Do I need to use pink curing salt for chicken sausage?


 
S

Seth Boardman

TVWBB Fan
Im planning on making some chicken sausages and have read mixed reviews on wether or not I need to use the pink curing salt. So my question is should I use it or not? I think I'm just going to make them and freeze them raw and grill or smoke them as i need them. Or should I put them in the smoker for a bit just to get some smoke on them but not cook them all the way?
 
Pink curing salt is primarily used when smoking, so use accordingly, personally I don't have any experience with poultry sausage. IMHO sausage needs fat for flavor & I just don't know where you get that in poultry.
 
EricV. said:
Pink curing salt is primarily used when smoking, so use accordingly, personally I don't have any experience with poultry sausage. IMHO sausage needs fat for flavor & I just don't know where you get that in poultry.
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dark meat and cheese. i used to enjoy an Italian fresh sausage made with dark meet chicken, cheese and parsley and some spices. it was quite good. one could also render chicken skin and let the fat congeal in the fridge and add that into the mix as well for making sausage. that would help with the fat content.

this: https://www.ibfoods.com/chicken-sausage-with-cheese-and-parsley/
 
EricV. said:
Pink curing salt is primarily used when smoking, so use accordingly, personally I don't have any experience with poultry sausage. IMHO sausage needs fat for flavor & I just don't know where you get that in poultry.
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I'm using chicken thighs that have a bit of fat on them plus adding some pork fat to them
 
Brett-EDH said:
dark meat and cheese. i used to enjoy an Italian fresh sausage made with dark meet chicken, cheese and parsley and some spices. it was quite good. one could also render chicken skin and let the fat congeal in the fridge and add that into the mix as well for making sausage. that would help with the fat content.
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If you don't use high-heat cheese, you stand the chance of losing the majority of the cheese, thus defeating the purpose of the additional fat. Believe me I am speaking from experience.
 
Seth Boardman said:
I'm using chicken thighs that have a bit of fat on them plus adding some pork fat to them
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Usually you only need to use the cure if you are attempting to smoke them for several hours shooting for about an internal temp of +160 degrees. A lot of times I put fresh sausage on the grill along with some wood chunks, in this case there is no need for the cure, if you bring them up to temp.
 
EricV. said:
If you don't use high-heat cheese, you stand the chance of losing the majority of the cheese, thus defeating the purpose of the additional fat. Believe me I am speaking from experience.
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i fully believe you. IIRC, this has low moisture mozz in it. i need to source a recipe. i ate tons of this sausage growing up. and it was so dang good. nice crisp crunch on the casing and moist inside with cheese, herbs and spices.
 
Here are a few links, it's time that you get off the sidelines & get in the game. Regardless of ingredient choice, sausage making is very gratifying not to mention tasty. Go for it:

Sausage Recipes and Formulations

A collection of proven recipes for making sausage. Recipes and formulations are in both U.S. and Metric measurements with instruction on grinding, mixing, stuffing, coorking or curing sausages
lpoli.50webs.com lpoli.50webs.com

Home Sausage Making Recipes from TheSpicySausage.com

Homemade sausage making recipes, some spicy, some not, with step-by-step instructions and video, sausage making FAQ, and all your sausage making supply needs. Also included are a few things of interest to me and maybe you; photography, camping and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
thespicysausage.com
 
cSodium Nitrite is mainly there to prevent botulism and is necessary for a sausage that's going to spend a lot of time in the temperature "danger zone". This includes low temp smoking or cold smoking. When I say low temp, I mean something like 180 to 150 or lower. So you probably don't need nitrite, but it also can enhance the flavor somewhat. But, it also might make your chicken sausage taste "hammy" so I probably wouldn't use it for chicken. I do put it in my beef sausages and pork sausages that I'm smoking whether I'm hot or cold smoking because I like the taste it gives the sausage.

Some people add pork fat to a chicken sausage. Chicken thighs might have enough fat on their own it's tough to say. As far as high temp cheese, you don't HAVE to have it. You just need to be careful you don't over cook it and burst the casing because it will run out. Cook the sausages gently and you should be fine. I like high temp cheese but it can be expensive. One trick if you are making links is to make one small sacrificial sausage you can stick a probe in when cooking. I've also found that if you stick a probe in a link, the juice won't all run out as bad if you let the sausage rest before you remove the probe.

You also might look into some kind of binder. I've been using dry milk powder lately, but there's other products like soy protien and c-bind. Or you can just do a good job mixing you sausage and let it's own proteins do the work.
 
Here's a link to an article discussing meat safety. He doesn't specifically say you have to use curing salt for sausage, but he does say cure it or cook it above xxxF temperature.
www.backcountrychronicles.com

Food Safety of Homemade Sausage and Cured Meats

You have probably heard that curing meat and making sausage can be dangerous. Like making potato salad, if you allow bacteria to incubate, it can kill you.
www.backcountrychronicles.com www.backcountrychronicles.com
 
Seth Boardman said:
Im planning on making some chicken sausages and have read mixed reviews on wether or not I need to use the pink curing salt. So my question is should I use it or not? I think I'm just going to make them and freeze them raw and grill or smoke them as i need them. Or should I put them in the smoker for a bit just to get some smoke on them but not cook them all the way?
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From what I've read, a low temperature smoking of the sausage for an extended time is the condition you either need to avoid or use curing salt to protect from pathogens, including botulism. Botulism grows in an oxygen free environment, which the sausage casing creates. Other pathogens like Salmonella can also grow in oxygen free conditions. If I planned to smoke the sausage at low temperatures (bbq temps) for hours, which keep the meat internal temperatures in the danger zone for hours, I'd use curing salts. To be safe, you have to assume that the pathogens are already mixed into the sausage meat when you grind it. You are just trying to prevent incubating it by keeping it colder than it can grow or hotter than it can survive, or by chemistry using sodium nitrite.
 
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TimA said:
I’m not sure I’ve encountered poultry sausage. Please post results and pics!
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I've only made them once (a Ruhlman recipe.....chicken, basil, tomato), and they were good. I much prefer pork or beef sausages, though!

Here's one Mark Barton made a while back (I tried to "@" tag him, but couldn't......

tvwbb.com

Smoked Chicken Sausage

Had a whole pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs from Costco that had been in the freezer for months. I thought it was time to put it to good use, and sausage seemed like a great solution! Here are 9.5 lbs of chicken thighs, thawed and ready to go. Sausage ingredients. Had never made...
tvwbb.com tvwbb.com
 
Chuck-roaniecowpony said:
From what I've read, a low temperature smoking of the sausage for an extended time is the condition you either need to avoid or use curing salt to protect from pathogens, including botulism. Botulism grows in an oxygen free environment, which the sausage casing creates. Other pathogens like Salmonella can also grow in oxygen free conditions. If I planned to smoke the sausage at low temperatures (bbq temps) for hours, which keep the meat internal temperatures in the danger zone for hours, I'd use curing salts. To be safe, you have to assume that the pathogens are already mixed into the sausage meat when you grind it. You are just trying to prevent incubating it by keeping it colder than it can grow or hotter than it can survive, or by chemistry using sodium nitrite.
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If i smoked them I would probably only smoke them for maybe 2 hours at most or however long it would take to get them to temp at 225. Is that long enough for bacteria to grow?
 
Seth Boardman said:
If i smoked them I would probably only smoke them for maybe 2 hours at most or however long it would take to get them to temp at 225. Is that long enough for bacteria to grow?
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You'll be fine. Yes, it starts to grow, but it isn't long enough to grow enough to create a hazard. If you're going to store them for longer than a few days after that (refrigerated below 40F), either freeze them or use the pink salt.

I buy uncured sausage and cook right away by smoking a few hours, then serve right away.

For me, when I get uncured sausage, I just buy it when I want to cook it that day and try to not store it long in the fridge after cooking. But if you are making a lot, you just have to decide if you want to freeze what you don't prepare right away or cure it with pink salt (or both).
 
I myself wouldn't add pork to a chicken sausage, most thighs have plenty of fat when the skin is pulled off and not trimmed. let us know how it turns out
 
I do not get the pink salt thing. It is pink because it contains impurities in the form of minerals. Unfortunately, some of those are lead, mercury and arsenic.
 
JSaus said:
I do not get the pink salt thing. It is pink because it contains impurities in the form of minerals. Unfortunately, some of those are lead, mercury and arsenic.
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Don't confuse what you're referring to as pink salt, and what's being discussed above, they're 2 completely different things. What's being talked about here is known as cure #1, Prague salt, and a few other names. It's mostly pure sodium chloride, with some sodium nitrates and nitrites, with a pink coloring agent.
 
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