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I made a batch of salami 4 days ago. Today I noticed black spots under the casing around the whole black peppercorn.



Only a few of them looks this.

Have any of you guys seen this before? I'n not sure if it's just color from the peppercorn or something bad going on in there.

I've had marks that looked like mould, but were BP, but nothing like that one at the top. It looks huge. But, in four days? Is it mould, or could it possibly be something leaching from the peppercorn?

Is it all of them, or just this one?

Phil

What happens when you try to wipe them down with vinegar? I'm not optimistic.

Were the peppercorns somehow softened before you added them to the meat mixture, it could be leeching from the peppercorn pigment if they were somehow softened prior, or black mold, which is not good. Further investigation definitely needed. I've never seen leeching from hard peppercorns only exposed to the moisture present in a sausage mixture.

Hmmm...
What was the recipe?
How did you prick the casings - can you see if the black marks are aligned with where the casings were pricked?

RodinBangkok wrote:I've never seen leeching from hard peppercorns only exposed to the moisture present in a sausage mixture.

agree, it was probably 'wishful thinking' on my part.

Phil

I made 4 different recipes. 2 of them had whole black peppercorn in them and in both of these two sausages I can see black spots like this where the peppercorn are all the way out touching the casing. The top black spot in the picture is the worst of them all. The spots does not appear to have grown since yesterday.

In the other recipe I used cracked peppercorn and where I can see them through the casing, there are no black spots besides the pepper itself. That pepper I had in a mill so it's probably from another source. (bought a different place)

Wiping in vinegar will not do any good as the coloration in inside of the casing.

I did not prick the casing. This is my first batch ever and I didn't know I was suppose to do that.

No, the peppercorn was mot moistened before using them.

Yesterday I made a small pigment test by leaving peppercorn from the same batch of pepper on a moist piece of paper towel. They did leave dark spots. I am trying again with peppercorn inside a piece of casing, sealed up with moisture. Just to see what happens.

It's definitely related to the pepper, but even though the peppercorn should have some bad stuff in them, isn't 4 days too fast to develop black mold? The sausages have cure2 in them and I used t-spx starter. First two days in 75F 90RH, following days in 60F 70RH.

This is the recipe on the sausage in the picture http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Sal ... ascina.pdf