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Now that winter is here, i'm able to dedicate more time to my quest for salami. Unfortunately my curing cabinet crapped out. On the plus side, Home Depot is selling wine coolers for $198. The specs say i can run the cooler in the range of 35F-74F..perfect! And i get to dedicate my old cabinet to fermentation only

So i decided to kick off with a Salamini Cacciatore from Len Poli... I even spent an hour hand dicing the back fat..which was an absolute pain in the proverbial. Depending on this outcome i'm not sure it's worth it.

Anyway, here's the little buggers in fermentation....



And here's my fancy new curing cabinet complete with glass door so I can



As it turns out, the "fancy" new cabinet doesn't let me run temps up to 74F. At it's lowest setting it is running around 50F. I guess i'll replace the temp controller from the fermentation cabinet with a simple thermostat and use the temp controller on the new cabinet. Oh well.

Stay tuned......

Had a good fast fermentation last night....pH dropped from 5.1 to 4.6....so into the curing chamber...fancy LED lighting looks cool




Now the dreaded waiting game................

Nice. I hope your new wine cooler works out for ya
I'm in the process of running temp and RH tests now on my first chamber...hope to be makin salami soon.

DanMcG wrote:Nice. I hope your new wine cooler works out for ya
I'm in the process of running temp and RH tests now on my first chamber...hope to be makin salami soon.

Thanks DanMcG.....as it turns out the wine cooler is a failure It's actually my fault ...i had a blonde moment and forgot that you need a Frost Free unit for this application. The wine cooler is not. As a result humidity sky rockets as the cooling cycle doesn't "de-humidify" like a frost free unit.

Anyway, i caught it before any major problems and sent the salami back to the crapped out cabinet. So right now I'm running the heat in the garage/office @ 60F and leaving the fridge door slightly open to control temp, and the usual ultrasonic humidifier running in the cabinet. At least until I can find another frost free fridge.

For sale cheap...wine cooler?

Decided to weigh the Cacciatore today.....they are at 35% weight loss...in the usual to fast 2 weeks that seems to be my chambers' modus operandi. Had a taste .....excellent is all i can say The Coriander and Black Pepper are predominant, but not overwhelming. If i made them again..i might add some fennel

Anyway they are still a little soft for my liking..so i'll leave them hanging a while longer...enjoy & ;

That looks great!