Had my first go at salami

Bentley · Post by **Bentley** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:11 pm

"Salami is cured sausage, made of fermented and air-dried meat from one of several animals—but typically beef or pork."

So no cure, no starter...Is it a hard salami when finished...All the Italian salami's or for that matter any salami I thought were fermented...I thought that is what salami was. Do you have to control temperature that it cures at? Or RH%? It looks like you are using a collagen casing...Is that correct?

Heck, if I can grind up some pork, add spices and salt, hang it ad wait a month...I am making some this weekend. Tried of paying $16/kg for it!

Will it look like this when done?

This was my 1st and only attempt at salami...It did not end well...

wedwards · Post by **wedwards** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 3:00 pm

3% salt takes care of curing. Need to hang in a well ventilated but cool dry dark spot - this time of year in Victoria makes your garage perfect but it is getting lateish. The first 2 weeks are the most critical to keep cool. You must weigh them before hanging because the only way to know when they are truly done is after they have lost 30% of their original weight.

It's definitely a drier salami than the standard Hungarian rubbish you get from the deli.

What happened with your previous batch? Why didn't it work? They look ok in the pic.

If you don't have the right conditions to hang them, the cases I provided in the previous link are an option for doing it in the fridge and work really well any time of year.

food&fish · Post by **food&fish** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:32 pm

wedwards wrote:3% salt takes care of curing. Need to hang in a well ventilated but cool dry dark spot - this time of year in Victoria makes your garage perfect but it is getting lateish. The first 2 weeks are the most critical to keep cool. You must weigh them before hanging because the only way to know when they are truly done is after they have lost 30% of their original weight.

It's definitely a drier salami than the standard Hungarian rubbish you get from the deli.

What happened with your previous batch? Why didn't it work? They look ok in the pic.

If you don't have the right conditions to hang them, the cases I provided in the previous link are an option for doing it in the fridge and work really well any time of year.

By the looks of it they were hung in the house much to warm

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 6:39 pm

The bags from smoked and cured aren't bad. I have don't some pancetta and coppa in the fridge before, though I did find that the RH is still too low and they dry on the outside a little quick.

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gnol · Post by **gnol** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 7:16 pm

food&fish wrote:Heres how it all went
Recipe
Get your mate around to help
Open a bottle of red wine and to a taste test or 2
I used 3.5 kg pork mince
To that we added 28 gram salt per kg=94 gm
Fennel seeds 4 gm per kg =14gm
Black pepper4 gm per kg =14 gm
Chili[home grown ]2 gm per kg =7 or may be 10
3 tablespoons hot Capsigan [sounds like ] paste
And the rest of the bottle of wine Bugger none left oh open another
Give it a good mix and stuff it in bungs
Finnish off the wine
in the skins

And hanging now wait a month

Look great. A bloke i work with (my boss) has made some in the last couple of months and they turned out great. Bought some in a couple of weeks ago and they were delicious. He has just made another massive batch.
No nitrites .
I'll take a piccy if he brings anymore into work.

Bentley · Post by **Bentley** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 3:47 am

Pretty sure it was a temperature thing. Southern California is probably not the best place to make Salami...

So, I am now in a 4 season climate...obviously it is dead summer now and to hot, but it gets as low as -22c here in the winter, I guess I can do it? What is the highest temperature they can cure at? By the end of November it will average about 7°c for high and about 0°c for lows and will stay that way for about 6 weeks. Is there a temperature I need to make sure they stay under if I want to cure and dry them in the open? If it gets below freezing will it effect the salami and the way it cures and dry's? Do I need to be as concerned with low's as well as highs? Doing it in your garage, bugs don't worry you? I realize they will hang, but flying stuff? Although, as I think about it, I think they are all dead from weather by that time...

Appreciate the help...never had an issues making sausage, like to think I am quite good at it...but a complete failure at salami...

food&fish · Post by **food&fish** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:37 am

This is my first go and flying blind as time go on I may be able to give advice
Cheers

wedwards · Post by **wedwards** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 10:46 pm

Bentley wrote:Pretty sure it was a temperature thing. Southern California is probably not the best place to make Salami...

So, I am now in a 4 season climate...obviously it is dead summer now and to hot, but it gets as low as -22c here in the winter, I guess I can do it? What is the highest temperature they can cure at? By the end of November it will average about 7°c for high and about 0°c for lows and will stay that way for about 6 weeks. Is there a temperature I need to make sure they stay under if I want to cure and dry them in the open? If it gets below freezing will it effect the salami and the way it cures and dry's? Do I need to be as concerned with low's as well as highs? Doing it in your garage, bugs don't worry you? I realize they will hang, but flying stuff? Although, as I think about it, I think they are all dead from weather by that time...

Appreciate the help...never had an issues making sausage, like to think I am quite good at it...but a complete failure at salami...

Temp depends on whether you are making fermented salami or not. If fermented, you need a little higher temp so that the fermentation process keeps going - yeasts and bugs tend to go to sleep at temps under 5 degrees but this is an individual thing, you would need to check the instructions for your particular culture.

For the standard dry italian salami, we usually aim for anywhere between about 5 to 15 degrees celsius - even up to 18-20 would be fine in a dry well ventilated place. Not sure about temp drops down to 0 - if its only for an hour or so, I think it would be fine, but if it sits at 0 for 12 hours overnight then it might be too cold in my opinion. Generally speaking, you don't want the salami to freeze while it is drying.

There are some good books on making salami you can get off amazon (salume, the art of charcuterie, home production of quality meats and sausages, smoking curing and drying the complete guide for meat and fish, the complete book of butchering smoking curing and sausage making, etc etc, as well as a lot of good sausage and salami making forums and websites out there) - you probably only need one or two at most. It really depends on how far you want to go. My lesson in salami went from making a few into full blown butchery and learning all sorts of charcuterie very quickly

Smokey · Post by **Smokey** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:27 pm

You can make them like your dry aged beef Bent in the fridge. Only now there are plug and play humidity controllers available Ex China from ebay that will run an ultrasonic humidifier. ( I finally nutted out the fix for dry aged beef)
I run a wine fridge as the "Cave". In your winter you would not need turn the fridge on, Even heat it with a light globe on a thermostat. Around 50F and 70%RH for two weeks then down to 50%RH and your set. Im soon to be putting in a prosciutto.

Bentley · Post by **Bentley** » Tue Aug 04, 2015 5:37 am

I guess when the day time temps fall below 15° will give it a go, if it gets to cold will finish in the fridge.

food&fish · Post by **food&fish** » Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:35 am

The good book sais it needs to loose a third of its weight so the one I am measuring started at 555gm after 1 week its down to 455 gm
Smells good and is starting to firm up
Needs to go to 370 gm

Bentley · Post by **Bentley** » Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:00 pm

You did use collagen casings?

food&fish · Post by **food&fish** » Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:09 pm

The salami is now vac packed and in the fridge the salami turned out great every body that tried it said don't change a thing
So the next project is a curing chamber just got a kelvinater all fridge cleaned it and a new rubber on the door
got from over seas a humidity control
Need a humidifier and a thermostat to turn fridge on and off
Will be handy in the summer months for fermenting beer
So all in all a general purpose unit
Pickies as project happens

Fents · Post by **Fents** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:06 pm

thermo - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/220-240V-Dig ... 417da0dd52 (should do heating and cooling) just needs to be put in a jiffy box and wired up....or if your like me and an absolute tool tard these come pre done :

http://kegking.com.au/mkii-10-30amp-tem ... -cool.html

I use this one on my fermenting fridge for beer - https://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/det ... p?PID=2592

gnol · Post by **gnol** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 9:09 pm

Here are some pics of the salami made by the bloke I work with.
I swapped him a pork belly bacon for some of this and it is damn fine stuff.

The one that is cut up is larger than the 3 vacuum sealed ones.

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