The Shelf Life of Dry Sausages

There is a deli not to far from me that stocks nice Italian style dry sausages. They look and taste delicious.  I have noticed that he always has them hanging up without refrigeration. I have not been able to get a straight answer as to how long the sausage will store, but I have talked to people who claim it will store for several years.

Dried sausages have been around for thousands of years as a way to preserve meat. The problem with going back to these old-time recipes is that we don’t always know what changes have been made in the recipes in the name of quicker and easier production. Many of our modern food processers have modified their recipes so that the sausages have shorter shelf lives.

I have been doing some research on this subject but have not come up with anything firm that I am willing to bet my family on. The United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) puts out the following information:

“Dry and semi-dry sausages are possibly the largest category of dried meats, particularly in the United States. These products can be fermented by bacterial growth for preservation and to produce the typical tangy flavor. Alternatively, they may be cultured with lactic acid — much as cheese, pickle, and yogurt makers do — to eliminate the fermentation phase and shorten the process. They are, with a few exceptions, cooked.

Fermentation is one of the oldest methods of preserving meats. Dry sausages — such as pepperoni, and semi-dry sausages such as Lebanon bologna and summer sausage, have had a good safety record for hundreds of years.

In this procedure, a mixture of curing ingredients, such as salt and sodium nitrite, and a “starter” culture of lactic acid-bacteria, is mixed with chopped and ground meat, placed in casings, fermented and then dried by a carefully controlled, long, continuous air-drying process. The amount of acid produced during fermentation and the lack of moisture in the finished product after drying typically have been shown to cause pathogenic bacteria to die.

Dry sausages require more time to make than other types of sausages and are a more concentrated form of meat. Dried sausages range from 60% to 80% of their original weight before drying.

Semi-dry sausages are usually heated in the smokehouse to fully cook the product and partially dry it. Semi-dry sausages are semi-soft sausages with good keeping qualities due to their lactic acid fermentation and sometimes heavy application of smoke. Some are mildly seasoned and some are quite spicy and strongly flavored.

Interestingly, over 50 countries around the world have their own versions of dry and semi-dry sausages, from botillo in Portugal to Som Moo in Laos.

See also  Prepared Meals in a Jar

What are examples of dry and semi-dry sausages that are normally found in U.S. grocery stores and delis?

  • Genoa Salami
  • Sopresetta
  • Andouille
  • Pepperoni
  • Chorizo
  • Salami
  • Summer sausage
  • Lebanon bologna
  • Cervelat
  • Thuringer

Are any sausages shelf stable?

Yes, some sausages are shelf stable, which means they do not have to be kept refrigerated in order to be safe to eat. In the U.S., if a particular type of sausage is shelf stable, it is not required to have a safe handling statement, cooking directions or a notice to “Keep Refrigerated”. Personally, I would not plan on storing any type of sausage for more than a few months, and, in fact, that isn’t a problem since everyone in my family loves sausage!

However, if the sausage remains in its original packaging and is stored in a cook, dark, and dry location, free from pests, it could be safe and tasty to eat for much longer.

Should people “at-risk” eat dry sausages?

It’s possible that bacterium E. coli O157:H7 can survive the process of making sausage, namely dry fermenting. In 1994, it was reported that a few kids became sick after eating dry-cured salami because it contained that bacteria.

After that outbreak, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, FSIS, developed processing rules for making dry sausages that must be followed and began to test fermented sausages for salmonella and listeria monocytogenes.

Because of this possibility, people in higher-risk categories, such as elderly adults, very young children, pregnant women, and those with weakened immune systems, could become extremely ill if the bacterium E. Coli O157:H7 survived the fermenting process.

Dates on Packaged Sausages

Most people are surprised to learn that dating on food products isn’t required by the Federal government but, in fact, is voluntary. Dried sausages might contain any one of these notices:

“Sell By” date – tells the store how long to display the product for sale. You should buy the product before the date expires.

Best if Used By” date – date by which product should be used for best flavor and quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.

“Use-By” date – the last date recommended for use of the product while at peak quality.”

FSIS says that whole hard/dry sausages may be stored 6 weeks in your pantry and indefinitely in the refrigerator.  After opening, they should be used in 3 weeks even if stored in the refrigerator.

If you make homemade sausage, however, you cannot rely on these dates and be 100% certain that any batch of sausage is safe, long-term, for human consumption.

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14 thoughts on “The Shelf Life of Dry Sausages”

  1. I will contact my friend in Italy who is a retired physician, who should be able to provide an authoritative answer.

  2. Maybe if you use the same process that is used to mount fish and venison. These hang on walls for years and never seem to spoil or smell.

  3. like anything else, it depends. A dry sasuage is jerky if it’s lowfat and dry enough. Jerky can last close to foreverif kept dry, somewhat cool and away from pests. With more fat ground fine it’s pemmican. Kept in a vac sealed jar I know it will keep YEARS.

  4. My old friend Giorgio in Mirabello, Monferrato, Italy provides tyhe following information on dry sausages:

    Traditional Italian dry sausage “salame crudo” is made with pork meat and fat, cut with a knife, not ground in a grinder. The preservative is a mix of saltpeter (potassium nitrate), pepper and other spices. Wine is usually added to the mix, which is carefully stuffed into natural casings , taking great care not to leave air pockets inside the salame, which is then hung in a cellar to dry.

    The location of the cellar and the climate of the place make half of the mystery of this art. What you call Genoa salami in American is locally known as Salame di Sant’Olcese, a suburb of Genoa up in the Hills ( where the wild boars roam). Its characteristic is a good quantity of garlic in the mix.

    The town of Varzi in the Hills south of the Po river is the home of the best salame of this region. All the pig goes went into salame, the hams included, as raw ham was not made there.

    Pre-refrigeration they used saltpeter and spices to preserve the meat. The real thing, made by the traditional method and kept in a cool cellar, should keep until the next year’s salami is ready to eat.
    If they age too much, they dry up, depending on their weight and diameter. A good five pound Varzi lasts longer than small cacciatorini. The soppressa of the republic of St Marcus have bigger diameter and keep their softness for longer time. In days gone by the pigs were slaughtered in after the new year in January, because the weather was cold.

    In the war of 1859 the army‘s meat followed the soldiers on the hoof, being butchered in the evening, boiled over night and eaten with broth and bread for breakfast.

    If you have a salame too old and hard, just leave it overnight wrapped up in Barbera red wine and it will be ready to eat the next day. Pasteurizing salame is a wicked idea.

  5. I’m looking here because I’ve just unwrapped a new salami-style Bavarian sausage from Aldi and found that the storage instructions state it must be consumed, once opened, within 24 hours! Surely this is just the retailer covering their backs? How can salami possibly spoil that quickly when kept in the fridge? I can’t eat up all a 12-inch long sausage in 24 hours. It’s ridiculous! Or are they just trying to sell more product? I’ve kept opened salami (hard salami) for several days in the fridge and there’s never been a problem.

  6. I may be wrong but my thoughts are , 3% weight in salt, #2 pink salt , and bactafem to start fermentations it hung till it lost 30% weight at a temperature around 60 degrees. Now I want to stop the drying process so I removed from the umai dry bags and placed in a vacuum seal bag .Again my thoughts are stop the drying process cut off oxygen and make more stable as far as drying, was in stable 65 degrees at this point . Put in vacuum and should last 6 – 8 + month’s.
    Will keep close watch, but I could be wrong , will wait and see

  7. 60+ years ago my grandmother would hang a Molinari Dry Salami from a twine in the pantry for 4-6 months until the 3# Salame was finished . She lived into her mid-eighties , my Uncle Aldo 90+ I don’t think the Salame had anything to do with their deaths .

    1. My family has made cacciatore – Italian dry sausages for 50 years now In Australia. They have used the same techniques past down by their anscestors and make unbelievable tasting meats. Some we vacuum seal and some we put in big clay pots full of olive oil. We eat them regularly and I’ve seen my father eat one out of a closed clay pot that was possibly 5 years old – I wasn’t game to try it but he ate said it was one of the best ones his had yet. We tend to eat what we vacuum seal before the years up and start the process again. I keep them vacuum sealed and in the fridge. But can be kept in a pantry.

  8. So I score 13 lbs of Turkey Pepperoni all packed in nitrogen and looking like the day it was packed but it’s being tossed because of the BBD, (best before date) So I pack 5 lbs into the dehydrator and I now have turkey jerky pepperoni. They will now snap if I try to bend them.
    I’m here to see how long I may expect to have this turkey jerky pepperoni stay good and maybe discover new technics for keeping it good.
    Now I’m thinking packing it away in mason jars with oxygen absorbers and under a vacuum for some long term storage “research”. If it works, great, and if it doesn’t, it didn’t cost me anything but the effort and the space to store it.
    I have dried and kept small sausages in the past and I find them great to chop up and add to soups for re-hydration.
    I will line a mesh bag with cheese cloth and fill it with this dried pepperoni too. Hang it down in the deep dark and see how it does compared to the other stuff. It’s dusty down there eh?
    Have a great one.

  9. I purchased some dried ring sausage which was wrapped in paper and having survived the airport drug sniffing dog and security examination when I got home I neglected to remove it from the paper wrapping. After a couple weeks I opened the wrapping and it had white mold growing on the outside of the sausage. I sadly threw it out and will now remember to immediately hang it up or place in refrigerator so I don’t go through that lesson again. 🙁

  10. Some dried sausage types such as landjaeger should not be refrigerated and will actually improve with time. Larry above threw away some dried ring sausage to be safe due to some mold that appeared on the surface. Most likely this was still entirely safe to eat. The mold can be wiped away with a cloth dipped in lemon juice, which will protect for some additional time thereafter.

  11. Had a hunting buddy pull from his hunting jacket pocket, a German landjaeger from the local butcher.
    The landjaeger was sitting in the pocket since the hunting trip the year before. A bit dry, but still tasted great.
    Our local butcher is proud of that story.
    He has said that his dry krienerwurst and landjaeger sausages are traditionally and accurately smoked to last several years.
    We just wipe most of the white mold off with a paper towel.

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