montanaSalami wrote:There was not good air flow.
What do you actually mean by "There was not good air flow"
How does pricking the case help the case shrinkage as the chub dries?
Believe it or not it helps the water/moisture to escape -- on of the fundamentals of Salame making -- Casings are not porous so therefore you are trapping the moisture within the casing -- Yes they will eventually dry out but not before you encounter problems like this
What you see and think is case hardening was an attempt to firm it up by hanging it at room temp for a few days. >30% had been already achieved when I did this
And here we have another problem -- what was the room temperature and can you prove is was the same for the seventy two hours (a few days you said) and also the humidity
From what I am reading this might be a case of rushing it to get them to the desired weight loss and the rush has cost you
Most of my curing projects take a minimum of six months to dry, I have had a Duck and Orange Salame that took fourteen months (just over a year) to get to a 40% weight loss -- I have three Pancetta's (rolled) hanging since the 4th July 2015 that needs to get as close to 40% weight loss as it can -- they are sitting at 32% weight loss right now and going by the squeeze test it needs to move up more
I do this for a living and have done for at least forty odd years as my own business
I am only (as others are) trying to help you solve your problem but sometimes it feels like pulling hens teeth trying to get information