www.sausagemaking.org

howdy,

I'm a first time dry-curer and recently found your forum having bought a bunch of supplies from the main site. There is so much great advice on here I have been spending hours here everyday!

Essentially I want to make southern European dry cured meats. Salami/Chorizo/Bresaola...etc

I am fortunate to have a cellar which has fairly constant conditions, but they are never quite exactly what is recommended on the web, or by the brilliant Ruhlman book.
I was wondering if someone could cast their eyes over my conditions and tell me firstly whether I should even bother, if I'm on course and, if so, what should my dry curing times be.

At the moment, I have Ruhlman's simple Saucisson Sec (no fermentation culture) in hog casings hanging there.

So, it is a dark cool cellar. No obvious damp on the walls, but my temp/humidity monitor says it's usually somewhere between 77% - 83% humidity.
The temperature has been anything between 15.8 C and 17.5 C...but with winter nearly here, its only gonna get cooler.
I have set up a fan on a time switch. It blows very gently for about 15 mins 5 times a day.

Converting a fridge is not an impossibility in the future, but I dont have that kind of cash/time at the moment.

Very grateful for any feedback/advice/ suggestions. Thank you.

as presented, pretty good. pretty similar to mine during the spring and fall. if your winters are as cold as mine [midwestern us], you may find the RH sinking to well below 60% for ~5-6 months. if that happens, say hello to case hardening. there are cures that are cheaper and easier than converting a frige.

I agree with the chorizo kid. Those conditions are nearly there - a bit lower temps maybe, but as you say, they should be dropping in the next couple of weeks.

I also agree that it's usually far easier to get the conditions right in your cellar than mess around converting a fridge: to my mind, that's a last resort.

Oh, I forgot: welcome to the forum.

Phil

Thanks fellas. I really appreciate you getting back to me!

The temperature in my cellar is unlikely to drop too much, good ol' victorian brickwork and a fully centrally heated home. Presumably, if I start experiencing problems with humidity, then a pan of water underneath the meats would go some way to correcting that. Will cross that bridge when I get to it!

As for drying times...as I am close-ish to the conditions in Ruhlman, I will go with them...maybe hang for a day or two longer, because of my higher humidity!

I'd go by weight loss and feel rather than a set time. Ideally, for the bulk of the drying time a temp of below 15.6°C should be observed:

Canadian Food Inspection Agency wrote:Certain strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus are capable of producing a highly heat stable toxin that causes illness in humans. Above a critical temperature of 15.6°C, Staphylococcus aureus multiplication and toxin production can take place. Once a pH of 5.3 is reached, Staphylococcus aureus multiplication and toxin production are stopped.

Many of us find lower temps easier and dry at around 12°C. Longer term, you may be able to achieve this with an air-con unit (maybe a portable one?). In the meantime, make sure you use a lactic bacteria starter to help lower PH and maybe even get some test papers (Litmus paper) to check.

Phil

All good replies. I would like to add that you should be careful with the air exchange. Too "windy" may lead to case hardening. I also recommend you to use a mould culture if you don't do it already, especially when drying in a cellar (for an already ongoing batch it would be too late to introduce a culture however).

And I also strongly recommend you to use a lactic acid fermentation culture in the future!

Grisell

Phil wrote:In the meantime, make sure you use a lactic bacteria starter...

wheels wrote:Grisell

Phil wrote:In the meantime, make sure you use a lactic bacteria starter...

Do you really expect me to read the previous posts before posting!?

grisell wrote:All good replies. I would like to add that you should be careful with the air exchange. Too "windy" may lead to case hardening. I also recommend you to use a mould culture if you don't do it already, especially when drying in a cellar (for an already ongoing batch it would be too late to introduce a culture however).

And I also strongly recommend you to use a lactic acid fermentation culture in the future!

Will definitely use a bacteria starter culture for my next round. I have the T-SPX on order from the shop (they're out of stock atm). I was surprised that it wasn't included in the Saucisson sec recipe...all the other cured sausages in the book do have it. I can imagine that it wouldn't change the taste hugely, but would make it a fair bit safer to eat!

grisell...having read a few posts on here last week, you will be pleased to know that I cultivated a mould from an Italian cheese, not dissimilar to camembert, plasted it over my Saucisson Sec on their first day of hanging, and now, 4 days later I have a light covering of powdery white mould! Fingers crossed its the cheese mould anyway!

manfran wrote:[---]
grisell...having read a few posts on here last week, you will be pleased to know that I cultivated a mould from an Italian cheese, not dissimilar to camembert, plasted it over my Saucisson Sec on their first day of hanging, and now, 4 days later I have a light covering of powdery white mould! Fingers crossed its the cheese mould anyway!

That sounds great! I think that you can be safe that it really is the cheese mould. That will also keep the bad mould away. Report how it develops!

It works fine, I've done it. However, the whole place may smell of cheese for a while! (That is, if it's anything like the Camembert that I used).

Phil

good stuff.

It doesn't smell too cheesy to be honest. If it does get that way, I'll head out and find some mouldy salami skin from a deli to use on my next batch of sausages.

Just out of interest...considering its from a danish company, why is it so hard to get the Mold 600 culture in the UK. Not to mention the other fermentation cultures! sausagemaking.org seems to be the only place in the uk that does these cultures, and at least one of them has been out of stock (T-SPX) for the last couple of weeks.

manfran wrote:Just out of interest...considering its from a danish company, why is it so hard to get the Mold 600 culture in the UK. Not to mention the other fermentation cultures! sausagemaking.org seems to be the only place in the uk that does these cultures, and at least one of them has been out of stock (T-SPX) for the last couple of weeks.

My thoughts exactly.

It's only thanks to Franco the shop owner that we can get it at all.

Phil

wheels wrote:

manfran wrote:Just out of interest...considering its from a danish company, why is it so hard to get the Mold 600 culture in the UK. Not to mention the other fermentation cultures! sausagemaking.org seems to be the only place in the uk that does these cultures, and at least one of them has been out of stock (T-SPX) for the last couple of weeks.

My thoughts exactly.

It's only thanks to Franco the shop owner that we can get it at all.

Phil

I agree. I've just had a very nice email from the shop offering me a comp sachet of another culture because I've been waiting so long! Now, that is customer service!

I thought it might be time that I posted some photos of my aforementioned Saucisson Sec. It is a week today since I hung them up. I have resisted squeezing, prodding and weighing them up until this morning.
As you will see in the photos, I started with three, but added a four 2 days later...and now I also have a duck breast hanging (although I have grave reservations that it might not have been in the cure for long enough, and will just rot).

Day 1:


Day 7:


As you can see, my cheese mould is going great guns (well, I hope its the cheese mould...it looks like it is to me). The three original sausages have all lost pretty much exactly 29% of their overall weight. Does that seem about right after a week hanging? They are in hog casings and are not big at all (the biggest weighed 145g, smallest 128g when they were fresh) - case you can't tell from the scale.

I suppose, given everything, I am cautiously optimistic. Would love to know if you think that it looks like i'm on course!