new guy/intoduction

[aris]

How do you achieve air circulation while the 'soupies' are under a press? I would not have though a fan would reach anything in between two boards and under a heavy weight.

[Oddley]

Hi caruso
Thanks for taking the time to give us your recipe and method. I find it really interesting to analyze the recipe and method, to find out how the salami is preserved safely.

I have a couple of questions, I hope you don't mind.

1: how much lemon juice to water do you use when initially soaking the meat

2: Is the whole process from soaking the meat to putting the soupies in the oil carried out at 32-44 oF

3: Do you do anything to the oil (like heat it and let it get cold) or soupies before immersing in oil.

4: How long should the soupies be left in oil before eating.

Images look really good, you have quite a production line there...

In the images you have other types of salami drying, they don't look flat. Do you use the pressing technique on all your salami or just soupies?

[aris]

Makes alot of sense here.

You press the salamis so that they are thinner - and dry faster. By pressing for 5 days, they harden a bit and keep their shape. Wiping with lemon juice is similar to using vinegar - keeps mould away.

Putting them in oil is a nice way of preserving them - and also acts somewhat similar to vac-packing them, so that any case hardening is equalised, and keeps the salami's soft, but still matured.

I'm not entirely sure what laying them on blankets will do - perhaps the incubation phase, though there is no mention of higher temperatures, and no use of starter culture (or nitrates) in the recipe. I'm also not sure what re-pressing the salamis after the first will achieves - nor how you keep good air circulation around them while they are pressed between two pieces of wood.

[Onlymenotu]

caruso
wow Interesting read,,,,, do keep going plz

the pressing stage as me a little confused / lost... * maybe i'm thick headed*.... could you go in to this more details or possable some pic's

[Sandy]

Hi Caruso.

Thanks for all your input!

Could you please explain further on the use of "blankets"?

What about those Steelers, eh?

Cheers.

_____________________________________________________________

No Fools, No Fun!

[caruso]

wow! I didn't expect this much response I will try to answer all your questions best I can.

Sandy the use of the blankets is to help "wick" the moisture away from the soupie, salami etc.. The natural absorbency of the blanket draws out the moisture. When I do a small batch I will use towels but when you are doing as many as 500 its just easier to use old table cloths, bedsheets, blankets. 100% cotton works the best.

onlymenotu sorry no pics of the pressing I will try to work on that. I am not sure what details you want as far as why we press them or how just let me know and I will answer plese check below I may have answered it already if not just let me know.

Aris after taking the soupies out of the press and hang them you will notice some didn't press fully or swelled again so they are repressed to keep their shape another reason for the repressing is we don't use any binders either so you are forcing the meat together while forcing moisture out. Spacing is the key for air circulation durring the pressing, we lay them out in straight lines and collums almost like a grid this way air can move through them.You know you have it spaced right when you put a fan on one side and can feel the air on the otherside.

oddley we don't soak the meat(sorry for any confusion) we soak the casings. the whole process is carried out between 34-42 oF basically the safe food refigaration range. We do nothing to the oil except open and pour over the soupies. If you looked at the pictures the soupies are only 3 weeks old and you can see the deep mahogany color when they reach this state the salt is effectively curring the meat so the temp should stay below fifty the first 2-3 weeks the temp 34-42 is critical. This why I say this is perfect for refrigaration. I do know guys who vac pack them and just put them on a shelf in their basement but that can get very costly.
we leave the soupies in the oil for 3 months before eating to let them mature and age BUT when we think they are done hanging and ready for the oil we do cut one to check the moisture content and of course we eat it but you can taste the non aging. We also feel that after they are 4 years old they have topped out the flavor doesn't improve anymore. We usually press anything we stuff into beef middles or bungs the non pressed ones are pepperonni that we stuffed into beef rounds.

[Crazy Canuck]

Oh ya! we are making the same thing right now. Ours are hanging in the shed. Are you Calabrian? We're all busy doing the same thing at the moment.

We had to wait till now to make the sausage, the weather in January was too warm. It's almost too cold now, thank God for electric heaters! We used to preserve them in oil, in the big crock. Healthwise, we figured out that Vac-packing them and refrigerating them works even better than storing them in the oil.

Where do you hang yours? Ours are out in the shed. Kinda hard to go with the temps and weather this year, but we are trying real hard! and hoping for the best.

[caruso]

Crazy Canuck my family is from Naples. we hang ours in my garage the weather has been a bear this year but they should be OK just keep them from freezing if them ice crystals form inside the casing you can have a real mess. like I said in my earlier post if tied right no oil should get to the meat so healthwise its a wash BUT the nice thing about vac packing is when you want to eat one you don't have the mess of the oil but for the amount we make its not cost effective for us to vac pack I hope yours turn out well and would be interested in your recipe(even tho most are the same different amounts of salt but always interested) we made ours durring the bye week of the NFL playoffs and souper bowl I had an air conditioner on stanby for just in case LOL

[caruso]

crazy canuck check through my posts and let me know if I forgot anything I know everyone has different methods but I have been doing it for so long now its like second nature and I don't want to mis lead anyone

[aris]

Interesting with the low temperatures - the equivalent of 1-5 degrees C (same as a domestic fridge).

My first salamis were made a bit differently as you may have read on this site. I used Spuddy's easy salami recipe, and the temperatures needed were much higher - 8-12 degrees C for the maturation (took 4 weeks), and around 25C for the incubation phase.

One thing about your recipe is that it does not include any nitrates/nitrites, nor does it include a starter culture. It is supposedly "dangerous" to exclude these ingredients, but obviously your family has come to no harm.

[caruso]

Aris, LOL its all realative.....my recipe seems dangerous to you because of no nitrates/nitrites starter cultures etc. while on the other hand the recipes here seem dangerous to me by adding nitrites/nitrates cultures etc. I am not a chemical engineer or anything like that, but lets look at this a little closer nitrates/nitrites are dangerous chemicals if misused I don't think anyone will argue that point. so we are saying we have to add dangerous chemicals to our food so our food isn't dangerous seems like we got a case of the damned if you do damned if you don't syndrome.

[Oddley]

Hi caruso
I'm still trying to fully understand your recipe. Can you tell me do you always use wine in your salami, if so do you always use about the same quantity?

[caruso]

Oddley No we don't always use wine in all of our recipies only the ones that call for it. The recipe I posted that calls for wine that is the amount we have been using for the past 100 years the only thing that has changed is when my grandfather made them he used home made wine(dago red) and the merlot is the closest in flavor(according to my dad) to the home made wine...saddly the wine recipe is lost

onlymenotu I am going to get some more pictures today I have some capocollo to hang that I made so I will try to get some pics of the pressing and get them posted later

[caruso]

onlymenotu here are some more pics (sorry they are not in order)the pictures show how you would press 40 soupies(ten per board) In the last picture I only show 1 cement block(thats all I had) but you put the weights across the whole top board the picture of the big board with the soupie stains standing up is what I use to press about 300 at a time as you can see by the stains you can get an idea of how I lay them out. and also from the stains you can see how the natural wood fibers help draw the moisture out. the 2 single soupie pictures are to show how they "suck" in durring the hanging process(these won't be done for 2-3 weeks) the tips are just starting to suck in but eventually the whole thing will. The cappys might seem small but I try to make them an user friendly size basically what can be eaten in a day or two after taken out of the oil. they are great sliced thin with some cheese on a good roll or bun.

http://dantepicarelli.tripod.com/soupies/

[aris]

Has that wood been chemically treated?