Pepperoni sausage is an American semi dry fermented sausage typically made of pork and or beef. Peperoni is seasoned with paprika and aromatic herbs, has a soft texture, is slightly smoky, and bright red in color. It is a popular pizza topping and a snack cold meat.
Pepperoni
80/20 lean and pork fat
30 g salt per KG
2.5 g Cure #1 about 1/2 tsp per KG
5 g sugar - 5.0 g about 1 tsp per KG
3 g black pepper ground, about 1½ tsp per KG
8 g sweet paprika ground, about 4 tsp per KG
2.5 g anise seeds ground; about 1 tsp per KG
2 g allspice ground; about 1 tsp per KG
2 g cayenne pepper about 1 tsp per KG
2 cloves fresh Garlic per KG
2g Fennel seeds per KG
1/3 cup Red wine per KG
Chop meat in small cubes
Mix ingredients into slurry and mix with meat
Leaver in fridge overnight
Mince coarse then fine blade
Fill casing in sausage filler.
Ferment at room temp for 24 hours.
After fermentation smoke the pepperoni for 3 hours at 65C.
Check internal temp of pepperoni.
Place pepperoni in a drying chamber fovernight.
Cryovac
Overnight marinade in spice mix
Minced twice
Natural Casings
Pepperoni left at room temp for 24 hours to ferment.
Smoked at 65 c
30 minutes
3 hours
Cool overnight
Cryovac
Results: Good, not great. The pepperoni is well spiced and tastes like pepperoni but lacks the strong tangy flavour of a good fermented sausage. Meat will naturally ferment when left at room temperature, but I think next time I will use a starter culture to accelerate this process and hopefully result in a better sausage.
A starter culture (available from sausage supply places online) and some glucose to feed it will be better for the fermentation stage of this sausage’s creation.
This starter culture is used to induce good natural bacteria into the meat mix during the fermentation stage. Inducing good bacteria helps ward off bad bacteria from developing in your meat in the early stages of curing. It is a slower culture, ideal for salami and other Italian meat recipes.
