Sujuk is a sausage that comes from the Middle East. Typically beef is used when making this sausage but depending on where you are pork, lamb, or a combination might be used. There are many different variations of this sausage depending on the region and every one equally delicious.
This version of sujuk is a fermented semi-dried sausage that leans towards Turkish flavors. The fermentation adds delicious complex flavors while the drying intensifies the flavors of the seasonings used. Depending on the diameter of your sausage will determine how long you let it dry. In this recipe we only dried ours for several days and it was perfect but this is very subjective so you get to be the judge.
Normally sujuk doesn’t use a fermentation starter culture but in the recipe below I added a culture as an optional step. All this does is increase the bacterial activity to give you a more consistent and predictable product. The starter culture that I listed will give you awesome results in only 24 hours. This is totally optional as you can naturally ferment sujuk for 24-48 hours at room temperature
Drying this sausage needs to happen in a controlled environment. I like to keep my sujuk in an area 55F and 80% rH. This will keep the sausage from drying out too fast and allow for the flavors to develop evenly. A drying chamber works perfect for this. Check out my post on how to convert an old fridge into a drying chamber.
Follow fermented semi-dried sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
- Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
- Keep your meat and grinder parts super cold (below 34F)
- Any liquid that is added to the mince needs to be ice cold
- Mix your very chilled meat till the mince becomes very tacky
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Apply the mold 600 culture
- Ferment this sausage at room temperature for 24 – 48 hours
- After fermentation, hang the sujuk in a controlled environment (55F & 80% rH) for 3-7 days. The larger diameter of your sausage the longer you’ll want to let it dry.
- After the drying period your sausage is finished. Refrigerate, cook, enjoy
Here are a few things you might find useful when making sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Chef Knife – KOTAI
- Boning Knife
- Sausage Pricker
- Iwatani Professional Chef Torch
- Flavor of Italy
- Mold 600
- Apera pH Meter with Bluetooth
- Dextrose
- Insta Cure #1
- Sausage Stuffers
- Meat Grinder
- InkBird Controllers temp & Humidity
- Dehumidifier Eva Dry 1100
- Cool Mist Ultrasonic Humidifier
If you want to see the different things that we use in operation our be sure to check out our new Amazon Store.
2 Guys & A Cooler Amazon Storefront
Semi Dried Sujuk Sausage
Ingredients
- 700 g lean beef
- 300 g beef fat
- 25 g kosher salt
- 2.5 g insta cure #1
- 2 g dextrose
- 4 g freshly ground black pepper
- 60 g minced garlic
- 10 g Aleppo pepper powder
- 5 g cayenne pepper or to taste
- 2.5 g ground sumac
- 5 g ground cumin
- 4 g coriander powder
- 2.5 g ground allspice
- 2.5 g paprika
- 1 g clove powder optional
- 1 g ground fenugreek optional
- 20 g non fat dry milk powder optional
- 9 g dried rose petals optional
- hog casings 32-34mm
- Flavor of Italy Starter Culture 1/4 tsp diluted in 1/8 cup of water for every kilo of meat – rehydrate for 30 minutes prior to adding
- Mold 600 culture 1/2 tsp diluted in 1/2 cup of water – rehydrated for 4-6 hours before using
Instructions
- Clean your meat of any silver skin, sinew, arteries and cut into small strips or cubes. Place in the freezer for an hour or until the temp reaches 32f – 34F.
- Prepare your seasonings and rehydrate your casings. (If you are using a starter culture you'll want to rehydrate your culture at this point as well)
- Grind your chilled meat on a coarse plate,
- Add your seasonings and starter culture to your mince meat and mix till it becomes very tacky. If you grab a small handful it will stick to your hand if you hold your hand upside down.
- stuff into natural casings and tie the ends, prick the sausage, apply the mold culture, then weigh the sausage. I like to write down a target weight to know when it's ready. 10% – 15% weight loss is a good target.
- Ferment your salami by placing them in an environment that between 75F (24c) and 85F (29c) with high humidity for 18-24 hours. You can achieve high humidity by wrapping you salami in cling film. This locks in the moisture. A good place to ferment is in your oven with the light on but the oven off. (EVERY STARTER CULTURE IS DIFFERENT. THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOR THE FLAVOR OF ITALY STARTER CULTURE). The goal of fermentation is to reach a pH between 5.2 and 4.9.
- (OPTIONAL) Press under a heavy cutting board during fermentation
- Once finished fermenting hang in an area of 55F with 80% humidity for 3-7 days (or until target weight loss has been achieved). The longer you hang it the drier it will become (personal preference)
- After your sujuk has finished drying it is ready to cook and enjoy. I cooked mine in my smoker but it is most common to simply slice the semi dried sujuk and pan fry. Eating this with eggs is a very traditional way of having sujuk
We are Amazon Affiliates which means if you happen to buy something from Amazon after clicking one of our links we get a tiny percentage. This happens at no cost to you and really helps us offset the costs of running this site. Thank you in advance.
Hey Eric,
I was going to make some sujuk for my Turkish neighbor. You say to ferment for 24 hours at 75F-80F, what should the humidity be?
Jim
I ferment with a 85%. If you wrap the sausages in cling film they will keep a very high humidity..
Hi Eric,
I have tried your recipe and it is nice.
I made a twist to it which elevated it even more. I added Halloumi cheese and walnuts to the mix at the end and the result was amazing
OH WoW!! That sounds incredible!!
Hey Eric, love your videos. I have a question regarding mixing the farce enough but not over mixing. How does one know precisely? I get the sticky hand thing but it seems there is some confusion, to me, about making sure my salami is going to bind properly but not overmixing. Seems my first batch is a little crumbly in the small piece I saved for ph testing, I don’t have the weightloss yet for the ones stuffed in hog casing. Thank you!!
Hey Brett. This is where experience really comes in. It’s impossible to nail down a specific time for mixing because every protein is different, but once your meat batter gets tacky and sticky you can stop. Before you mix your meat, just make sure it’s chilled to below 34f. This will keep the fat from melting during the mixing process. In a kitchen aid mixer like the one I use the mixing part only takes 1-2 minutes. If you are mixing by hand it will take longer.
Hi Eric, my name is Frederico, I speak directly from Brazil, I follow your videos and they are excellent.
A question if I want to leave the sujuk to mature for more days to get drier, would you recommend changing the curing salt 1 for curing salt 2
If you plan on letting it age for 30 days or more I would use cure #2. If it’s less than 30 days I would still use cure #1