Fermenting sausage

[Adam Balic]

From this site.

Botulism is caused by the organism Clostridium botulinum, a spore-forming bacteria.  Spores release a toxin that caused the illness. Although widely spread throughout our environment, botulism spores only become dangerous after producing a toxin in an oxygen-free environment of low acidity.

Your sausage is aerobic so you should be OK.

Always happy to help a biologist with these difficult questions.

Damn amateurs. Biologists know enough not to commit. Oxygen is water soluble, but in the case of sausages, a load of it gets locked up in the meats haem, so anaerobic pockets are possible.

I would be more concerned about the rice, then botulism. Rice has a special species of bacteria Bacillius cereus, the spores present in the rice are activated by cooking the rice. If the rice is left un-refridgerated the bacteria multiple and can give you food poisoning. Nice, warm fermenting sausage? On the otherhand, I think that it is the microflora in the rice which help the sausage to ferment (like primative sushi), but userly you add salt to which favours the growth of 'helpful' bugs.

Sounds like an interesting project, hope you don't die.

[mamster]

Aha! Myoglobin!

I've eaten a peck of this stuff in Thailand, but that doesn't prove anything. At this point I think this will make an interesting sidebar, but I can't exactly recommend it to readers. It is odd that it appears in David Thompson's book--wouldn't the legal department be upset about this sort of thing?

[Adam Balic]

I no understand, what problem with myoglobin?

[g.johnson]

From this site.

Botulism is caused by the organism Clostridium botulinum, a spore-forming bacteria.  Spores release a toxin that caused the illness. Although widely spread throughout our environment, botulism spores only become dangerous after producing a toxin in an oxygen-free environment of low acidity.

Your sausage is aerobic so you should be OK.

Always happy to help a biologist with these difficult questions.

Damn amateurs. Biologists know enough not to commit. Oxygen is water soluble, but in the case of sausages, a load of it gets locked up in the meats haem, so anaerobic pockets are possible.

Once the haem is saturated, there's nothing stopping addition oxygen diffusing in, is there?

On the other hand, it occurs to me that pockets of fat could become anoxic.

Clearly mamster's death will not be enough for statistical significance. We need at least 20 volunteers to eat the sausage of doom.

[Jinmyo]

I'm happy with anecdotal evidence in this case.

Go for it, mamster.

Photographs, please.

[mamster]

I no understand, what problem with myoglobin?

I have no problem with myoglobin, but isn't that where the heme lives?

[Adam Balic]

From this site.

Botulism is caused by the organism Clostridium botulinum, a spore-forming bacteria.  Spores release a toxin that caused the illness. Although widely spread throughout our environment, botulism spores only become dangerous after producing a toxin in an oxygen-free environment of low acidity.

Your sausage is aerobic so you should be OK.

Always happy to help a biologist with these difficult questions.

Damn amateurs. Biologists know enough not to commit. Oxygen is water soluble, but in the case of sausages, a load of it gets locked up in the meats haem, so anaerobic pockets are possible.

Once the haem is saturated, there's nothing stopping addition oxygen diffusing in, is there?

Sausage aerobic, happy little aerobic bugs, bugs use up O2 at faster rate then gas diffusion. HAPPY anaerobic bugs. Dead Mamster (maybe). The nitrates added to many cured sausage inhibit the growth of Clostridium bugs. I like nitrates.

[g.johnson]

From this site.

Botulism is caused by the organism Clostridium botulinum, a spore-forming bacteria.  Spores release a toxin that caused the illness. Although widely spread throughout our environment, botulism spores only become dangerous after producing a toxin in an oxygen-free environment of low acidity.

Your sausage is aerobic so you should be OK.

Always happy to help a biologist with these difficult questions.

Damn amateurs. Biologists know enough not to commit. Oxygen is water soluble, but in the case of sausages, a load of it gets locked up in the meats haem, so anaerobic pockets are possible.

Once the haem is saturated, there's nothing stopping addition oxygen diffusing in, is there?

Sausage aerobic, happy little aerobic bugs, bugs use up O2 at faster rate then gas diffusion. HAPPY anaerobic bugs. Dead Mamster (maybe). The nitrates added to many cured sausage inhibit the growth of Clostridium bugs. I like nitrates.

No aerobic bugs to consume O2. O2 continues to diffuse. Dynamic equilibrium. No bugs truly happy.

[Adam Balic]

On serious note, it occurs to me that if one of these artifcial casings is used then they may not allow O2 to diffuse in. In that case nastiness may occur.

[col klink]

We'd be using only natural hog casings of the medium sized variety.

[bobdavis]

I've eaten a Swedish sausage called "sour sausage" made by a chef I know. It was his family's tradition from the old country. It sounds very much like what you are talking about.

He told me that, once it's been aged, the cooking process (in an oven) raises the temp enough to kill any of the baddies. It was very good - nice and crispy outside, finely ground pork sausage inside with a nice tang.

He makes a huge batch for his extended family every year. It's delicious.