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Droewors info

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:12 pm
by Brendon
Hi. Hoping you guys can help. Wanting to make more droewors and unsure if its safe to make in warmer weather, one South African told me that you can make it all year round with just the biltong box and no humidity control without adding nitrites and nitrates. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Re: Droewors info

PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 12:16 am
by BriCan
I have/know it has been made in temperatures of 30 degrees C in a biltong type box and have seen no problems. The one thing I will caution you on is to use some cure. I am not home at the present to look at my recipes from the South African Meat Board

HTH

It helps a lot in answers if we know your location :D. By the way welcom

Re: Droewors info

PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 2:41 pm
by JohnT
Brendon, droewors is best made in cooler weather, although it is made commercially all year round in South Africa. Farmers in the Karoo region, which gets up to 40C in summer, still make biltong and droewors during the summer months, with no problems - but then they have a low relative humidity in that region. I do not use a biltong box but hang it in a small room at the back of the house that does not get any direct sun at any time. I use a small electrical fan to assist in air movement and the drying process. I use no nitrates or nitrites. Just remember that you must not hand mix much (or at all) and the casings must be "loosely" stuffed or you will end up with trying to eat a stick of leather. I do not fully dry the sausage as I prefer it still slightly damp. Make sure your recipe does not contain any pork or pork fat as the fat will make the sausage rancid. I also use the same room for biltong making, but add a small heater coupled to a thermostat for the first few days when making biltong, just bringing the temperature to about 23C in the winter months.

Where are you located?

John

Re: Droewors info

PostPosted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:12 pm
by Brendon
Thank you both for your replies. I'm located in Southern Western Australia. John t your reply was exactly what I was looking for as I'm not interested in using cures and the hints about stuffing loosely is very useful. Why not mix by hand is this for the same reason or not? I am using a biltong box. I apologise for bringing up the nitrite/nitrate issue as I know some have strong opinions regarding this matter but I would really like to stay away from these as this was my greatest issue with making my own biltong/droewors. I'm not overly confident but I think we have relatively low humidity in this area also. I don't use any pork or its fat but heard that you can use lamb and lamb fat. Is this true? Thanks again

Re: Droewors info

PostPosted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 8:27 pm
by crustyo44
Hi Brendon,
I hope that you will be consuming the droewors all by yourself. Sharing it around would be foolish, unless you added a cure. Google: Garibaldi Smallgoods and you will decide to use a cure.
It's not worth taking the risk.
Cheers,
Jan.

Re: Droewors info

PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 11:07 pm
by SausageKingofChicago
Apologies for the years-late reply :D

I have been making biltong for years, and the fat does sometimes go rancid. Reading online, I get the impression beef fat should not go rancid below 25c. Yes, you can dry meat above that temperature, but the fat will turn to the dark side.

There isn't one or two degrees or levels of food poisoning. I have had it dozens of times. It can vary from a mild single session of semi-squits on the toilet, to a few similar sessions, or queasiness lasting a few hours. The very worst I have had it (only once) did include stomach cramps, and it was a 48 hour bout, but no where near bad enough to require hospitalisation.

You could also have food poisoning and not realise it, it can be that mild. There are hundreds of degrees of how "bad" it can get.

Back to droewors, pork and pork fat are out of the question. But the beef (and lamb fat) should ideally be in a cool and dry location, NOT a hot location, despite the fact that yes people do make it when the temperature is soaring. It is possible that way back when in the day (and now) something was incorporated into the making of droewors which permitted the heat. Alcohol, saltpetre, natural or articial preservatives, the use of a cool or basement location during the heatwave, caves or shade, etc.

Bottom line... when making droewors, keep the temperature under 25 celsius. If you can access a fridge or buy a second one to use as a big cool biltong box, so much the better!

Regarding mixing the meat loosely, this is imperative. Ideally the mince and lamb (or just beef mince and lamb fat only) will be minced from a semi frozen state.

The process is
1) Mince coarsely
2) Loosely mix in spices with your hands, tossing the meat very lightly like a salad
3) Throw meat in freezer for 30 minutes to very lightly frost or deeply chill. This has the effect of hardening the fat ever so slightly, keeping the same coarsely ground texture.
4) Add vinegar and any final (wet) spices tossing very lightly
5) Mince again (spices are blended properly)
6) Case up your load!
7) Dip sausages in a tray with 5mm of a vinegar/hot water mix, remove immediately, hang to dry.

Going back to the mixing, if you mix your meat by hand, hard, and the tiny individual lumps of ground fat start to smudge, smear, melt, and blend in with the mince, you have ruined the texture of your droewors. The droewors will taste like... droewors paste.

Something else I have learned is that droewors should be cased lightly, not stuffed tightly. This helps preserve the ground textures in their individual globule format, so the meat can crumble (bits of fat, bits of lamb, bits of beef) in your mouth.You don't want to stuff your droewors sausage too tightly.

Ive only made droewors once (and didnt have any casings or a sausage stuffer!) and Ive never made sausages before, but Ive been eating the stuff all my life and have done a fair bit of reading. My first batch tasted good (all droewors does!) but suffered the over-mixed effect, which ruins the texture. I'd tasted that effect in other peoples droewors before, as well as the opposite (the lightly stuffed, lightly mixed) but hadn't put it into practise until now.

I say now, as Ive just made my second batch which is hanging up to dry! :D It smells delicious!! Cant wait to eat it ALL! :drool: :D