Dry Room Treatment.
—After the smoking process is completed the sausage is taken to the drying rooms where the temperature can be kept at all times between 46° and 53° F., the proper temperature being 48° F., if it can be maintained. The dry room must be fitted with steam pipes running underneath the sausage and around the sides of the room and underneath the windows in order to supply the necessary heat. The room must be supplied with ample windows for light and ventilation and should be very high so as to permit the required overhead ventilation. At all times the windows must be kept open a little to allow fresh air to enter no matter how cold the outside temperature. If the weather is damp the windows nearest the top or the top ventilator of the room should be opened a little. Sausage is not usually hung adjacent to the windows.
Steam should always be turned on in damp weather to dry the air, providing the weather is not too warm and the temperature in the room can be kept as low as 53° F. The room should be arranged in sections, so that there may be an empty section between each lot of new sausage. As the sausage becomes drier it can be hung more closely. The sausage, should not dry too quickly as too much air will dry it near the casing, which will cause the sausage to stick to it and become dry. In that case the inside will not dry uniformly and the sausage will wrinkle and in some instances become sour.
The different kinds of sausage require different places in the dry room. Some require an abundance of air and others, like “Holsteiner” and “farmer” sausage, if properly smoked, can be hung where it would not be policy to hang summer sausage in hog bungs. As both of these sausages are coarse chopped, they can be handled with much less fear of being spoiled than the finer chopped sausage. However, with every description of dry sausage, constant attention must be given or poor results will follow.
Summer sausage in hog bungs can be subjected to more draft or air than summer sausage in beef casings. Consequently beef casings are generally hung near the center of the room where they receive plenty of air, but no drafts. This is a place where the human element comes greatly into play.
Dry Room Caution.
—Do not hang green and dry sausage in the same room. It is advisable to keep dry rooms for smoked sausage as free from mold as possible. While a slight mold does not hurt summer sausage (in fact some summer sausage requires this before it is ready for shipment), it will be found that smoked sausage drys better and quicker in a room that can be kept free of mold. Sausage that molds too much before it is dry necessarily has to be washed. This process does not hurt the sausage, and in some cases washing does it good, especially if by neglect or otherwise it has become greasy in the smoke house. Sausage will not dry as rapidly if greasy and the process of washing it quickens the drying. In washing sausage warm water, not hot, should be used. A little sal soda in the water is desirable.
Shipping Ages.
—Summer sausage in both hog bungs and beef casings if properly handled can be shipped, in three stages of dryness, as follows: New, twenty to twenty-five days old; medium dry, forty to forty-five days old; dry, sixty to seventy-five days old. In cheaper grades of summer sausage, many kinds of which are manufactured, can be shipped in much less time than indicated above. In fact, there is sausage made which can be shipped almost immediately from the smoke house. This sausage is allowed to stand for some time after chopping and before stuffing, previous to being put in the smoke house. It is then smoked very hard, or with more heat than the better grades of this sausage. Some manufacturers use more heat than smoke, but it does not produce a first-class article.