Lets talk about the red liquid called purge. It is mostly water, a little protein, and lactic acid. Some old butchers will add it back to ground beef or sausage just to keep from losing the value. As far as minerals go, it has some iron in it from the myoglobin protein. To the young meat cutter that wonder why you would add it back and think it wouldn't really affect your bottom line much. Understand the reason why it was, that reason was water weights 8 lbs to the gallon, it did also. Using a 2.00 cost on grind 70/30 that would be 16.00. times that by how many times you grind a week times 4 weeks and then say it doesn't affect your gross
Id also throw it out there that those primarily meat flavors like the iron from the blood and stuff make for great charcuterie, I always think the myoglobin makes it taste, for lack of a better term animally i'm on a role inventing new adjectives today, but it makes a lot of sense that you would add it back, when breaking down the animal you already have to worry about losing bone weight and stuff like that so im sure every pound counts. Plus does the lactic acid help keep some bacteria at bay if you are fermenting the sausage?
ive used very little water. but used more wine than anything. i have a great chorizo mix that has been carried down our family. and my sage breakfast sausage is the best ive ever had.
The proteins in the purge are generally those water soluble ones. These are proteins indeed. I bind some purge into my 97% hamburger mix; less than 3# per 100#. This is in accordance with regulation. I suppose it helps that we have a lead federal inspector assigned to us rather than state or local, so that we can check everything before it is implemented.
I run my block and power equipment more sanitary than most cutters. I think in most places one could not afford re-introduce these proteins without introducing undue spoilage. In this case I can cut a rib-eye on Tuesday morning when I open and it will still be saleable at the close of business on Saturday evening. Rib-eye under ideal conditions in laboratory has nine days shelf-life.
I would not recommend purge in a typical retail venue.
Lets talk about the red liquid called purge. It is mostly water, a little protein, and lactic acid. Some old butchers will add it back to ground beef or sausage just to keep from losing the value. As far as minerals go, it has some iron in it from the myoglobin protein. To the young meat cutter that wonder why you would add it back and think it wouldn't really affect your bottom line much. Understand the reason why it was, that reason was water weights 8 lbs to the gallon, it did also. Using a 2.00 cost on grind 70/30 that would be 16.00. times that by how many times you grind a week times 4 weeks and then say it doesn't affect your gross
I've often wondered about this. If it's morally right or wrong to use this liquid. Like on a 3 week old bag of mock tenders with a lot of liquid. It was originally in the meat, so if you grind it back into the same meat, it will be exactly like it should have been, right? I've never done a taste test, or shelf life test to see what's better. That bag of mock tenders ground with the liquid and also without. I prefer to not use the liquid. Also, in a luggar of trimmings that has a cup or two of liquid, I'll throw that away a lot of the time, but not always.
What is immoral in my opinion, is adding that type of liquid into your grind when it didn't originate from the meat that you're using.
What is immoral in my opinion, is adding that type of liquid into your grind when it didn't originate from the meat that you're using.
Any of you go back to the days we mixed crush Ice into the grinds, that came about after they stop using a substance called potato whiter and food coloring
potato whiter would keep a package of grind red for 9 to 10 days but after around 5 days it would be green inside
Hey cowboy, I never used the stuff, had friends that used it and called in dynamite! In truth it was potato whitener and not supposed to be there now, but back in the day.....
As far as the purge goes, if it was in the bag thats weight we all paid for and I agree 100% with Burgermeister.
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I'm not a vegetarian, but have eaten many animals that were.
Lets talk real purge, 100 lb box of fresh pork loins from Smithfield . Our company started using the pumped one a while ago , In the meeting I protested that idea , Hormel reps turned to whole meeting toward me saying it was consumer driven. Now after many cases of smelly loins from Smithfield who got the contract by the way , we are finally changing back to natural loins, The weight of a box of loins dropped close to 15 lbs for the same size loins, We are talking close to Thirty dollars per box. Using thirty cases of loins a week is a tidy Nine Hundred Bucks down the floor drain. Took a long time to get my point across but finally got to the right person. Oh by the way , did anyone here ever have a consumer ask you to pump her pork loins full of water ? I believe the stuff I saw used in ground beef was sodium nitrate would stay red as a horses butt for a week
Food Lion pork is water pumped (basted, lol). All pre-cut, except occasionally we did cut Boneless loins and Boston Butts. Does not look right, smell right, taste right and shelf life is diminished versus natural pork.
Thank you for this subject I learned a great deal and some myths and legends were brought to the light, which I had heard of, but never seen firsthand.
Lets talk real purge, 100 lb box of fresh pork loins from Smithfield . Our company started using the pumped one a while ago , In the meeting I protested that idea , Hormel reps turned to whole meeting toward me saying it was consumer driven. Now after many cases of smelly loins from Smithfield who got the contract by the way , we are finally changing back to natural loins, The weight of a box of loins dropped close to 15 lbs for the same size loins, We are talking close to Thirty dollars per box. Using thirty cases of loins a week is a tidy Nine Hundred Bucks down the floor drain. Took a long time to get my point across but finally got to the right person. Oh by the way , did anyone here ever have a consumer ask you to pump her pork loins full of water ? I believe the stuff I saw used in ground beef was sodium nitrate would stay red as a horses butt for a week
Maybe 15 years ago, I worked for a company that tried the pumped pork. It was called "oh so tender". Maybe it was Smithfield brand. I don't remember. It was garbage! Very short shelf life. Looked NASTY when it spoiled. A terrible green, similar to meat spoiled outside of refrigeration. You've all seen the difference between meat spoiled in one day outside of refrigeration (forgotten in a car's trunk) and meat spoiled one week in a refrigerator. That's how the pumped pork looked. And it was dangerous to cut. Slippery. Probably contaminates anything that gets near it.
Excessive purge is something that drives me mad. It's also much more of an issue with US commodity beef than it is with beef from other countires. We handle beef from the US, Australia, and New Zealand. We are usually cutting at about 30 days from slaughter. The New Zealand beef has nearly zero purge, Australian, less than 2%, but the US is always over 3%. The difference is in the carcass chill. In the US they do a short carcass chill and spray the carcass with chlorinated water while maintaining a high relative humidity in the cooler. The pakcers know damn well they are just passing water down the line. Dry chilled carcasses have much better cutability and you can even freeze, thaw, and then refreeeze without any appreciable loss in quality.
