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Hi all, New here and new to curing, and would love some advice


Last week, I hung up my first attempt at a cured sausage. Making went well, with everything being sterile and cold. I use food grade per-acetic acid for sterilisation (it breaks down to a volatile vinegar, water, and oxygen).

The meat (which was innoculated with "bessastart" culture) got down to pH5.2 after about 3 days (at warm/room temp). Now its sat drying at around 55F, and 75% humidity.

My problem is that a couple of days ago, a lovely health white mold started to appear. I came downstairs this morning, to find the white mold had increased in area, but in the middle of each patch of white mold, is now a pin head sized spot of green mold.

My initial thought is just to wipe this off with peracetic acid, which kills everything in its way.

My other thought, is I have read that green spots can just be the fruiting bodies of penicillium bacteria, and it may not be "bad mold"!

Any help would be awesome.

Thanks!!!

I've had this happen on my chorizo loads of times, didn't stop them being delicious. If it starts to concern you, wipe off with vinegar, should be ok. I must say, now that I have my curing cabinet fully under control, both temperature (14-16c.) and humidity (77-86 RH), I don't get much in the way of mould at all.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=8765

I think I will have to "harvest" some from a commercial sausage, and spray the next batch. This is probably a good idea, to discourage the growth of "bad" moulds.

Where abouts are you??



John.

Interesting, cheers John!

To be fair, it will take a mountain of black slime to put me off eating these ones.. Im thinking il just let it ride, unless it starts to look a bit more unappealing in which case il wash it off..

Out of interest, when this happens with yours, did you peel the skin off, or wipe them down before eating?

Because it didn't occur until near the end of the drying process, I simply wiped with kitchen roll (paper) soaked in vinegar, then hung in the kitchen to dry for a couple of days.

I think i have some photos of it somewhere, I'll try and dig them out and post them.


John.

Rowang, whereabouts are you? Good idea to put your location on your profile.

Cheers, John.

Updated, good idea. Noticed there is a lot of cross atlantic communication here (hence why i was talking about F rather than C!)

Hi, welcome!

A photo would help. Did you inoculate with a mould culture? Otherwise, there is an overwhelming risk that you have a malign mould infection. In that case, I dissuade you from eating the sausage. I personally would throw them away and thoroughly clean the curing chamber with a desinfectant. There are thousands of mould strains and many of them form dangerous toxins. Actually, the chance of benign mould forming spontaneously is rather small. Even if you succeed in killing the mould, there is no way of knowing how much toxin it has produced.

The fact that JollyJohn's "wild-mould-chorizos" were delicious has nothing to do with whether they were poisonous or not. Mould toxins can be carcinogenic and it can take a long time for symptoms to appear.

Hi,

Yes, the sausage meat was inocculated with Bessastart (similar to bactoferm) culture, which fermented down to pH5.2

The surfaces were not sprayed with a penicillium mold, as i didnt have one. The white mold that is forming, looks like normal sausage mold, powdery, chalky. The green mold is in the middle of every white patch.

Il get some photos on this evening!

rowang wrote:Hi,

Yes, the sausage meat was inocculated with Bessastart (similar to bactoferm) culture, which fermented down to pH5.2

Bessastart is a lactic acid bacteria culture. Don't confuse that with a mould culture.

Yes, some pictures would be nice.

rowang wrote:[---]
My other thought, is I have read that green spots can just be the fruiting bodies of penicillium bacteria, and it may not be "bad mold"!
[---]

This must be a misunderstanding. Penicillium is a genus of mould and they are not bacteria but fungi. There are hundreds of Penicillium species and many of them are dangerous.

Quoted from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillium:

Species of Penicillium are ubiquitous soil fungi preferring cool and moderate climates, commonly present wherever organic material is available. Saprophytic species of Penicillium and Aspergillus are among the best-known representatives of the Eurotiales and live mainly on organic biodegradable substances. Commonly known as molds, they are among the main causes of food spoilage, especially species of subgenus Penicillium. Many species produce highly toxic mycotoxins.

Grisell, when you say inoculated with a mould culture, do you mean during the production process, or spraying a culture on afterwards? What mould culture would you recommend?

Cheers, John.

JollyJohn wrote:Grisell, when you say inoculated with a mould culture, do you mean during the production process, or spraying a culture on afterwards? What mould culture would you recommend?

Cheers, John.

Hi John!

There are commercial mould cultures that can be ordered from the Internet, but this is simpler and what I recommend: http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=8561

So does this mean that any mold appearing on a sausage is bad, unless it was innoculated?

In that case, im inclined to wash it down with vinegar, and innoculate.

Its not too far wide spread however, and it there is no bad smell at all.

rowang wrote:So does this mean that any mold appearing on a sausage is bad, unless it was innoculated?

There is no way of knowing. Statistically yes, since there are hundreds of mould species, and only one or two are genuine ("good") salami moulds. Salamis that are made commercially are either inoculated or stored in an environment where the right mould species were present from the start.

rowang wrote:In that case, im inclined to wash it down with vinegar, and innoculate.

Its not too far wide spread however, and it there is no bad smell at all.

Judging from your description, you most certainly have a malign mould infection. Salami mould is always chalky, never green.

As I said, there is no way of knowing how much toxin the mould has already produced. Killing bad mould interrupts toxin formation, but it doesn't neutralize already formed toxin. Neither does a new inoculation. I personally wouldn't take the risk, but that's up to you. Taste is not an indicator for toxins.

Thanks Andre. The mould on my earlier chorizo were nice white patches, with the occasional tiny green speck in the middle, if I'd seem black or grey patches, I'd have binned them!

I ALWAYS sterilise my curing cabinet with a dilute bleach solution, before every new batch of sausage.

I'm off to Aldi later today, I'll grab a salami, or chorizo, and start harvesting.

Of course, with chorizo, I could cold smoke for a day or so, this would inhibit mould growth.

John.