| 40 | pounds beef chucks, very lean and entirely free from all sinews, |
| 90 | pounds work trimmings, trimmed in same manner, |
| 20 | pounds shoulder fat, cut into strips about 2 inches square and cut into shavings as fine as it is possible to get them, |
| 5 | pounds, 12 ounces salt, |
| 2 | ounces whole white pepper, |
| 6 | ounces saltpetre. |
The beef is first ground through a ⁷⁄₁₆-inch plate, after which it is placed on the rocker together with the fat and seasoning and rocked for about five minutes. Then the pork trimmings are added, the whole being rocked for from twenty-five to thirty minutes.
The pepper is spread through the meat during the rocking process, and about five minutes before rocking finished. The sausage is taken to a cooler where the temperature is not lower than 38° F., nor higher than 40° F. It is spread upon shelving about ten or twelve inches thick, where it is allowed to remain three days, after which it is stuffed by hand machines into hog bungs or beef middles as required.
The sausage is taken to the hanging room to hang for two or three days according to the weather, at a temperature of from 48° to 50° F. If the weather is damp care must be taken to prevent the sausage from sliming and it is sometimes necessary to keep the temperature up to 55° F. in order to keep the room free from dampness. If the sausage begins to slime there is danger of its becoming sour or hollow in the center. It is advisable, if it is impossible otherwise to keep the sausage from sliming, to put it into smoke as soon as the slime is detected, which stops it.
When the sausage is ready for smoke, under favorable circumstances, from two to three days after it is stuffed it should be hung in a smoke house where the temperature is as near 48° F. and gradually heated until the temperature reaches 70° F. It must be kept at this point throughout the entire process of smoking, or for about twenty-four hours for beef middles and forty-eight hours for hog bungs.
In starting a fire in the smoke house as little wood should be used as possible, say, one stick of ash cord wood, just enough fire to keep the sawdust smoking without blazing. Keep adding sawdust until there is sufficient fire to scatter it over the entire bottom of the smoke house, keeping the sawdust ignited only from the coals of the wood with which the fire was started and which generally lasts through the entire process of smoking. If the smoke houses are naturally cold it may be necessary to keep more fire than mentioned in order to keep the temperature up to 70° F.
The smoking of this sausage requires all possible care. If the temperature is allowed to rise too high for any length of time, it will sour. If the fire is too low and smoke too dense there will be a smoke ring, especially so if the sausage is not properly dried before smoking. It is advisable that the sausage should not be exposed to too sudden or severe a change in temperature upon removing from the smoke house. If it is some distance from the smoke house to the dry room, cover the sausage on the trucks with a tarpaulin, cover so that the cold air cannot strike it. It is a good idea not to hang the sausage up on the racks immediately, but to place it on the bottom rack, close together, so that it may cool gradually.
The following are additional formulas for the making of cervelat sausage:
FORMULA B.
| 45 | pounds beef chucks, |
| 82 | pounds lean pork trimmings, |
| 23 | pounds shoulder fat, |
| 5 | pounds, 12 ounces salt, |
| 2 | ounces whole white pepper, |
| 6 | ounces saltpetre. |