I've encountered a strange problem after making several tons of sausage....literally.
We make fresh sausage with a dozen or so different recipes. Volumes are high for a boutique shop, with both wholesale and retail accounts.
A couple of weeks ago I started getting complaints that several of the sausages are too salty. We use a standard ratio of 18g per 1kg of meat/fat mix, and have not changed the salt supplier or type.
At first I thought maybe someone had mixed incorrectly. We mix our spice mixes in advance and so combining these in the mixer is a simple process of 20kg of meat to one spice mix. I went back and weighed the spice mix bags that have already been prepared and they are all correct.
So... I made up a small batch of fresh Chorizo using the same recipe that's we've been using for over a year. It's too salty....
Now I'm really confused....
We made one change in the process in the last month. We used to age the fresh sausage for 3 days in bulk in the refrigerator before stuffing. We changed to stuff immediately and age in the casings before freezing. Same amount of aging time, but just inside the casing rather than in bulk.
The Chorizo I made rested for an hour before stuffing and I cooked it immediately.
I'm going to reduce the salt to 15g in another test batch this afternoon, because I'm not sure what else to do... There is no Cure in these sausages.
It's possible that the batches were frozen before the 3 day aging period was over, as some employees may not have been fully briefed on the change as the old process was to stuff and then immediately freeze than vacuum pack.
Any ideas?