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ok, i have let my chorizos and sopressatats dry for 6 weeks now and the sausages have continued to firm up. i pulled a sample of each today. both the chorizo and the sopressata are close to being dry all the way through. they both have a little bit of softness and moisture left in the middle. the casings on the outside are starting to get hard though. will this prevent the sausages from continuing to dry out in the middle? i took a bite of each of the samples. both have a funky flavor left to them. will this mellow out the more they dry? the funk tastes similar to the way the chamber smelled during fermantation, is this normal?

Here is my whole process up to this point. i had a hard time keeping it below 90%. my chamber is a 8x10 walk in cooler with a didgital thermostat set at 55F. i have two small dehumidifiers running but the humidity gauge still reads 90%. my humidity gauge could be off? it reads in the 50% range out of the chamber which seems to be correct. the chamber smells a little funny. kind of like wet socks. not a strong smell but it is there, very subtle. i did use very good quality pork. my sanitation practices were very thorough. i use a total of 3% salt. 2.75% coming from kosher salt and .25 percent from insta cure #2. i used 1 Tbs of bactoferm f rm 52 per 10 lbs of meat. i fermented for 60 hours at 75F and 99% humidity. my ph reading from a milwaukee ph meter with meat probe was 4.89 in my chorizo batch and 4.3 in the sopressata. i have been drying at 55F and around 90% humidity for 1 month and a few days. the weight loss is right at 30%. i have had to fight some green mold. but have always wiped off with diluted vinegar solution. i had a little mold grow inside the casings on the sausages that were probed. the rest of the sausages only had surface mold on casings and were wiped down. i did spray with bactoferm mold 600 a couple of weeks in but it did not seem that the white chalky mold ever took off.

Congratulations on good documentation. It really helps when people keep good records. Just a couple of observations:

30% weight loss isn't what I'd class as finished. I'd leave it longer before worrying.
The RH is too high if it's a true reading - but you already know that. I don't know what temp your ambient air's at? But assuming it's not incredibly hot it should be possible to reduce the RH in the chamber by introducing fresh air.
The pH of 4.3 seems very low indeed. I'm no expert in this area, and as we have a member who is, I'll leave any comment on this to them.
The below casing mould isn't good, but you seem to have it sorted now?

All in all, I think maybe they just need time.

HTH

Phil

current air temp is 50-55F at this stage in the process can i drop it to 45F?

What's the air temp outside the chamber?

70f. My chamber is an 8x10 walk in cooler

The lower temperature should be fine.

CCollins54 wrote:70f. My chamber is an 8x10 walk in cooler

...and therein lies one of the problems. If you introduce air at 50%RH/70°f into a chamber at 50°f the RH will increase to 100%. That's the nature of RH.

In a smaller set up, causing the fridge motor to run will condense water out of the air and reduce RH, whether this is the case in a walk in, I don't know.

Have you noticed that the RH drops when the fridge motor is running? (or slightly after it stops?) - if so, you may be able to use this to your advantage.

HTH

Phil

Yes, the RH does drop when the motor runs. So lowering the temp should bring down the humidity some more.

In smaller setups people use a small heater/heat lamp controlled by a hygrostat to force the motor to run - thereby reducing the RH.

HTH