www.sausagemaking.org

new to this forum,an excellent resource, thank you.
I made a curing chamber out of an old frost free freezer. I'm able to maintain temp at 54-58F
and rh around 70%(via small humidifyer and cp fan). The freezer cycles about every 10-15 mins. for 1-2 mins. I thought this was ideal; de-humidifying and air circulation, but I now think my Len Poli salami cascina
may have case hardened a bit. Wondered if anyone had any thoughts about a frost free cycle causing too much
air movement or not?
Might be that I'm just impatient at 26 days and 30% wl, the middle(60mm protien lined) is very soft and lighter pink than the very thin, darker ring around the outside. This is my first try at salami so I have nothing to compare case hardening to.

Frost free you should be fine with, you can find lots of info searcing on that. However if it's cycling on that often that is likely a big problem with too much air movement. I assume with it cycling that often it's in a warm environment (house, garage)? I do my salamis in refrigerators in my garage but as the temps warm up I have no chance of success - they cycle much too often to keep the temps below 60. So like folks who just rely on ambient air temps my season is restricted to the colder months.

Welcome.

To add to what Eric's advised, you can sometimes 'even out' a salami that's slightly case hardened by vac-packing it for a week or two. I'd try that and then up the RH slightly.

HTH

Phil

Thank you for the replies!
Yes I'm in a 70f. garage.I can easily change that it was just convenient. I've read on here about the vac-pac Idea, I'll try that as well. Thanks again!
mike