Sausage & Salami
Fresh and smoked sausage, and dry-fermented salami — fat ratios, salt, cure, casings and the fermentation check that keeps salami safe.
Sausage calculators
Fresh & smoked sausage
Keep meat, fat and grinder parts near freezing. Mix until the meat turns sticky (“bind”), fry a small patty to check seasoning, then stuff. Cook sausage to 160°F.
Dry-fermented salami
Ferment warm and humid until the pH drops to 5.3 or lower, then dry at 50–60°F and 70–80% humidity until it has lost about a third of its weight. A pH meter and an accurate scale are essential.
Making good sausage
- Chill everything — meat, fat, grinder plates and the mixing bowl — until nearly frozen. Warm fat smears and makes sausage crumbly and greasy.
- Grind through a coarse plate, then a finer one if you like. Mix in the salt, spices and ice water until the meat is tacky and holds together.
- Soak salted natural casings in warm water and flush them before stuffing. Stuff firmly without air pockets, then twist into links and prick any air bubbles.
- Cook fresh sausage to 160°F (165°F if it contains poultry). Refrigerate and use within 2 days, or freeze.
Smoked & summer sausage
- Any sausage that will be smoked at low temperatures needs Cure #1 at 0.25% to prevent botulism.
- Smoke at gradually rising temperatures until the inside reaches 155–160°F, then cool quickly in ice water.
Dry-fermented salami
- Use Cure #2, dextrose and a starter culture. The culture turns sugar into acid — the drop in pH, along with salt and drying, is what makes salami safe.
- The meat must reach pH 5.3 or lower within 1,200 “degree-hours” above 60°F (when fermenting below 90°F). Example: 75°F for 48 hours = 15 × 48 = 720 degree-hours.
- Dry at 50–60°F and 70–80% humidity. A thin white mold is normal; fuzzy green, black or orange mold is not — wipe it with vinegar or discard the piece.
- Salami is ready when it has lost 30–40% of its weight and is firm all the way through. Case hardening (a dry ring with a soft center) means the humidity was too low.
- For pork you’ll eat uncooked, use commercially raised pork or freeze it first: 20 days at 5°F for pieces up to 6 inches thick.
Nothing Wasted
Sausage making turns trim and fat into some of the best food on the homestead. Start with a simple fresh breakfast or Italian sausage, then move on to smoked links — and to salami once you have a pH meter, an accurate scale and a curing chamber.