Query.—I am trying to make Bologna and Frankfort sausage, and make it all right except the color of the meat. I cannot get a nice pink color. I have tried Freeze-Em Pickle; it is all right, but it is too slow a process. I want to make my sausage out of fresh meat and smoke it in a smoke-house, but cannot get a nice pink color on the meat. It has a gray color and does not look right. I have a color on hand, but it don’t give satisfaction. It makes the meat too red and does not look good.
Now, if you have anything that will overcome my trouble and will give my sausage a nice pink color, not red, and will comply with the National Pure Food Law, send it right along. I will remit on arrival. I would send the money now, but do not know the value of it. I make about twenty-five pounds of sausage at a batch.
Ans.—Your letter of recent date received. You say you are trying to make bologna and that you make it all right, but that the color of the meat is not a nice pink color. You say you tried the Freeze-Em-Pickle and that it worked all right, but that it is too slow a process. You further say you want to make your bologna out of fresh meat, but that you do not get a nice pink color when it is made that way. You say the meat is gray.
In all of that you are correct, and you will always have a gray sausage unless you make it with Freeze-Em-Pickle according to the directions in our circular. If you make bologna sausage out of fresh meat, it, of course, will be gray. If you roast a piece of beef, it will be gray. If you cook a piece of beef, it will be gray. It is the same with bologna. When bologna is made with fresh meat, it will be gray, just as though you take a piece of fresh meat and boil it. It is impossible to make bologna with a pink color and make it out of fresh meat. For that reason, we recommend you to use Freeze-Em-Pickle and prepare your bologna meat with Freeze-Em-Pickle beforehand. You can do that in about two or three days. It is better, however, to let the meat cure for a week.
All you have to do is to trim out the beef and pork trimmings with which you intend to make the bologna, cut the pieces up about the size of an English walnut and sprinkle on Freeze-Em-Pickle in the proportion of one pound Freeze-Em-Pickle to every 100 pounds of meat. Mix the meat thoroughly and then pack it tightly in a tierce or a box, in fact a shallow box where the meat is not very thick is better, but pack it in tightly, and then put it in the cooler and let it remain there for at least four or five days, or a week, if possible. Then when you make bologna, the bologna will be better in flavor, will be juicier, will have a fine red appearance, and will be perfect in all respects. This we positively guarantee.
If you want to make bologna and frankfort sausage properly and have it right in all respects, you must take the necessary time and prepare the meat accordingly.
Formerly when artificial colors could be used in bologna and frankfort sausage, then it was all right to make it out of fresh meat and use an artificial inside color, but now, however, the food laws are such that you cannot use an inside color and therefore it is necessary to make it according to the Freeze-Em-Pickle process and with our Freeze-Em-Pickle. Then you will have a nice pink color on the inside of your bologna and frankfort sausage. You say you have a color on hand but it does not give satisfaction. It is a good thing that it does not give satisfaction, because if you were to use it, you could be arrested and fined and it would cause you a great deal of trouble; in fact, your reputation might be ruined if your name got in the papers stating that you used coloring on the inside of your bologna and frankfort sausage, because the food laws prohibit that.
By using the Freeze-Em-Pickle process you will make sausage that will in every way comply with your state food law and will at the same time, have a fine inside color, and excellent flavor and splendid keeping qualities. This will overcome all the troubles you mention, and all that is necessary is for you to prepare your meats a few days before hand. In fact, you can prepare a quantity of the meat before hand and keep it and use it along as you need it, making up 25 pounds at a time whenever you wish to do so, and leave the balance until a later occasion. Meat will keep this way in a good cooler indefinitely. This is the only way we can recommend your making sausage that will comply with your law and at the same time have the color you desire. Of course, it is a little more trouble, but it is trouble that will well repay you, because your sausage will really be of better quality and it will make a much better appearance.
HOW TO REMOVE WOOL FROM GREEN AND DRY SHEEP PELTS
Question.—K. M. Co. writes: Can you give us a method for pulling the wool from green hides and also from dry hides? We get the dead carcasses from the feed and transit yards—a good many hundred pelts during a year. Lots of these pelts are torn. If we can pull the wool we will be able to realize more money out of handling these pelts.