Handbook of Meat Processing

(Greg DeLong) #1
Semidry and Dry Fermented Sausages 387

in the town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. It is
produced entirely from beef and is a moist,
heavily smoked, fermented, ready - to - eat
sausage with an M : P of 3.5 : 1 that is often
not processed above 48.9 ° C (Chikthimmah
et al. 2001 ). The starter culture involving L.
plantarum , P. acidilactici , and micrococci
was specifi cally developed to obtain a very
low pH (4.4 – 4.7), and it ferments the meat
batter at 35 – 38 ° C (Smith and Palumbo 1973 ).
In traditional processes, black pepper is
added as seasoning, and the coarse ground
meat is pre - salted and aged for several days
under refrigeration. Sweet bologna is pro-
duced with 10% to 12% of sugar instead of
the 2% to 4% in Lebanon bologna. Snack
sticks are shelf - stable semidry sausages that
include hot seasonings and edible collagen
casings. The production technology of dry
sausages in the United States has borrowed
heavily from European knowledge and expe-
rience. These products are small - diameter,
moderately chopped, and cold smoked or not.
American dry sausages tend to be milder and
usually have less smoked fl avor and salt than
in Europe, and P. acidilactici or direct acidu-
lation is used to reach a pH of 5.4 or less.
Other popular dry sausages are salami made
from pork and small amounts of beef, sea-
soned with garlic; pepperoni are also made
of pork and beef, and are usually smoked;
and chorizo is highly spiced and smoked.
About 90% of the pepperoni produced
(115,000 tons/year) is sold in stick form for
pizza topping (Faith et al. 1997 ).
Although fermented sausages are pro-
duced in different Latin American countries,
their manufacture has a long history in
Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, mainly due
to Iberian and Italian traditions, as well as to
the quality and availability of meat. Many
salami - style sausages made of beef and/or
pork meat are produced in Argentina, among
them Salame de Mil á n , which is produced in
different regions, and Salame Tandilero ,
from the town of Tandil (Buenos Aires),

surface enables control of molding at the fi rst
stages, making the starter presence predomi-
nant. In central and northern European coun-
tries, smoking is a common technology.
Smoke contributes to the antimicrobial and
antioxidant effect, besides generating spe-
cifi c fl avor and color components. Smoking
technology has experienced an important
evolution in the last few years; smoking
chambers in which a controlled combustion
of wood (300 – 600 ° C) to minimize the pro-
duction of polycyclic hydrocarbons have
been developed. In American semidry fer-
mented sausages, a brief drying stage after
fermentation precedes smoking (Rust 2007 ).


Types of Semidry and Dry

Fermented Sausages Worldwide

A description of types and distribution of
semidry and dry fermented sausages world-
wide is presented. Technological features are
also shown in Tables 22.2 and 22.3.


American

Since fermented sausages ’ manufacturing
practices in the United States and in many
Latin American countries were introduced by
European immigrants, many typical European
fermented sausages can be found in the
Americas. American semidry sausages are
considered to be acidifi ed processed meat
products with an M : P ranging from 3.7 : 1 to
2.3 : 1 and a pH below 5.0. Summer sausages
are a loosely defi ned variety of semidry
sausages and are usually a mix of beef and
pork, the predominant seasonings being
black pepper, mustard, coriander, and garlic.
Summer sausages stuffed in different casing
types (40 – 120 mm) and smoked are very
popular in the United States (Rust 2007 ).
Among semidry fermented sausages,
Lebanon bologna is a unique product origi-
nated by Pennsylvania German immigrants

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