chorizo question

[welsh wizard]

Hi - about two weeks ago I made some chorizo and placed half in the chiller and half I hung up in a shaded place outside

The outside hanging version is now quite dry where as the ones in the chiller are less so - as I supose you would expect. Anyway I digress, how long do you / should you leave the sausage before trying it? Does the cure have to have a specific time to act? Or can you just guive it a try at any juncture?

I used prague No1

Cheers WW

[saucisson]

I look at it that the cure is really just there to stop it going off, so in theory you could eat it as it comes out of the stuffer. If it's not safe to eat then it's not going to get safer. The flavour matures with age so it is entirely up to you when you decide to sample it, and similarly the texture changes with time. Just like a cheese, you can drink the milk fresh, make cottage cheese fresh, or mature it as a hard cheese for a year or more, it just depends on what you want to taste.

In your case I'd try a bit of each, it should be an interesting taste comparison

Dave

[welsh wizard]

Thanks Dave

Well yesterday I tried a bit from the outside hanging ones (two weeks in) and they seemed to have a bullet like consistancy - yep they sure had dried out, not that they were unpleasant to taste, in fact the opposite, but you had to suck it rather than chew it if you know what I mean.


The chiller ones are now developing at a much slower rate and are developing a white ghosting on the skin which I preseume is the white mould that evryone talks about. Cant wait to give them a try.

Cheers WW

[saucisson]

Chorizo: Marchington style:



My son devours this like it is going out of fashion so I made a big one to take on holiday next week, I hope it cures a little before we go

[johnfb]

Dave, you're like a proud father with that monster..

going anywhere nice....


PS. Have you posted your recipe for this somewhere, I can't find it and I am interested in seeing what's in it.

[welsh wizard]

Nice sausage Dave...........

Cheers WW

[saucisson]

I use Franco's chorizo sausage mix and add 60g to a kilo of Tesco standard minced pork along with 2g cure#2. So it may not be classic chorizo but it's what my son likes (he thinks it is homemade pepperami) and takes about 2 minutes to make.

We're camping on a Dorset farm for half term, we get mains electricity, a chemical toilet disposal point and that's it

[johnfb]

I use Franco's chorizo sausage mix and add 60g to a kilo of Tesco standard minced pork along with 2g cure#2. So it may not be classic chorizo but it's what my son likes (he thinks it is homemade pepperami) and takes about 2 minutes to make.

We're camping on a Dorset farm for half term, we get mains electricity, a chemical toilet disposal point and that's it

`


I'd love to see my kids go for that.
If there's no pool, and no disco they're not interested...real city kids.

[saucisson]

The chiller ones are now developing at a much slower rate and are developing a white ghosting on the skin which I preseume is the white mould that evryone talks about. Cant wait to give them a try.

Cheers WW

Mine ten days in at room temperature:



nice penicillin mould smell to them

[Oddley]

Dave, I may be missing something, can you please explain your theory of safe out of the stuffer in scientific terms please. Have I been wasting my time in taking all the precautions that I have. Is the hurdle theory out of the window, in your opinion.

I know you have some training in scientific matters, and I have little, so would be interested in your reply.

[saucisson]

Hi Oddley,

It's not a replacement for hurdle theory, more of a corollary. Along the lines of "if it's not safe to eat raw before you process it, should you eat it uncooked after processing it?". It's meant to reinforce hurdle theory. The idea being that cure, salt, water content, pH etc are there to keep the meat as safe as when you started the process.

All your precautions maximise the chances that your products are safe to eat.

It's a very intersesting point and well worthy of discussion, thanks for bringing it up,

I'm sure there is much more to say on the subject,

Dave

[Oddley]

saucisson,

Thanks for the answer, For anybody that don't know what a corollary is, including me then.

A corollary is a statement which follows readily from a previously proven statement. In mathematics a corollary typically follows a theorem. The use of the term corollary, rather than proposition or theorem, is intrinsically subjective. Proposition A is a corollary of proposition B if A can readily be deduced from B, but the meaning of readily varies depending upon the author and context. The importance of the corollary is often considered secondary to that of the initial theorem; A is unlikely to be termed a corollary if its mathematical consequences are as significant as those of B. Sometimes a corollary has a proof that explains the derivation; sometimes the derivation is considered to be self-evident.

I'm not sure I agree with you definition of a corollary or how safe it is to eat what is essentially raw meat out of the stuffer as there has been no proven statement to this effect. I will do a bit of research and post again. Dave I'm a little surprised at you.

[Spuddy]

Dave's statement is quite right when it comes to any air dried product; If the meat is microbiologically unfit for consumption before it its cured then it will be likewise unfit after curing.
Any product that is to be eaten raw after curing and drying must be free (to within safe limits) of any pathogenic contamination before the process begins.

[Oddley]

Spuddy, any meat before mincing will have various pathogens on the surface of the meat, distributed throughout the meat during the mincing process.

The idea of curing and drying is to kill these pathogens, before they produce toxins and thereby produce a sterile interior of any meat products. All the stages including drying are an important part of this process.

[Spuddy]

Spuddy, any meat before mincing will have various pathogens on the surface of the meat, distributed throughout the meat during the mincing process.

The idea of curing and drying is to kill these pathogens, before they produce toxins and thereby produce a sterile interior of any meat products. All the stages including drying are an important part of this process.

I completely agree but the point made by Dave (which I was trying to clarify for anyone that failed to understand) was to the effect that: if said pathogens had already created their toxins to a dangerous level then no amount of curing will make it safe to eat. It must be safe to eat at the very start.