Patent ID: 7037542

Claim:
A process for rapidly preparing a fermented dry sausage or semidry sausage product in a period of time less than five hours, comprising the steps of i) admixing an amount of ground meat, containing a source of at least one fermentable carbohydrate, with an amount of an edible acidulant to lower the pH of the ground meat below its buffering ability, ii) adding an amount of a bacterial culture to enable the fermentation of the ground meat; iii) forming the meat admixture into a desired shape; iv) fermenting the formed sausage admixture to achieve the desired dry sausage or semi-dry sausage product; and v) heat-treating the meat admixture during the fermentation step at a temperature of between about 120° F. to about 150° F.; wherein the amount of the acidulant is selected so as to minimize denaturation of proteins in the ground meat admixture thereby retaining the textural quality of the fermented dry sausage or semi-dry sausage product; and wherein the steps of admixing, adding, forming, fermenting and heat-treating are performed in under 5 hours to produce the fermented dry sausage or semi-dry sausage product.