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Outdoor salami

PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:09 pm
by MrsRussell
So it's like this. We've just made our first chorizo (been making ordinary bangers for a couple of years and we're moving on up) using bought starter culture and curing salt, all smelling good, hanging in our pantry which is a tile-lined hole at the back of the house. 83% humidity, normally between 14 and 15 degrees temp.
Been curing for a week and then we get this weather. Humidity goes up to 93-97%, temp's up to 17 degrees, and this morning the casing felt almost wet to the touch. Still smelling good, mould is just beginning to form, but I'm not comfortable with the change in humidity.
Is it OK to hang it outside in a shady area to air dry for a couple of days, till we stop already with the freaky weather, and should we bring it in overnight?

Re: Outdoor salami

PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:32 pm
by wheels
Hi, and welcome.

The temp would worry me more than the humidity. 17°C is too high until they are dried to a safe level.

Are they chorizo in hogs' casings? (pigs'). Fairly thin ones compared to salami? If so, I'd rather try to hang them in the fridge than put them outside. If the fridge humidity is too low, hang them loosely surrounded by a paper bag or something similar.

I think that the concept of hanging meat products outside is a hangover from the early days of HFW's River Cottage and was never a good idea. It seems a peculiarly British thing, even though we had no tradition of air dried meat. It's not done in Countries where they've been making these products for years. Why River Cottage thought it was a good idea defeats me. They seem to have received advice and moved on from that position now though.

Lecture/rant over. :lol: :lol:

Try to maintain below 15°C. A temperature of 15.6° is the temp where Staph. Aureus increases it's performance of nasty tricks so keeping things below this makes sense.

Now's the time to think who you know with a cellar, or old fashioned pantry.

My fellow admin NCPaul devised a simple system for curing thin salami in domestic equipment. Hopefully, he will be able to advise further.

Phil

Re: Outdoor salami

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:04 am
by MrsRussell
Thanks Phil. Sadly not hogs, but middles :-( a bit big for our fridge!

Humidity is back down to about 83% again, so.I've got the back.window open to keep the temp down. I check temp twice a day,morning and evening. I'm sad like that :-)
Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of a River Cottage stylee set-up, just that I wanted to get a bit of that surface moisture off the skins from the weather change so it didn't start to grow nasty moukds. A day under the pergola seems to have fixed that.

Re: Outdoor salami

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:59 am
by NCPaul
Keeping the temperature down will help with the mold culture down. High humidity early seldom is a big problem. I am in total agreement with Phil that 17 C is too high. It's hard to dry cure when you have to rely on good luck with the weather.

Welcome to the forum. :D