Mark D wrote:
> Hi all,
> In past years, I have had some experience doing this, drying Italian
> Sausage during the winter season when I used to live in Chicago.
>
> Also, one Italian friend of mine there used to dry/cure about 140lbs
> worth of pork shoulder every winter, turning this into Dried Italian
> Sausage, Supersade (sp) and Cappocollo.
> He really made some very very tasty stuff.
>
> I was typically told by others, that very cool dry weather is needed to
> succeed to air curing/drying meats. I can recall, some of the larger
> pieces of meat my friend cured (Pork Butts) sometimes would spoil,
> perhaps due to their large size, and also perhaps due to inconsistent
> temperatures, and humidity conditions?
>
> I have read about some Italian Parma Hams, and have read that some of
> these "air cure" for up to 15 months! How do they do this?
>
> What conditions, (temperatures-humidity are needed to provide safe
> reliable results for this?
> How do both commercial, and amateur makers guarantee safe results
> without fear of say perhaps Trichinosis? ( I understand this parasite is
> sort of uncommon nowadays)
>
> Now, that I'm living in the Southwest US, is there any way to still
> somehow succeed in this endeavor making air dried-cured Sausages, etc?
> TIA, Mark
>


You actually need *high* humidity to properly dry a sausage. Otherwise
it dried too fast and "case hardens", or else it just dries out too
much. Cool and kind of damp is best.

Regarding trichinosis, you either just don't worry about it because it
is quite uncommon in domesticated meat these days, or to be 100% certain
you freeze the pork in a deep freezer at 0° F. (or lower) for a while
before making sausage. I don't recall what "a while" is; maybe 2 or 3
weeks. Then it is what you call "certified pork", and can safely be
eaten raw.

Trichinella (sp?) is quite common in bear meat or wild pigs, so you must
be careful when making sausage with game rather than domestic pork and beef.

(Don't forget the fermentation stage when making air-dried cured
sausage. It lowers the pH and guards against botulism poisoning)

Best regards,
Bob