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After 3 days fermenting I started reducing the temperature.
Suddenly the humidity dropped from 95% to 65%. I tried to rectify this by putting some salt water trays in the fridge. First one tray and then another to make about 4 sq ft of surface area!
The humidity continued to drop to 60% which is where it has been for the last 4 days. WTF!!
NOW the penny has dropped! I was using overly saturated salt water so the extra salt was taking humidity out of the air!

I now have a couple of trays of lightly salted water in there and the humidity is about 70%. I might hang a towel in there as well but as I've just made the change I will wait a few hours.

Hope they are not irretrievably case hardened!
'ope they've fermented
'ope they're not poisoned by fungus
and so on and so on

At the start of the 8th day they are at 13-15C and hopefully over 70%. They have lost 23% weight in a week. 45mm diameter casings.

Don't mind me, just this seems as good a place as any to keep a log!!
Temp 12-14C
Humidity 69 -74%
Weight loss 24.5%

Humidity around 70%. The wet towel helps. I'm using a "drinks cooler" type of fridge - I have read that someone else had a problem keeping humidity up with this type - might well be the case as ambient humidity is generally so high.
Weight loss at 29.5%. Another 5 days and I might slice one open!
Smell is more mellow now. Mushrooms and stuff!

28.5 - 29.5% weight loss
Humidity is difficult to keep high. 66-70%

Weight loss actually between 29.5% and 30.5%.

Not far to go!

Case hardening!
Smell is great and so is the taste Couldn't resist trying them. The discoloration in the photo is due to the spices I think. I ate some of the hard part and also tried the inside mushy part which tastes good but certainly doesn't feel right!

They are still in the fridge atm but whatever I do I cannot keep the humidity over 70%. Even 2 trays of water and a wet towel won't do it. I think it is due to this type of fridge that has a fan to push the cold air in.

Is there anything I can attempt, to salvage this lot, or are they destined for the street dogs?

If you have any doubt, you know the answer. It is very difficult to get the right conditions with wrong type of refrigerator.

It's so disappointing, isn't it. You're not alone, I started off with a fan-type fridge and it caused me all sorts of problems.

Phil

What quantity did you make?

Interestingly I had the opposite problem - I made 14kg in a waist hight fridge and NEVER had to turn on the humidifier - had to open the door for an hour a day to encourage drying. The reason for saying this is that I guess that one way of raising the humidity is to have more product in your drying chamber (but that means more to discard if something goes wrong).

wheels wrote:It's so disappointing, isn't it.

Phil

I guess it's every father's desire that their children be perfect!

I think the fan type fridge is the culprit and now have to look for a different curing chamber. I made a batch of 10Kg but think its down to the type of fridge.

On the bright side though, I have decided not to throw them all out yet. I opened 3 chubs and they were the same - mushy inside. But they were all surprisingly sour considering that I added no extra sugar. They are also still loosing weight. As of today they are at 33% weight loss. This leads me to believe that the case hardening hasn't completely sealed the inside water. Its also only been 18 days since I started their fermentation - only 15 days of drying.

I will wait to see if they get to 40% weight loss and then slice another open. At least I should learn something more.

I will throw them out if I have any doubt as to their safety but right now I know they are not poisonous and they are not finished doing there thing.

Having looked at your pictures again the cut end has a ridge of semi-melted fat on it, and I wonder if this may have in someway blocked or waterproofed the casing? Just a thought. Anyway if we assume that the fat is not from a dirty knife (!) I wonder if this says something about what went on in preprocessing/early manufacture - e.g. temperatures too high or 'smearing' due to blunt grinding tools/cutters - I've not got an answer as I'm just starting out on my salami-making, but just flag this as a thought for others to comment on.

Swing Swang wrote:Having looked at your pictures again the cut end has a ridge of semi-melted fat on it, and I wonder if this may have in someway blocked or waterproofed the casing?

Impressively sleuth observation but it's due to what the knife picked up on the previous cuts!
If they had waterproofed the casing I doubt that I would have got a 30% weight loss in 2 weeks
Having said that, the sausages do seem quite greasy and I wonder if some lipolysis has been going on.

Got to get some more meat in the freezer for my next try!!

The problem here is most likely failed fermentation. Some yogourt products do contain types of bacteria that can survive nitrite, salt and thrive in meat. But the fact is that most don't. There are over 100 strains of lactic bacteria, but only a handful are used in fermenting meat. We don't know which strains of bacteria were used and there were no pH readings taken.

Hi Rajzer, thanks for the comment.
I didn't use any yogurt with this one, just relied on inherent bacteria. If taste is anything to go by, then I can say that it has undoubtedly fermented, even too much of a tang for my taste - but it is still young.

Mainly I just want to see what happens next. I expect to see big cavities in the sausage where the casing was unable to accommodate the shrinkage.

Weight loss 35%