great price fwiw. i'd buy everything they had.

 

It's cured meat. It'll outlast you most likely. You'll find it hard to make it go bad if you try.

r

 

It's cured meat. It'll outlast you most likely. You'll find it hard to make it go bad if you try.

Most commercially produced summer sausages, pepperoni etc. aren't cured like a traditional salami is, they're chemically preserved. I've eaten a year over date pepperoni, but I could definitely tell the difference.

I wouldn't expect a very long life out of commercially treated meat. A properly cured salami or ham on the other hand, should last several years.

 

And if it does go bad you will definitely know by the rot smell.

 

Then it will offset my savings. I did stop today and bought the rest, but there were only 5 remaining. So now I have a total of 15.

Freezing 12 and keeping out 3. I'll go through the bag Jan 2013 and consume all the old stuff. At ghat time they'll only be 3 months past.

 

No need to freeze them. Seriously. I have at least eight buckets of rice/beans/peas etc that have four each stuffed down into them. Amazon blew them out on sale a while back. I have no doubt they'll be good in five years or more. Cured meat, properly cured meat, isn't going to go bad to the point that it makes anyone sick unknowingly. The worst you'll get is a bit of water leaking out of the sausage into the plastic tube. That's not a sign of bad, it's just a sign that the meat is still curing. Some makers even dip theirs into mineral oil to prevent fluid leak but it's not a sign of bad. If it doesn't stink, as Wombat said, it's good.

I have a few dozen large ones stashed around. They're one of my fav foods.

God bless.

rich

 

I disagree that freezing is not a good idea. In terms of spoilage, turning rancid is probubly more likely to happen than bacteria spoilage. Freezing is one of the best ways to slow things becoming rancid, because it is essentially a chemical reaction, and cold temperatures slow down all chemical reactions.

Storing in a BOB in a hot car will have the opposite effect! I'd expect something like summer sausage to turn rancid very quickly at high temperatures, with oxygen able to very slowly penetrating even the shrink-wrap.

BTW, mineral oil is carcinogenic. Don't let it come anywhere near anything you're going to eat!

 

Real summer sausage has a long life and is more likely to mold rather than spoil. But the commercial stuff isn't cured in the traditional manner and doesn't have as long of a shelf life. I've found summer sausage shelf life to be unpredictable. So I keep them refrigerated or frozen now and just consider them a short term food source.

 

BTW, mineral oil is carcinogenic.

I'd laugh at that if it weren't pathetic. I'm not in the mood for pathos. Sorry.

But the commercial stuff isn't cured in the traditional manner

Actually, yes the commercial stuff is cured in the same old traditional manner. It simply gets processed faster (lactic acid starter culture etc). Same old meats, same old chemicals, same old packaging. The vac wrap gives it a lifespan even longer than the old stuff.

r

 

I'd laugh at that if it weren't pathetic. I'm not in the mood for pathos. Sorry.

fwiw, according to wiki, WHO calls it a Group 1 carcinogen, whatever that is.

 

Thanks guys, I got them in the freezer and one in each BOB. Christmas is a great time to break out the BOBS and pull out all the vacuum packed pepperoni, salami and now summer sausage. Get a couple pounds of cheese and make myself a traditional Wisconsin cheese tray for the holidays.

 

I though if everything else was gone there would still be Twinkies, Summersausage and M&M's

 

fwiw, according to wiki, WHO calls it a Group 1 carcinogen, whatever that is.

Unrefined or food grade? Get back to us on that.

r

 

why do you find it so hard to believe that mineral oil might be a carcinogen? apparently its a by-product of petroleum refining so the idea that it could be a carcinogen seems reasonable to me.

 

why do you find it so hard to believe that mineral oil might be a carcinogen? apparently its a by-product of petroleum refining so the idea that it could be a carcinogen seems reasonable to me.

Except that every study ever performed on it, and there have been a few, always comes back the same. No link, no evidence. Food grade mineral oil is an accepted food additive. It's used in medicines. And WHO, btw, classifies food grade mineral oil as a class 3....no link, no evidence. Class 1 mineral oil isn't what you would be eating. By your reasoning above, pure distilled water could make you sick because the crude, unfiltered stuff it's made from might. By removing the bad stuff, you *remove the bad stuff*, though. What's left isn't the same as it started.

rich

 

i wouldn't use it.

what else do they get from petroleum? plastics, gasoline, motor oil, kerosene, tar, asphalt - i guess paraffin would be the closest thing i see listed that would be non-harmful and i don't think people would want to be eating that on a regular basis either. My guess is people started using mineral oil in various elixirs and snake oil remedies about a hundred years ago when they didn't know any better and the FDA hasn't gotten around to banning it yet.

btw i bought those Jacks Links summer sausages off Amazon last year too and they were good. i think they were as low as $10.xx for the 4-pack at one time but i missed out on that price. i don't know why they were selling them so cheap, seemed like good quality to me fwiw.

 

Same moisture level, salt percentage, smoke level, etc?

All those vary by brand and flavor as it is already. They aren't really useful in comparing the longevity etc. Cured summer sausage won't have a cooking guide printed on it, not often a storage guide, and won't always have a date of any sort. Nitrated and nitrited sausages are regulated by the FDA, though. Done wrong, they can be deadly.

I've been stocking summer sausage for a lot of years, though. I like the stuff. I buy up to a hundred every year from Hickory Farms. Seriously. No exaggeration. They blow them out just after Christmas and you can get them at $2 a pound a lot of times. Their plastic packed cheese is a good buy, too. It's like wax and can be putrid flavor-wise (the smoked crap) but it's food that will last. Amazon has Jack Links and others on sale sometimes, too. Four for $16 sometimes. I eat them hiking and camping, I fry them for brekky, I make sandwiches, tacos and burritos, I make gumbo and jambalaya, I dice them into rice (just yesterday, in fact) I toss a chunk into my stock pot with beans. Low priced, shelf stable meat/protein is always worth buying. I buy Vienna sausages and potted meat by the 48 case, too. Not always in the mood for Vienna sausages but they fill you up and they're good to fill a plate.

God bless.

rich

 

Warm up the summer sausage for 15 seconds in the microwave. And simply butter bread and warmed summer sausage sandwich. Mmm...mmm...good

 

Amazon blows out stuff constantly just for the fun of it I think. It's really worth spending an hour or two on the site every other day or so. I've gotten Chef Boyardee ravioli, beefaroni etc at 40 cents a can, Hamburger Helper at 50 cents a box, Kraft Mac and Cheese at three for a buck, those Jack Links at $16 etc. Large sausages, too. Those are the 20oz's. Last week, I got two 50lb bags of hard white wheat, $25 a bag and free delivery to my door. My UPS lady knows me by name

Mike, try dipping quarter inch slices in milk and peppered/seasoned flour and then pan fry them til browned and crispy. Put one in a biscuit plain or with a slice of cheese. It's better than most stuff you'll buy in a fast food place. I sometimes get a 24 pan of plain biscuits from Bojangles (yes, they sell them by the pan lol), make them up and freeze them. I make burritos two dozen at a time to freeze, too. My niece loves helping on those.

God bless.

rich

 

Amazon blows out stuff constantly just for the fun of it I think. It's really worth spending an hour or two on the site every other day or so. I've gotten Chef Boyardee ravioli, beefaroni etc at 40 cents a can, Hamburger Helper at 50 cents a box, Kraft Mac and Cheese at three for a buck, those Jack Links at $16 etc. Large sausages, too. Those are the 20oz's. Last week, I got two 50lb bags of hard white wheat, $25 a bag and free delivery to my door. My UPS lady knows me by name

God bless.

rich

Is there a quick link for the specials they have or do I have to search everything.

If been trying to find deals and I can't find them, but then again I have a Winco nearby.

 

Sorry, Swen. This one scrolled off my screen before I saw it. Just went looking and saw your question.

If there is an easy way, I don't know what it is. What I do is I make up a list of stuff that I buy anyway and search on those products every two/three days or so. When you get the results on a search, organize it by price and start scrolling. Be careful, though. You'll find lots of stuff like "Chef Boyardee at 25 cents a can" etc and then find out the shipping on a case is $30. Stick to the subscribe and save listings and the free Amazon shipping stuff first off. There's lots to go through.

On the subscribe and save stuff, it's free shipping no matter how big or small the order is. You can get $4 cases of 24 ramen for example shipped free to your door. It comes out to exactly what you'd pay locally but you get far more flavors to choose from and free delivery. If you want, only make the one order for free shipping and then cancel the subscribe and save two mins later. Don't tell anyone I said that. My last delivery this past week was two 50lb bags of hard wheat free delivered for $25 per bag. I can't beat that even shopping locally. That deal's gone for now but it'll be back in a week or two. Most deals usually are.

I got turned onto subscribe and save by some decent fellow here on the forum. My first order was two 72 boxes of Jewish Shabbat candles (standard 5" utility candles) for $6 each. I got two orders of those, four boxes total, and the deal went off the S&S list. Those were $24 a box last I looked. As I said, Chef Boyardee cans go on sale pretty often. If it's an S&S they can be 75 cents a can with free delivery....but even if it's not S&S, you can often find the same product on the Amazon free delivery if you buy $25 worth. You can get cases of 24 at 40-50 cents a can sometimes. Both the S&S and the Amazon free shipping deals are *really worth it!*

Apollogies for the typos. Tried to fix them as they popped up but missed a few, I think. Think I have a virus or something running the background here. My keyboard isn't working for crap tonight. Think I need to do a restoreto a few days back.

God bless.

rich

 

I agree that they can be iffy. I bought several beef summer sausages from Aldi with 2012 dates and froze most of them. One from the freezer opened earlier this year was mushy in texture so I threw it out. Another was fine and eaten last week. While rooting through the pantry I found another one and when opened it didn't smell bad but it was brownish grey so I threw it out.

Maybe how it's wrapped makes a difference? I don't remember the mushy one but the one from last week was just the skinned meat and outer plastic wrap but the brownish grey one was wrapped in waxy paper between the plastic and the skin.