These are fermented sausages made from pork and beef. Summer is cooked, Salami is dried and beer sticks can be either. Smoking is optional.

The Summer can be stuffed into fibrous casings or beef middles for the traditional size. They can also be stuffed into sheep casings for beer sticks. As there is a great deal of shrinking in Salami, they can not be stuffed in fibrous casings.

This recipe can be made into any of the above products by changing the procedure after the meat is ground and stuffed. The summer sausage is ready to eat the day after it is made and the salami takes about 2 months to fully cure.

These are cured and fermented sausages which require the purchase of the appropriate cure and lactic culture. As salami is cured over a long period of time, the use of Prague #2 is required. The nitrate continues to convert to nitrite for months and is one of the reasons this sausage keeps so well even if not refrigerated.

This recipe also calls for dextrose which can be purchased from the same retailers as the cure and culture. Regular sugar may work as well but the lactic culture grows best in dextrose (corn sugar).

This recipe is for a 3 pound batch which is about the size of one fibrous casing.

PORK.......................................... 2 lb
BEEF..(Venison)............................... 1 lb

Water...........................................1/4 cup
Dextrose......................................1 tsp
Pedicoccus culture..................1/8 tsp

Mix water, culture and dextrose and set aside.

Dextrose.............................1/4 cup
Salt........................................5 tsp
Pepper.................................2 tsp
Coriander............................1/2 tsp
Prague #1 (Summer).......3/4 tsp
Prague #2 (Salami)..........3/4 tsp
Garlic Powder....................1/4 tsp
Mustard Seed, Ground....1/4 tsp
Nutmeg, Ground.................1/8 tsp

Measure out and mix the above ingredients into a small bowl and set aside.

Grind meat through a 1/4 inch plate.

Mix in spices and culture mix.

Chill in freezer for 30 minutes.

Grind again through 3/16" plate.

Chill again.

Stuff into casings.

Ferment at 90F overnight.

This can be done in a smoker, oven with the light on or you can rig up a box with a small light bulb. You could probably also ferment at room temperature but would have to increase the time.

To finish:

Summer: Smoke at 130F for 5 hrs. You can then raise smoker temp and cook at 165F to internal temp of 152F. I prefer to cook in 180F water until an internal temperature of 160F is reached. This produces a moister sausage than cooking in the smoker. A dial thermometer can be poked into the sausage to monitor the internal temperature. Inexpensive remote sensing digital meat thermometers are really handy for this.

Salami: Smoke at 100F for 5 hrs then dry at 60F until 75% of green weight. Smoking is optional with salami also. In either case, it should not be dried too quickly or it will form a hard dry rind and rot internally. The humidity should be maintained around 80%. I find that they dry far below 75% but that is the number in most of the books I have seen. It takes about a month before the sausage tastes right and most books suggest two months for a full cure.

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