Curing area

[herjac]

I have been curing at a neighbors in the cold room under the front porch when the temps are below freezing as my curing chamber converted from a frig doesn't work well in my garage at that time. I installed a rack made from wire shelving at the unused end of the cold cellar and placed a tray with sand in it under the drying rack. I keep the sand wet to provide humidity in that area. Last winter I experienced some case hardening (easily fixed by vacuum packing and storing in the frig to equalize moisture) but this year I tried to increase the humidity by isolating the area with a tarp and adding a small humidifier to supplement the sand tray. The tarp does not extend to the floor or the ceiling so there is still some draft present.

The result so far has been promising. The temperature has been holding at 10C with RH 75-80%. The early made sausages are drying slowly and at 35% weight loss are holding their shape which I believe shows that the drying is even throughout. Time will tell. I aim for about 45% weight loss as I prefer the meat to be firm, but not shiny, when cut. I'll report back when drying is complete as to the success (or not!) of my trials.

[wheels]

They're looking great so far.

Phil

[herjac]

I removed all the salami and Copa's and vac-packed them for 2 weeks before trying them. The drying worked well as I had more humidity than before but I believe that the cold winter slowed down the rate of drying and the Copa's and the large 2.4" cellulose cased salami took longer than expected to finish. The salami's retained their shape as I had hoped as compared to previous years where they dried faster and the shape then was flat and twisted due to lack of adequate humidity.



I made two different Copa's this year; one had spice in the cure and the other had spice applied to the exterior after the cure before casing. Same spice, paprika and Rasampati chili powder. The Copa on the left was with the spice in the cure and it has more colour and spice flavour than the other but I preferred the spice applied after as the flavour of the meat was more evident and the spice heat came on later in the finish.



This is a salami Calabria that was cased in cellulose. You can see some voids in the center so I guess that the drying was not even although the texture is good and even with no case hardening. Although the humidity was above 75% and up to 85% at times the low temps, down to 0 C, seemed to make the humidity less effective for drying.

I had success with a new sausage from Marianski's book. Salami Finocchiona with white pepper, black peppercorns, whole fennel seeds and garlic was a nice change from the red pepper flavour of the Calabria that I usually make.

[NCPaul]

The coppa looks fantastic. Which culture did you use in the salami?

[herjac]

It seems that I have been spelling coppa incorrectly. But it still tastes great!

I have been using T-SPX culture on the salami with a mix of 0.2% sucrose and 0.2% dextrose in an attempt to reduce the acidity by preventing the pH from going too low. I ferment at 20C and 95%RH for 3 days after stuffing before curing.

My biggest problem still is the curing area as the temperature in the cold room during January and February was between 0C-3C and the curing time was 4 months for the large salami to lose 50% weight and the coppa 35%. When it warms up outside I'll try some salami in my curing frig in the garage to see if my results improve.