Cold smoke shop bought sausages.

[Midlandsman]

It is always good to be risk-averse but there is a fine line between risk-aversion and paranoia. It may appear that I am responding harshly to to your comments but it concerns me that a on these forums a lot of perfectly safe food is unnecessarily thrown away because people sometimes take a specific aspect and extrapolate it to the extreme in the name of food safety without considering the aspect within the bigger picture.

To claim that by not smoking a fresh sausage will lead to food wastage is clearly absurd - you would just fry it instead.

A sensible person would probably just leave things there, but given that bbq, smoking, curing and sausage-making has a fairly close online community, it's probably best that I fully explain the logic behind my post saying that I wouldn't personally cold-smoke uncured fresh sausage to dismiss the suggestion of paranoia. I'll reply without being harsh as I don't think that this adds to the debate. In doing this, I accept that it will be safer with a temperature controlled smoker that can hold below 4°C like Wade has; I doubt that very few other hobbyist smokers that have smokers that do this.

My position was based on information from a number of sources:

From the European Food Safety Authority Scientific Panel's opinion on biological hazards (BIOHAZ) related to the effects of Nitrites/Nitrates on the Microbiological Safety of Meat Products statement to the European Commission on nitrites in meat products I noted that, although very rare, the majority of botulism cases are in meat products prepared in the home and that the addition of nitrites is a good method of prevention. I noted that there are very few cases of botulism each year, and that even less of those will be smoked sausage. I concluded that protection against most forms of food borne illness is a case of taking action to ensure that rare possibilities don't occur! If we don't use cure in anything, the numbers that suffer are still likely to be statistically low as a percentage of the population, but the result for those small numbers may be devastating. I also noted that there appears to be more cases of botulism in countries where traditional preservation of food in the home is generally considered to be more common-place.

I then looked at what the people who are classed as authorities on the subject say.

I've already posted what the Marinski's say on the subject but it's worth repeating briefly: "If every manufacturer adds nitrite to naturally smoked meats to protect the consumer, a hobbyist should do the same to protect his loved ones." However, I didn't only look to one respected source before replying. I based my reply on information from a number of sources. I noted that another authority, Len Poli, says:

Note: Some people add a sodium nitrite curing salt to a fresh sausage to give the meat reddish color. In fresh sausages this is optional; but nitrite is essential in cooked, smoked, and dry-cured sausages!

I then looked at what Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn say on page 152 their acclaimed book 'Charcuterie':

All smoked sausages and dry cured sausages require the additional nitrites…

Bruce Aidell on page 21 of 'Bruce Aidell’s Complete Sausage Book':

If you decide to air-dry or cold smoke sausage, however, curing salts must be used to prevent any possibility of botulism…

The Culinary Institute of America in 'Garde Manger': The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen (page 254):

Sausages that are dried or cold smoked must include either nitrate or nitrite-nitrate in order to fully and safely cure the sausage.

...among many other's.

A book often mentioned when talk turns to the best sausage-making book, Rytek Kutas's 'Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing' takes it even further on page 15 when in bold capitals it says:

IF IT CAN’T BE CURED DON’T SMOKE IT

I hope that member's may now see my post in a different light.

MM

[wade]

As I mentioned before - I don't think that we are talking about the same thing here. If Essexsmoker had been trying to create something similar to a salami or a polish sausage from a shop bought banger then I would agree with most of what you have said - but the thread was not suggesting this. The discussion was around testing his new cold smoker to give them a quick smoke before then being cooked. If you are saying that this was dangerous then I do disagree with you.

[essexsmoker]

Well I'm still here a week or so later, so I guess I'm ok. Lol.

[slemps]

IMO one of the main reasons that there is so much control and regulation at food production stages is that the general public cannot be trusted to follow the safe cooking guidelines provided with high risk foods.

Obviously on a forum like this, we probably don't fit in to this category but generally, people don't check their sausages with thermapens (black sausages with raw middles - yum!).

Due to this point, the government has weighted the safety requirements towards production. You only have to look at the prevalence (and media coverage) of something like Campylobacter in chickens to see what this means. In theory, if everyone handled & cooked their chicken properly, it wouldn't matter if 100% of birds had the bacteria present at point of sale. The reality is though, it becomes an expensive set of requirements that producers must meet.

If everyone did cook properly (which I know will never happen) it would be interesting to see how this changed.

Back to the sausages though, why not cure a piece of bacon, cold smoke it, then mix it with fresh shoulder meat for a bespoke semi-smoked, safe, sausage!

[essexsmoker]

Yes I agree. Health and safety at work is another case in point.

The point was just to try my smoker on the quick and maybe get some nice breakfast out of it. As it happens not all shop sausages are cured (I kinda assumed they were, mainly because bacon is), so I pulled them off quick and nuked them.

I intend on making cured sausages from scratch eventually.

That and fish. Though I believe you only salt fish according to the smoker instructions.

[wade]

Obviously on a forum like this, we probably don't fit in to this category but generally, people don't check their sausages with thermapens (black sausages with raw middles - yum!).

Due to this point, the government has weighted the safety requirements towards production. You only have to look at the prevalence (and media coverage) of something like Campylobacter in chickens to see what this means. In theory, if everyone handled & cooked their chicken properly, it wouldn't matter if 100% of birds had the bacteria present at point of sale. The reality is though, it becomes an expensive set of requirements that producers must meet.

If everyone did cook properly (which I know will never happen) it would be interesting to see how this changed.

The main difference between preparing food at home and preparing it for commercial sale is the relative impact that it could have on the people eating it. At home, if you prepare food for you and your family and it becomes "contaminated" then the impact is relatively small whereas if you are preparing the same food on a commercial scale to sell through a supermarket chain then the potential number of people affected by poor food hygiene could run into thousands.
Also if you are cooking at home then "the 5 second rule" is sometimes invoked, or people could touch cooked food after handling raw meat. As this food is likely to be eaten quite quickly there will be relatively little time for any cross contaminated bacteria to multiply so effect of any contamination will probably be fairly minimal. If you are affected you might even just put the resulting symptoms down to last nights beer or a touch of flu. However do the same when you are producing in large commercial batches - where it may be days before the food is sold and actually eaten - then the effect of that contamination is likely to have grown exponentially over time. Here the effects are more likely to be debilitating and in some cases even fatal.
Certain food contamination will also have different effects on different people. You and I probably have "hardened stomachs" from years of eating take-away kebabs, however the commercial producers have to assume that everyone eating their produce will be that pregnant woman or the child that already is in ill health.

When I first started taking my food hygiene qualifications many years ago you suddenly realise that these regulations/guideline are really nothing more than common sense and are rarely onerous. It really changed the way I looked at the way I handled food in my own kitchen. Personally I think Home Economics with food hygiene should be compulsory in all schools and every child provided with their own a Thermapen - but maybe that is going a little too far

I intend on making cured sausages from scratch eventually.

That and fish. Though I believe you only salt fish according to the smoker instructions.

If you are interested in cold smoking fish let me know and we can discuss in a new thread as I smoke a lot of it semi-commercially. It is very straightforward but I may be able to save you a lot of trial and error in your early attempts.

Cheers

Wade

[wade]

Obviously on a forum like this, we probably don't fit in to this category but generally, people don't check their sausages with thermapens (black sausages with raw middles - yum!).

LOL yes. From experience though when cooking sausages and chicken most people tend to know that there are "dangers" in under cooking them - resulting in offerings that are actually grossly overcooked. Yes the Thermapen does give you the confidence to know when something is fully cooked but it also allows you to eat food that has been cooked to its best.

I know I joked about supplying a Thermapen to all school children in my previous post (can you imagine the fun they would have using them as light sabers in the playground !) but to educate them into good food handling practices at that age cannot be a totally bad thing.

[slemps]

The main difference between preparing food at home and preparing it for commercial sale is the relative impact that it could have on the people eating it. At home, if you prepare food for you and your family and it becomes "contaminated" then the impact is relatively small whereas if you are preparing the same food on a commercial scale to sell through a supermarket chain then the potential number of people affected by poor food hygiene could run into thousands.

Oh yes, don't get me wrong, I understand there has to be controls in place for anyone producing food commercially. Also, as you increase production volume, controls increase too. One of the first questions Environmental Health will ask is "how much do you sell?".

My point was that because we can't rely on consumers to correctly manage the final safety steps (ie storage, handling and cooking), stricter controls are imposed on the producers to try to mitigate this. America seems particularly strict which demonstrates what can happen if this is taken to the extreme. As far as I know, they miss out on a lot of Italian cured meats and French cheeses because they would not meet the strict production guidelines.

I know I joked about supplying a Thermapen to all school children in my previous post (can you imagine the fun they would have using them as light sabers in the playground !) but to educate them into good food handling practices at that age cannot be a totally bad thing.

It's a great idea! It really is a core skill to have.

I find it very difficult to tell people just how great it is to use something like a thermapen. Without one, I was confident in preparing safe food but I would often be slightly cautious at the cost of taste and quality. I use mine all the time, to make sure everything is cooked as well as possible.

I'd be interested in a fish smoking thread Wade.

S.

[Kiska95]

Yep me too Wade

[wade]

Yep me too Wade

Hi Brian