of 1 hour.

LH

[Iron Glove]

And that too is interesting.
The nitrates that are used in cure are deadly to humans in reasonably small quantities ( obviously far higher amounts than in sausage ) so you'd think that they would kill some low life member of the "animal" kingdom like Trichs.
You would think that an additive like nitrates that allow me to hang raw meat in my garage for 2 months and then safely eat it would basically kill anything that ever lived. :)
But, that's just another reason I don't like bear meat. :)

[The Dude]

Seems that bear generally has T nativa larvae in it (If they're infected), and this strain is resistant to freezing. Pork has T Spirella, which can be killed by freezing.
Modern day farmed pork is generally Trich-free, but home-raised pork under less than ideal conditions (Dirty pens, eating raw meat) can have Spirella or Nativa strains.
90-95% of people that contrat trich exhibit no symptoms, and the problem resolves itself, and there are approximately only a dozen cases of reported Trich infection iin the US, a country of over 300 Million people. That includes all sources, bear, pig and otherwise.

[ruger#1]

Seems that bear generally has T nativa larvae in it (If they're infected), and this strain is resistant to freezing. Pork has T Spirella, which can be killed by freezing.
Modern day farmed pork is generally Trich-free, but home-raised pork under less than ideal conditions (Dirty pens, eating raw meat) can have Spirella or Nativa strains.
90-95% of people that contrat trich exhibit no symptoms, and the problem resolves itself, and there are approximately only a dozen cases of reported Trich infection iin the US, a country of over 300 Million people. That includes all sources, bear, pig and otherwise. Pork feed is medicated for tric. And other diseases. All domestic feed animals Have medications in their feed.

[The Dude]

All the more reason to eat orgasmic.
OOps...organic.

[ruger#1]

All the more reason to eat orgasmic.
OOps...organic. You have that right. I have to keep my work cloths away from my dogs. Rumensin for dairy feed will kill ungulates and dogs. And it take just a little bit.

[Lionhill]

And that too is interesting.
The nitrates that are used in cure are deadly to humans in reasonably small quantities ( obviously far higher amounts than in sausage ) so you'd think that they would kill some low life member of the "animal" kingdom like Trichs.
You would think that an additive like nitrates that allow me to hang raw meat in my garage for 2 months and then safely eat it would basically kill anything that ever lived. :)
But, that's just another reason I don't like bear meat. :)

http://www.lets-make-sausage.com/sodium-nitrate.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinosis#Food_preparation