New and making sopperssata

[JayW]

Hi all... I am new to sausage making (first time) and the forum. We started out making Sopperssata. Sourced some great Berkshire Pig and were really amazed at meat quality and especially back fat that was pure snow white.. almost like rendered lard.. seemed almost too soft though and had trouble keeping its shape even when freezing before the grind. We did add a proper southern Italian style culture as well as spayed on the 600 mold after the warm ferment. The casing are about 2.5" and stuffed pretty firm.

My question is that during ripening at about 75F for a day to get the culture going the fat seemed to make the casings quite oily .. not like running out.. but just a good layer of oil on the outside. The warm box was pretty even heat throughout.

They have been hanging in my cheese cave right now for about 2.5 weeks and lost ~15-17% moisture. They are not AS oily on the surface as they were but even though I have sprayed with the mold twice now no signs of white (or any other mold).. temp seems to be good at 53F and 70-73% moisture and holding steady (cellar conditions). They just seem to have a slight greasy sheen to them now. They do smell great but surprised that there is no white mold yet. Also a few have small translucent ridges where the casing is puckering out while the other show the casing clinging and just wrinkling a bit as the sausage dries down. I see nothing growing under these minor voids though.

Any comments on the oily/fatty surface or the casing wrinkles creating voids???
would love to post a couple of photos but I do not know how here. Any tips on how to do that?

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. There are lessons at the top of the beginners section about posting photos. I wouldn't worry about the lack of mold. Most people don't start with a difficult air dried sausage as their first attempt.

[JayW]

Here are a coupe of photos of my sopperrssata making

the first here is of the fat I used pretty much very soft and clean .. maybe too soft


and the next one of the oily casings when first hung to dry post fermentation

[bwalt822]

You can try spraying it on before the ferment next time as the warm temps seem to make the mold 600 really take off. I have been fermenting in the mid to high 80s with near 100% humidity and have pretty much a full coat after 2-3 days.

But in the mean time i wouldn't worry about it. If you are getting good cheese from your cheese cave you will probably get good salami from it too unless your humidity gets too high.

[vg123]

could be that your cave is too dry....