A little clarification required

[Titch]

Good Idea Larry, I shall do.
Cheers.
Titch

[Titch]

Larry.
Done, 20% humidity,interesting that one of my my freezer shows the same.
Cheers.
Titch

[larry]

Titch: I'm not sure if you can get from 20% up to 70% without a humidifier, but you can try a bowl of water with a pile of salt in the middle such that the salt pokes out above the water. It may depend on how tight your chamber is. I've heard of people putting a small cloth partially in the bowl like a wick, which pulls even more moisture out of the water and puts it in the chamber. I would give it a few days to come up, and see if it gets high enough. If not, it's time to shop for a small humidifier. The Sausagemaker catalogue (on this website) sells a good one, that I assume they also thought was good enough to include. Others here may have more ideas for you.

[grisell]

I recommend a wet terry towel.

[Y@t]

Titch: The first thing is to figure out whether your natural humidity is high or low, or whether it varies. I would get a temp/humidity gauge, put it in your chamber and just start taking readings a few times a day, to see what you have. If you're lucky, you may not need to do much. If you report back here with your baseline info, I'm sure the engineer types here can suggest how to rig your chamber. Most people use either a small humidifier or a bowl of water and salt to add moisture, and a vent and fan setup to get rid of it.

Glad to see one of my photos was resurrected. I will take photos of the new "cave" soon. I have been curing in it for about 1.5 months.
Some observations I have made in the last few months:

It has been addressed that curing times may take longer, depending on the recipe but I have noticed that salami and cured whole muscles take as long as they need to, even if the conditions are ideal. They don't follow my formulas.

Mold will begin jumping from sausage to sausage. If that is a problem then you will have to spend time periodically wiping them down with vinegar/water. I like when they spread though, I spend less time worrying about funky molds.

I have been using a cooler with a beer keg temperature controller. The controller acts as a relay and I can set the desired temp. as well as the range I allow it to activate, say +/- 5°F. When I keep the cooler set at 50°F the RH remains between 70-75% with no additional humidifier. I am now keeping it at 40° and the RH has dropped to 63-67%.

I don't have a hygrometer set up to turn on/off when the humidity changes so I put the humidifier on a timer to turn on between 1-4 times a day, totally depending on what my gauge says..

I keep it this low for legal reasons, because at the point I will be ready to sell and market it, this is the temp I will have to cure at anyway. I expect the curing to take a little longer, but as I said before, this stuff is ready when it is ready.

I just sliced some Coppa that I hung on November 18 a couple of days ago. I thought it was going to be ready in mid-February, bit it wasn't. It tastes really nice. I will throw some photos up at some point.
James