Do I really need starter culture or mold culture


 

Jim Babek

TVWBB Pro
I am starting to get into sausage making and up to this point I have only made kielbasa...Along with fresh sausages I also want to dry cure. I have a kegerator that is holding temp at 60-65 degrees and 70% humidity so I think Im good there. Do I need to rig a fermentation chamber and also how necessary is the use of starter cultures and mold cultures?

Ive been reading up but cant find a definate answer to these questions.
 
Fermentation is a necessary process. You can probably ferment in your kegerator, unplugged. I've also fermented in the oven with the light on or in a tupperware box on the floor of my living room.

60-65 is on the high side for nominal drying temps but it might work. In fact you might get slow fermentation at that temperature without a rapid fermentation up front.

Starter cultures and mold cultures are not strictly necessary but best practices are to use them. Since you're dealing with potentially toxic and even deadly microorganisms you want to use a variety of safety measures to allow beneficial microorganisms to outcompete and make the sausages safer.

Fermentation lowers the PH of the sausages by producing lactic acid. This is facilitated by the addition of a starter culture. Acid makes it more difficult for pathogenic bacteria within the sausage to grow. This process also speeds drying I believe.

A mold culture will let you get off on the right foot. It's likely that mold will grow on your drying meat, so you want add beneficial mold to eliminate the possibility that the species that takes hold is a pathogenic one.

You also make sausages safer by adding nitrate or nitrite cure, by adding salt, and by lowering the water activity of the meat to a level where there is not enough available water to support outgrowth of these organisms.

So strictly speaking, yes, you can make sausages without cultures. I would recommend against it. Redundancy never hurt anybody.
 
Thanks for the quick response. I can get the temp in the fridge lower so thats not a problem.

Is there any recommendations as to what starter culture and mold culture I should buy and a source?

I already have #1 and 2 salt
 
I use yogurt as a culture for acidophilus bacteria. Some people prefer commercial cultures such as T-SPX. The culture you use can subtly affect the final taste of your product, for better or worse.

I use bactoferm mold-600 mold culture which is available from butcher packer, a company in WI with an internet store.

You can also harvest mold from a salami that has the skin on, by scraping the skin into some purified water with sugar in it and leaving it at room temperature for some hours (this is the same process you use to apply mold-600).
 
Everything Dave said (again!)
The Bactoferm 600 works awesome....
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and incubating in the oven with the light on has worked great. Just try to keep the humidity high while incubating.
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Dave, you've had good success using yougurt as a starter culture? Been reading about using the liquid from homemade Kimchi....
 
Yeah, the yogurt seems to work fine for me. My failures have been due to ambient condition problems and not failure to ferment as far as I can tell.
 
One last question for he time being...while I have a full size fridge I can use my wife isn't thrilled about it being used only for sausage. The smaller fridge I'm planning on using is a college fridge that I converted to a kegerator. Although small it should work right? Also, is a fan of some sort absolutely necessary? It's a small area and am wondering if there will be enough room for the fan...
 
Jim I use th same type of equipment, a small wine fridge. When I started I had some successes in the shoulder seasons when it was moderate temperatures but during the winter and the summer I had failures due to ambient condition problems.

I have since installed a digital hygrostat, ultrasonic humidifier and a vent fan that runs on a timer a few times a day, with an intake on the opposite side.

In such a small space it's important to exchange the air regularly because it may become saturated and cease to remove additional moisture. Also in the summer if your fridge has interior condenser plates they can ice over and it will stop cooling very well.

I used to use an interior fan and it doesn't do anything to alleviate these problems. You need air exchange with the outside, which you can do by opening the door once or twice a day, or an automated solution like I built.
 
I highly recommend a starter for the reasons already mentioned....as someone already
Mentioned they also help the drying because the combination of salt addition and ph reduction lowers water holding capacity of meat. Starters also help food safety by producing acid and help fight of other bacteria by competitive exclusion. Mold will definitely help drying but be forewarned that it will create a flavor that is hard to replicate without its use.
 

 

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