Pepperoni Production

One of the down falls of making your own cured meats and sausages is those made commercially pale in comparison.  One of the good things about making your own is that once you have the techniques and principles down you can experiment.  This can lead to some tasty developments.

Pepperoni made at home is definitely more flavorful than any you can get in the store with the exception of good dry cured fermented pepperoni from a specialty store.  Since I don't currently have a place to put a curing/fermentation chamber my pepperoni is cured and cooked.  I use as my base recipe the one found here, http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Pepperoni-cooked.pdf.  If you want to try your hand at any type of sausage, Len Poli has some excellent formulations on his site.  One of the good things about his formulations is that he lists ingredients by US measurements, metric measurements, and as a percentage.  Having the percentage is what lets you make as much or as little as you like in a batch.

I use the percentage and metric measurements for my sausage making.  A good scale is very helpful and almost a necessity using this method.  You can find my scale on my Tools and Gadgets post on 2 July 15.

The whole process started off with a 9 lb 2 oz boneless pork butt.  The butt was cut into chunks and strips of a size to fit in the tube of my grinder.  Once they were cut and in the freezer the calculator came out to figure out how much of each ingredient I'd need.  All the dry ingredients were weighed out and mixed in a bowl.  The wet ingredients stayed in their measuring cups.  The formulation calls for non-fat milk but I used the closest we had on hand which was 2% milk.  Use what you have on hand.

One thing to help with the grinding is to make sure your grinder is super cold and the meat is cold almost to the point of being at a hard chill.  Doing this will give you a cleaner grind of your meat and the temperature will stay low enough that bacteria growth will be inhibited.  I put my grinder head in the freezer before I even start cutting up the meat.

The meat gets ground into a meat chub that can hold up to 25 lbs of meat.  I then spread it evenly in the chub and then sprinkle on the dry ingredients then pour the wet ingredients over it.  Now the hardest part starts, the mixing.  The easiest way is to use your hands and mix and squeeze until everything is well mixed.  The mixture should be sticky.  Fry up a little sample to check the spice level.  A fancy name for this sample is quenelle.

Thoroughly mixed and ready to chill

Put the pepperoni mixture in the refrigerator while the casings are being prepared.  I get my casings from Butcher and Packer, http://www.butcher-packer.com/.  Take out a length of casing, about a foot per pound plus a bit extra and rinse off the salt that it is packed in.  Let the casing soak in warm water for 30 - 45 minutes.  Run water through the casing to ensure all the salt is gone.  The casing is now ready to thread onto the stuffing tube.

Starting to take shape

I have a 5 lb vertical stuffer that I got from Northern Tool.  I don't know if they still carry them or not.  Bass Pro Shops and Cabelas both carry them and they can also be ordered directly from Weston and LEM.  The casings can be stuffed fairly tight since you will only be making a few long links. 

Freshly linked and ready to hang

Once the casing is filled, twist into 12 - 18 inch links.  I separate them into pairs for easy hanging in the smoker.  Hang the pepperoni at room temperature with a fan blowing across them for about an hour to dry the casing.  After the pepperoni has hung for an hour, put it in the smoker and cook slowly at 180 - 190 degrees until an internal temperature of 150 F is reached.  They don't need any smoke except the minimal amount that comes from the charcoal.  The pepperoni can be done in the oven, just make sure they aren't touching.  Dip the pepperoni in boiling water for 20 seconds to shrink the casing.  Refrigerate for several hours before using.

After the cook and dip in boiling water

I run all the pepperoni through the slicer in one session and package it.  It gets packaged in 4 ounce batches as that will be enough to cover a pizza fairly well.  The ends and any bad slices get chopped and packaged for use as well.  This latest batch of ends and pieces got used in a pasta dish that turned out quite nicely.

Some sliced for pizza, look at that texture

A mass of sliced pepperoni ready to be packaged

I hope you try your hand at this pepperoni or some other sausage, you'll be amazed at the results.  For bulk type  sausages all you need is a grinder and hand cranked grinders can still be purchased rather inexpensively at thrift stores and antique shops.  I still have one myself.  So, get some meat and start experimenting with sausage.

Uncle T