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Hi,

Just made my first batch of chorizo, used the starter culture and the curing salt, but after two days hanging in a unused fridge they are developing a white fury mould, the strands are quite long, some nearly 1 cm. Is this mould ok to leave on it or should I wash them with vinegar or just start again?

My thought is that it is too humid, can this be a possibility?

Also somebody told me to reduse the humidty and temperature after two days. Should I do this or leave them at 20 degrees with high humidity around 70 80 %?

Peter

my 2 cents worth. i recently made two hungarian salamis that developed the same mold, naturally, in my drying chamber. i did not use any commercial product to form a surface mold. they looked like little polar bears or some such; fuzzy and cute. i finally took them out and hanged them for a final drying in the basement at a RH of about 45%. after 2-3 weeks, the fuzzy mold dried out and formed a white smooth coating on the sausage. it really ended up looking like a coating of whitewash. the flavor was over the top. kind of a musty nutty flavor that i found very enjoyable.
i am not aware of any realsitic chance of a dangerous white mold on a salami. perhaps someone else is. let us know how it all ends up.

yeah thanks, I will do, I will keep checking them and let you know, how they come out.

Sounds like a good dose of penicillium candidium and nothing to worry about

just as an aside (your mould sounds fine by the way ) we never use starter cultures in Chorizo, do others here?

I think that some recipes do, particularly if they originate from areas that make a lot of salami, where chorizo is simply another form of fermented sausage. Hope that's not too contentious...



Dave

i got the recipe from charcuterie, micheal ruhlmans book, do you not need to use a starter culture then is the prague powder enough?

Does anyone have a good picante chorizo recipe? I want to make a semi-cured chorizo for cooking.

pete

peterbrettell wrote:i got the recipe from charcuterie, micheal ruhlmans book, do you not need to use a starter culture then is the prague powder enough?

Some recipes have the starter in and some don't, it just depends on what you prefer, there is often a lactic tang in a sausage that has a starter.

peterbrettell wrote:i got the recipe from charcuterie, micheal ruhlmans book, do you not need to use a starter culture then is the prague powder enough?

It's not absolutely necessary, but it add an extra level of protection from nasty bacterias.

peterbrettell wrote:Does anyone have a good picante chorizo recipe? I want to make a semi-cured chorizo for cooking.

pete

I'd just swap some of the paprika for 'hot paprika' and add a small amount of cayenne pepper. The one I made here was quite hot.

Phil

ok so my white mold had changed to black mold. not good i am guessing, I have binned them. Anybody know why this happened, I left them in an unused fridge, so as it's wasn't well ventilated I am guessing that is why they went black, any ideas??

pete

what is the difference with using collagen or natural casings?

I did a test run of collagen and hogs on some chorizo style air cured sausages and once they had dried I was hard put to tell the difference. The fact that I hadn't labelled which was which didn't help any...

Dave

peterbrettell wrote:ok so my white mold had changed to black mold. not good i am guessing, I have binned them. Anybody know why this happened, I left them in an unused fridge, so as it's wasn't well ventilated I am guessing that is why they went black, any ideas??

pete

I use a computer fan in the fridge to create some airflow. I tried it through a hole in the side to introduce fresh air, but had difficulty maintaining temperature so I had to compromise.

Phil