summer sausage with yogert starter

[Randy]

Well did my first batch of summer sausage, been reading up on starter cultures and yogert works well. Had my pork and beef lightly froze, ground meat added spices and yogert mixed well stuffed 2 inch casings placed in 85 , 90 degree oven with pan of water to keep humidity around 90 percent. Let cultures work for 24 hr. Placed in my si3 smoked at 160 for 4 hr adding wood as needed turned heat up to 200 till internal temp hit 154, pulled placed in ice water till 50 degree internal temp. It came out fantastic. When using yogert make sure its live cultue , I used greek gods and nanceys get a good variety of cultures that way. And keep every thing very clean and cold. Dont want bad cultures in there.

 

[DivotMaker]

Sounds great!  Pictures would make it even better!   How about posting your full recipe (spices, how much, etc..)?

 

[Pork Belly]

Did you use any spice mix or combination of spices? Did you and any curing salt? Without using curing salt you run a heavy risk of killing yourself or your family from botulism. I appreciate the  desire to be different, however starter cultures and curing salts are cheap stuff. Check out Butcher & Packer in Detroit. Typically the entire packet of starter culture is added to you meat this insures you have enough, too much culture has no negative affect. The twang of the ferment can also be mimicked by using citric acid. There is nothing wrong with buying professionally made sausage kits, you still have to craft the product. I find B&P has better flavor and prices than LEM or Trails End.

 

[Randy]

yes I did use curing salts.