shannerdrake
Well-known member
I have grown tired of paying ridiculous amounts of money for sausage. So about a year ago I bought a real deal stuffer and consulted all the YouTube experts and took the dive. I’ve made some awesome stuff including summer sausages of various types, elk brats, and snack sticks. However, for reasons not entirely clear, I wanted to try my hand at dried sausages. Namely salami and pepperoni.
If you ever looked into that, you quickly find that you need a curing/drying chamber and I already have too many things and too much stuff. After a bit more research, I discovered a company called Umai Dry that makes a product that lets you dry in your refrigerator. Seems simple enough so why not.
I ended up with their 50mm kit and bought salami, pepperoni, and landjeager seasoning kits. Each kit seasons 5lbs of meat.
Recipe is simple enough, but you absolutely need a scale and a stuffer. You also need fat that game doesn’t have. So I mixed 3lb elk with 2lb pork belly and followed the directions. Did a course grind on the pork belly. That was a good call.
Mix and stuff according to package. And here’s the weird (to me) part - age it at room temperature in a high humidity environment for 1-3 days. This allows the good bacteria to go to work and out compete the bad and lower the PH. I put the chubs in a cold oven with a pan of filtered water and spritzed everything really good at least once a day.
By day 3 they were plump and very red and smelled a bit funky like good salami. They then went into the fridge on a rack for airflow and dried until they lost 35-40% of their weight. I simply wrote the start and target weight on a piece of paper in grams and clipped it to the end of the tube.
Mine took exactly 5 weeks to the day to hit their target. They recommend vac sealing them and letting the moisture equalize to get a more consistent product. I did that with most but decided I needed to try some today. Honestly it is amazing. Great depth of flavor. The right amount of funk. As soon as I get some free time I’m starting the pepperoni!
If you ever looked into that, you quickly find that you need a curing/drying chamber and I already have too many things and too much stuff. After a bit more research, I discovered a company called Umai Dry that makes a product that lets you dry in your refrigerator. Seems simple enough so why not.
I ended up with their 50mm kit and bought salami, pepperoni, and landjeager seasoning kits. Each kit seasons 5lbs of meat.
Recipe is simple enough, but you absolutely need a scale and a stuffer. You also need fat that game doesn’t have. So I mixed 3lb elk with 2lb pork belly and followed the directions. Did a course grind on the pork belly. That was a good call.
Mix and stuff according to package. And here’s the weird (to me) part - age it at room temperature in a high humidity environment for 1-3 days. This allows the good bacteria to go to work and out compete the bad and lower the PH. I put the chubs in a cold oven with a pan of filtered water and spritzed everything really good at least once a day.
By day 3 they were plump and very red and smelled a bit funky like good salami. They then went into the fridge on a rack for airflow and dried until they lost 35-40% of their weight. I simply wrote the start and target weight on a piece of paper in grams and clipped it to the end of the tube.
Mine took exactly 5 weeks to the day to hit their target. They recommend vac sealing them and letting the moisture equalize to get a more consistent product. I did that with most but decided I needed to try some today. Honestly it is amazing. Great depth of flavor. The right amount of funk. As soon as I get some free time I’m starting the pepperoni!
