=Dry Room Caution.=--Do not hang green and dry sausage in the same room. It is advisable to keep dry rooms for smoked sausage as free from mold as possible. While a slight mold does not hurt summer sausage (in fact some summer sausage requires this before it is ready for shipment), it will be found that smoked sausage drys better and quicker in a room that can be kept free of mold. Sausage that molds too much before it is dry necessarily has to be washed. This process does not hurt the sausage, and in some cases washing does it good, especially if by neglect or otherwise it has become greasy in the smoke house. Sausage will not dry as rapidly if greasy and the process of washing it quickens the drying. In washing sausage warm water, not hot, should be used. A little sal soda in the water is desirable. =Shipping Ages.=--Summer sausage in both hog bungs and beef casings if properly handled can be shipped, in three stages of dryness, as follows: New, twenty to twenty-five days old; medium dry, forty to forty-five days old; dry, sixty to seventy-five days old. In cheaper grades of summer sausage, many kinds of which are manufactured, can be shipped in much less time than indicated above. In fact, there is sausage made which can be shipped almost immediately from the smoke house. This sausage is allowed to stand for some time after chopping and before stuffing, previous to being put in the smoke house. It is then smoked very hard, or with more heat than the better grades of this sausage. Some manufacturers use more heat than smoke, but it does not produce a first-class article. =Storage.=--Summer sausage when thoroughly dried should be stored in a cooler at a temperature of 35° F. It can be so handled if boxed, but it is preferable that it hang from racks, closely, since it will require an inspection upon shipping. =Preparation of Casings.=--In preparing casings for summer sausage of all kinds it is necessary, in order to insure good results, that casings be prepared, certainly hog bungs, at least thirty days or even several months before they are used. There are always many fat bungs in hog casings and in preparing them and putting them down in salt brine for thirty days or longer, the fat on the casings becomes dry and there is less danger of the sausage becoming sour. Summer sausage will become sour as quickly from using fat hog bungs as from any other cause, therefore these must be thoroughly fatted before they leave the preparing rooms. They are generally in good condition in this respect when received, and therefore do not require as much time in the curing or preparing as do hog bungs. Fat beef middles or beef rounds spoil the appearance of the goods. =Trimming Meats.=--The selection and the trimming of meats for summer sausage is a matter of great consequence. Sinews, muscle cover and tough binding elements should be removed so as to avoid the sausage being tough in the eating. All knives and cutting tools should be sharp.