FOOD SERVICE FOOD MANUFACTURERS COMPANY

Technology: Cooked sausage production

The composition of cooked sausages is legally regulated according to type and description. With regard to the consistency of sausage meat, we differentiate between
  • fine cooked sausages
  • coarse cooked sausages
  • cooked sausages with inlay material

We also distinguish between cured and uncured cooked sausages.

Features of an excellent cooked sausage:
  • good consistency and a strong bite
  • pleasant, optimal colour (curing colour or light/white colour)
  • smoky-spicy taste
  • no fat or jelly deposits in the final product

1. Selecting the Meat for Producing Emulsion

Meat
When selecting meat, the most important criteria are freshness and the water binding properties of the meat protein. The meat you process can be either freshly slaughtered, cooled for 3 to 5 days post-slaughter, or frozen. The pH of the mixture should be around 5.8.

Bacon
Bacon should be fresh, firm and meaty, and it should be cooled to between
-1 and 2 °C. If you are using bacon as inlay material (for mortadella, for example), note that there are special requirements with regard to the heatloading capacity.

Common Salt
Common salt is used to add flavour and to prolong shelf life (at a quantity of around 1.7 to 2.2 %).

Water
Water is mainly added in the form of ice. It dissolves salt and protein and maintains a low emulsion temperature, allowing you to achieve an optimal emulsion. The ice addition varies by type and can amount to 5 to 30 % of the total emulsion.


2. Pre-Salting

During the production of cooked sausages with inlay material (e.g. ham sausage), this is normally pre-salted or pre-tumbled for 12 to 24 hours with reddening agents, possibly with stabilisers, and nitrite curing salt.This ensures that the inlay material reddens evenly before it is mixed with the emulsion.


3. Mincing/Chopping

The material is often minced to around 2 to 4 mm before it is chopped.
Emulsion is mostly produced using either a gradual or all-in procedure.

Gradual procedure
  1. Chop lean meat with a cuttering agent
  2. Add salt and half the ice
  3. Chop the mixture finely on high (to approx. 2 °C)
  4. Add the fatty ingredients and emulsify
    (approx. 10–14 °C)
  5. Add seasoning
  6. Add the remaining ice
  7. The final temperature should be around 10–14 °C
All-in procedure
  1. Chop the material with a cuttering agent
  2. Add salt and half the ice, chop until mixture is emulsified
    (approx. 10–14 °C)
  3. Add the remaining ice and seasoning
  4. The final temperature should be around 8–10 °C

4. Stuffing

When stuffing casings, it is important to prevent air pockets and create firm sausages.

Natural Casings
Natural casings offer more than one advantage: they are suitable for consumption and they help you to create firm sausages. Some sausages require a firm bite, for example wieners/frankfurters, and so sheep casings are primarily used for these.

Types of Artificial Casings
  • Cellulose Casing: Cellulose casings provide optimal smoke and steam permeability, because their basic structure consists of cellulose hydrate.

  • Fibrous Casing: the Fibrous casing is a Cellulose casing reinforced with a fibrous web. This reinforcement promotes stability and diameter uniformity and is smoke- and steam-permeable.

  • Safe Fibrous: Safe Fibrous is a fibrous casing coated internally with plastic. It offers good shrinkage. The internal coating makes Safe fibrous casings impermeable to smoke and steam.

  • Plastic: plastic casings are impermeable to oxygen and steam. Showering is not essential after scalding, though brief showering does help to achieve tighter sausages.

With artificial casings, different soaking times need to be observed depending on the type of casing – generally 30 minutes in warm water.

Forms must first be spread with inlay foil or coated with fat before they are stuffed. It is important to prevent pockets and avoid long holding times prior to filling.


5. Colour Development

During the colour development process, the unstable muscle colourant (myoglobin) found in meat is stabilised using nitrite, which is first converted to nitrogen oxide. The key factor in colour development is the fast breakdown of nitrite into nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide combines with the myoglobin, creating nitrosomyoglobin, the typical cured red colour. Nitrosomyoglobin is stabilised by heat, and nitrosomyochromogen is created, which is stable under oxygen and heat.

In the case of white goods (Bavarian veal sausages, Gelbwurst pork and veal sausages, fried sausages), common salt – and not nitrite curing salt – is added to the emulsion. Cooking occurs immediately after stuffing. As a result, there is no reddening process, and the sausages obtain their characteristic white-grey colour. White cooked sausages tend to contain a large amount of pork and veal.


6. Smoking, Heating, Cooling

Smoking
Following the reddening stage, some types of cooked sausage are smoked at around 55 to 75 °C (for instance debrecziner and knacker sausages, frankfurters).

Heating
Following smoking, the sausages are heated.

  • Cooking: When smoke-impervious casings are used, the stuffed emulsion is heated to a core temperature of around 68 to 74 °C.
  • Baking: Stuff the emulsion into ovenproof baking dishes and bake at
    90 to 150 °C in the oven or massage system until the sausages have achieved the required browning/crust (core temperature 70 to 72 °C).
Cooling
Depending on the type of casing used, allow the sausages to cool by showering or in a water bath (ice water). Cool the Safe faser casings with water until the core is cool; cool the Safe Triple and faser casings in the production room before bringing them into the chilling room. Store at 2 to 5 °C; it is important to observe the cold chain.


INFO: All times and temperatures are merely guide values. The exact values must be adjusted to suit the functions of the relevant machinery, the active agents added and the filling quantity.