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Why Hang Salami for Drying and Other Factors

Salami is always seen hanging; it’s not as apparent to someone who hasn’t made or learned about salami why this is. After teaching, learning, and making salami for many years – here are the finer points in detail below. The primary reason, however, is this. These factors are specific to traditional Artisanal dry-cured salami, which is often fermented as a …

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Homemade Salami, Learning from Mistakes – The Only Way

After making homemade salami numerous times over the years, we have learned a lot from our mistakes, which I wish to share. Smaller diameter salami is easier to produce using the dry cured process than larger diameter. In many of these examples, the Salami was assessed and thrown in the rubbish. This is why salami making (equipment I wrote about …

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Tips for Sausage Making with Wild Game Meat

Sausage made with lean meat, especially wild game like venison, elk, or any other lean red meat, needs to be approached slightly differently. The obvious tip is you need a higher level of fat to keep the sausage moist; I’m going to highlight more on this below, plus other helpful un-mentioned tips. Over the many years of studying and making …

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Guide to Various and Easy Sausage Making at Home

Often, sausage-making guides only show one way of making sausages. However, sausage is a category that can be divided into different types. As someone who knows how many variations of sausages are made, I wanted to provide more helpful content. I want to show you how to be as helpful as possible with the most straightforward equipment and explain the …

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Salt Amounts for Making Sausages – (Simple Ratios, Tables)

I’ve been studying, teaching, and making sausages for decades. Salt is always included in every recipe. I’ve also used many different types of salts for sausage, which I’ll elaborate on. Sauages can be defined into three broad categories first being cured and dried. Second, fresh raw meat is then grilled or poached to finish (ie. Bratwurst). Lastly, a ready-to-eat sausage …

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Drying Meat and How it Preserves It

Drying meat is one form of preservation, but there are others I’ll go through in this article. Most commonly, drying in some Asian countries is still the main method of preserving meat. In most Western countries, freezers are the main way of preserving meat. Meat Drying and Preservation To preserve meat, it is all about drying it in various ways. …

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Home Made Sausage Guide Resource

I want to share some nuances if you’re going to make a delicious homemade sausage. It’s not just following a recipe; it’s taken many years before I can create consistently delicious homemade sausages. Hopefully, the link below to the guide and article I’ve made will get you on the right sausage-making track. Covering the basics for homemade sausages, see the …

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List of Cooked Sausages of the World

For those interested in the wide variations of sausages across the planet. Please find this exhaustive list! Cooked Sausages From All Over the World Sausage Origin Meat Type Flavor Profile Cooking Method Key Ingredients Alheira de Mirandela Portugal Mixed Smoky, savory Grilling, frying Poultry, bread, garlic, paprika Andouille USA Pork Spicy, smoky Smoking, grilling Pork, garlic, onions, spices Andouille France …

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Understanding Whether You Need to Cure Meat Before Smoking

Often, when people talk about smoking meat, we need to specify whether it is cold, warm, or hot-smoked. This will often dictate whether you need to cure the meat or not. After studying, teaching, and learning about cured and smoking meats, this article will dive into what I have learned and how it can be effectively categorized. Curing meat before …

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Making Authentic Mortadella at Home

Mortadella can be made at home with certain equipment; it’s quite an involved type of cooked sausage, and we’ve found it took longer than sausages or salamis in general. I definitely thought it was worth it, though! The essence of the mortadella is a delicate spiced aroma, quality meat that is emulsified without over mixing and low temperature baked, sous …

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Everything You Need to Know About Cured Meats

Cured meats actually come in many different formats and types, it can be hard to categorize some types of cured meats because of this. This article covers some of the nuances and confusion, that are commonly asked around this website, which is focused on cured meats. From my teaching, experiences, and practice across all aspects of the art and craft …

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Full Detailed Review of INKBIRD ITC-308 Temperature Controller

For the important aspects of temperature control, I’ve been ‘reviewing’ the INKBIRD ITC-308 for many years now and using it to get a target temperature range. I’ve used this for charcuterie, dry cured meats and many other temperature controlled environment projects at home which I’ll talk about. For about 20 years I’ve had many hobbies (food and alcohol based) that …

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Best Woods for Smoking Cured Meats

I’ve used about 15 different kinds of wood to smoke-cured meats. Often, I’ve found it easier to categorize wood used for smoking into light, medium, and strong flavors. The best woods for smoking cured meats are often the woods you’ll find locally in abundance and sustainable. Local, Non-resin-filled, deciduous wood is often the best wood for smoking cured meats. This …

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Common Mistakes to Avoid When Curing Meat

Over the first 10 years I was curing meat, I made many mistakes. This had a lot to do with the lack of information, and I just hadn’t read the textbooks that are available nowadays, the internet was quite young at the time in the early 2000’s! Over the second 10 years, I practiced and learned meat curing at home …

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Frequently Asked Questions About Meat Curing

There are a lot of questions that are frequently asked about meat curing that I have to answer from this site. So I thought I would put all of these common FAQs in one article. I love to cure meat and have been doing so for many many years, I’ve been to places in Italy or America specifically just to …

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How to Store Cured Meat: Tips and Tricks

The way you store cured meats does depend a lot on what style of cured meats you have. I’ve got a true passion for cured meats of all kinds, and that’s why I started this website. I buy and make my own types of cured meats of every style you can imagine across the globe. I thought it would be …

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Cured and Hot Smoked Trout Recipe

I want to dive deep into what I’ve learnt and also about tips and tricks on how to cure and hot smoke trout at home or when you are outdoors. I’ve been curing and smoking trout for 25 years, as well as, catching probably over a thousand trout across New Zealand. The odd one also in Scotland when living on …

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Can you Make Sausage Without Nitrites

You can very definitely make sausages without nitrites or nitrates, the decision is always yours, especially if you are making them at home. The reason why I decided to write this article was, because I have been reading, studying and making all the different types of sausages you come across in the world over the last 25 years. I thought …

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List of Spices Good for Sausage (Quantity Guide also)

When it comes to the spices, herbs and aromatics you can use in a sausage, it’s pretty endless. The combination and synergy definitely can produce more then the ingredients separately. However, not all things work together in terms of spices and herbs! Over the 20 odd years I’ve been making and studying sausages. I’ve had friends and acquaintances that have …

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Is Cured Meat Raw? Why Does it Look Raw

It gets a little bit confusing with the cured meats and raw meats since the definition of cured meats does have a lot of variations across the globe. I’ve been lucky enough to have tasted and experienced, as well as made, many of the variations of cured meats in the traditional and modern context. I will try to give a …