The modern packing house

Scrapple.

—For making scrapple use two pig heads, two pig tongues and two pig livers. These should be cooked in an iron-jacketed kettle that will hold about forty-five gallons. Cover thoroughly and then remove from kettle and cut up the same as for head cheese. After the heads, tongues and livers are taken from the water, skim the grease and add forty pounds of corn meal and five pounds of buckwheat to the water, putting in a little at a time, stirring as put in. Cook slowly for five hours. Seasoning should be added before buckwheat and corn meal are put in, consisting of:

After the meal and water has been cooked about four hours and forty-five minutes, add the heads, tongues and livers, stir thoroughly about fifteen minutes, shut off steam, and place in pan. When about cool, but while plastic, add to each pan top a coating of the grease skimmed from cooking.

Bologna Sausage in Oil.

—This is a sausage manufactured quite extensively by packers, who find the principal markets for it in the south. In fact, it is not used anywhere but in warm climates and it is usually put up in twenty-pound and fifty-pound tin packages.

Much experimenting has been done to ascertain the best size for packages to put up sausage in oil. The following formula is generally considered to be a good method for making this sausage:

Stuff in different sized beef rounds. The beef cheek meat, pork hearts, and pork cheek meat are ground through a ⁷⁄₆₄th inch plate, and afterward chopped with a “Silent Cutter” the seasoning being added at the same time.

Use no water in this sausage under any circumstances. After the beef and beef hearts, also the pork cheek meat, have been chopped as fine as desired, add the pork trimmings and chop the same as any other Bologna.

It is desirable to stuff this sausage immediately after it is chopped, and if a steam stuffer is used care should be taken that no water from the evaporation of the steam is allowed to get into the sausage. The bench where the sausage is stuffed should be absolutely free from water or moisture. This is the principal factor in the successful manufacture of this product.

After the sausage is stuffed, it is smoked about three hours at a temperature of 150° to 160° F., or until it is dry clear through. This sausage is not cooked. Keep it away from all water and moisture.

After the sausage is smoked allow it to cool in a dry airy room, but do not put it in a cooler. When it is thoroughly cool, pack into twenty-pound and fifty-pound packages, as desired, as follows: In twenty-pound cans, place sixteen pounds Bologna and four pounds oil. In fifty-pound cans, place thirty-six pounds Bologna and fourteen pounds oil.

In order to pack the cans properly, it is necessary to stuff different sized beef rounds, as mentioned above, so that they will fit in nicely without breaking the casings, and without filling the cans too full.

After the cans have been filled with the required amount of Bologna, crimp on the summer top, which has a two-inch hole and a cap to fit. Fill the cans as full as possible with deodorized cotton seed oil, which must be cold. Allow the cans to stand for thirty minutes, then refill so that the oil runs over the top through the hole, put on the cap immediately and solder right through the oil which will accumulate around the cap and on the top of the can. This will not hinder the process of soldering and it prevents the possibility of any air getting into the cans.

After the caps have been secured, solder around the crimps of the summer top. This can be done before the oil is put in if desired. Extreme care must be used in soldering the cans so that no air whatever gets in, or oil leaks out, as the sausage will spoil if this occurs.

The cans should also be fitted with the regular covers so as to protect the summer top. Pack in crates, the twenty-pound size, two to four to a crate; the fifty-pound size, one to two to a case.

The case should be large enough so as to admit of packing sawdust beneath the bottom, around the sides and on the tops. A crate large enough to permit one-half inch space around the cans is the size generally used and there should be a partition in the crates where more than one can is packed in a crate.

In freighting this class of merchandise in the south, in fact wherever it is shipped, it receives more or less rough handling and a great many freight handlers use box hooks, which they stick into the sides of the crates, and if there is not sufficient protection from the amount of sawdust put in, the cans are punctured, the oil leaks out and the sausage spoils. Sausage handled in the above manner has been known to keep two years in temperature ranging from 40° to 100° F.

Pork Sausage in Oil.

—Use the same formula as for regular pork sausage except that the trimmings must be moderately lean, and the sausage absolutely free from water. Use also the same spices. Stuff immediately after the sausage is chopped, using the same care as to moisture as for Bologna in oil, and smoke over a very cold smoke until the sausage seems dry all the way through. Allow it to cool, handling and packing in every other respect the same as Bologna Oil.

Bologna Varnish.

—Where it can be used and not conflict with Food regulations bologna varnish can be used to advantage. It improves the appearance and decreases shrinkage. As considerable water is used, in addition to the natural moisture in meats there is, after it is manufactured, considerable shrinkage, and if allowed to hang for any length of time, the casings become wrinkled on account of the evaporation of this internal moisture. The varnishing of the sausage creates a covering on the outside which prevents this wrinkled appearance, improving its looks, and retarding the evaporation of moisture from the sausage. The formula is as follows:

The mixture should be put into a vessel and heated to a point where the shellac is well dissolved. When this is accomplished, add four gallons of water. This varnish, in order to be ready for use at any time, must be kept lukewarm. It should, therefore, be kept in a jacketed pan, surrounded by either hot water or steam, to hold it at the proper temperature. The sausage should be immersed and immediately hung up to dry.

This varnish can be used without any detrimental effect whatever on all kinds of smoked Bologna sausage or smoked cooked pressed ham. It preserves the sausage, keeps it from molding, and is especially effective where it is necessary to pack Bologna in boxes for shipment long distances.

Where the dipping pan is used, it is only necessary to dip the sausage in the above solution a few seconds before hanging on racks to dry. The sausage is usually ready for shipment in one hour after it is dipped, if the preparation is properly made, where a large amount of Bologna is being dipped it is, of course, necessary to have a larger dripping pan and a larger quantity of varnish. The proportions should be increased accordingly.

It is also important that, after the varnish has stood from one period of dipping to another, to skim the grease off the top of the varnish before again using it, and the Bologna should always be dipped immediately after it is taken from the cooking vats; in other words, while hot.

Boiled Ham.

—Boiled ham and shoulders, also cooked meats, are usually included as a sausage product. There is nothing that determines the cost of the finished product as much as the shrinkage, hence the method that will produce the least loss in weight from original to finished product is the process desired.

There are two methods of cooking hams, one is to steam them in a retort or some receptacle where they are cooked by the heat generated by steam; another is to cook them in water. The latter process, from careful observation, seems to be the one that gives the best results as regards the shrinkage, although steaming perhaps makes the ham more palatable. The hams before being cooked should be bound and wrapped with twine to hold them in shape. A form made of galvanized iron, clamping plates which are put into a press, with the ham tightly clamped on the inside should be used. The ham is cooked and chilled in this mold.

The cure of the ham has much to do with the shrinkage and it is therefore preferable to use fully cured hams instead of old cured hams, as the shrinkage is greater on over-cured meats. It is also advisable to sort the hams as to size, having each vat or tank of hams uniform. If not uniform in size there is an excessive shrinkage on small hams which are overcooked. In all cases the hams should be soaked, removing the surplus salt. The length and time of soaking depends altogether on the age of the meats. The hams should be thoroughly washed and if they are to be branded this should be done before they are boned or cooked.

Rules for Boiling Hams.

—When hams are boned (if desirable) and wrapped, they should be put into a vat of water, temperature about 212° and the temperature regulated until it reaches 155° to 160° F. The hams are held at this temperature until they are cooked, which requires somewhat longer time than when they are cooked, by steam at a higher temperature. A twelve-pound ham will require from four and one-half to five hours. After the hams are cooked they should be allowed to cool in the water in which they were cooked; not taken out, or drained, or set in the cooler, for in the water in which they are cooked are juices which are absorbed by the hams as they cool, and the shrinkage is much less than if taken out immediately. The hams should then be taken to the smoke house, laid on racks and given a very light smoke, then to the cooler.

Shrinkage in Boiling Hams.

—Hams taken out of pickle and drained for twelve hours to shipping weight, will show the following shrinkages under favorable circumstances: