Hmmm, why on earth would you want to ferment your sausages, you are probably thinking to yourself. Well, its simple really that is how you turn your homemade sausages into what most people call Salami. So without further ado, let us quickly take a look at how to ferment any fresh sausage.

The process is actually very similar to how you make your sausages. There are just a few tweaks that are required to change the recipe. For instance, the amount of salt you use is very important, it should be 2.5% of the amount of meat. Then you will also need cultures to activate the fermentation as well as dextrose as fuel for the whole process.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• minced meat
• casings
• seasoning
• pink salt
• culture F-RM-52
• filtered water
• grinder with stuffing attachment
• sterile needle
• large bowl
• cooler
• warm water
• smoker (optional)
• dextrose (optional)

Just like when you make your favorite sausage recipe, you start by grinding your meat, then mixing all your ingredients and move on to stuffing. Then you will need to prick with a sterile needle to remove any air pockets which may have formed. The next step is the fermentation process with your cultures, which is done either in the Cave for at least 12 hours or overnight in a cooler with warm water.

The ideal humidity for the fermentation process is between 85 and 90%. You can go ahead and either cook slowly or smoke your sausages to an internal temperature of 150 degrees F, after they have fermented. Now all that is left to do is either to enjoy your sausages immediately, or let them dry out for an extra few days at 60 to 75 % relative humidity. I personally prefer the later! 🙂

You can follow step by step instructions on Swiss Hills Ferments blog, here…

How To Ferment Any Fresh Sausage

You can watch the video below on how to make salami…

You can watch the video below on homemade Italian Salami…

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