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Aramoro posted:I've just got myself a small wine fridge for curing and I'm doing a trial with Duck prosciutto in it just now because it's pretty quick and easy. The tempreture is fine at a steady 10-15C but I just can't get control of the humidity at all, it's sitting around 40-45 % so I think I'm just going to get a lot of hardening. I've tried the tray of wet salt and that's not making a huge difference. You're right that your best bet for humidity is to use an ultrasonic humidifier, plugged into some sort of hygrostat. I use an Auber TH210 with temperature/humidity controls, hooked up to a humidifier inside an old refrigerator. It keeps a pretty constant temperature of 55 degrees; there's some fluctuation of RH, but it hovers around 75%.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:33
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Nicol Bolas posted:Hey porknerds, my dude & I bought a half of a pig (in an ongoing effort to only eat humanely raised / local meats) and I'm itching to take on of the huge hams--what is clearly a deboned leg--and turn it into prosciutto. Is the standard advice "just buy Charcuterie, dummy" or has someone done a bigass ham like this? Would it behoove me to break it down into smaller pieces to cure more reliably and with more tolerance for variations in temp / humidity? I've done bacon and cured salmon and stuff so I'm not a beginner but I feel like pork belly might be more forgiving than a huge whole 5 pounds of muscle will be. Apologies for double posting, but starting with a whole ham is probably a bad idea. Since it's deboned, you could roll it and case it, but there are lots of chances to mess it up, and it would be a shame to ruin an expensive/ high quality piece of meat. The way I started with dry-curing is with smaller, solid cuts. Lonza/lonzino/lomo is a great place to start, it's easy, and you'll end up with something that's like prosciutto. Coppa is also easy, hard to mess up, and delicious. If you have those cuts, or know how to cut them from your pig, give those a try.
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Feb 27, 2016 14:08
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As you saw, duck prosciutto will work fine at 60% RH (I've made it in the fridge.) Glad to hear it turned out well! Pancetta would work fine too, but if you want to try more finicky stuff you'll need to get the humidity higher. I'd be nervous about drying something as big as a mutton leg in that dry of an environment, but hey, you could give it a try.
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Mar 2, 2016 03:23
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I guess I'd ask, how much grinding are you going to do? The KA mixing bowls hold about 5 lbs of ground meat, so if you're working in batches of around five pounds, the KA grinder works fine. But yeah, If you're grinding an elk or whatever, you definitely need something bigger. The KA grinder sucks as a stuffer, though. I bought a 5# LEM stuffer, which works great. A five pound batch of salami tends to be the right size for me.
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Apr 17, 2016 19:09
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I've been making bacon and fresh sausage for a few years now; more recently (the last year, basically), I've moved on to dry cured salumi. Here's my chamber (a freezer I bought on Craigslist): You can see the pancetta in the back. On the left is pepperoni, the fatter salamis are lamb, and in the front is a bresaola, a garam masala coppa, and on the far right, a traditional sweet coppa. Today the pepperoni came out! I also pulled the smallest lamb salami (it was at 37% weight loss, which is less than I usually do, but I was really wanting to try it.  Pepperoni: 8/10. It's a little less assertive than I usually like (I thought my kids might like it), but not bad. It'll be great on pizza. Lamb: 7/10. Too much coriander, the bind is so-so, and it really needed a few more weeks to dry. I'll pull the others at 40-45% and I bet they'll be better. The nice thing about this hobby is that you always have something to pull out when guests come over, or to bring as a gift (more interesting than a bottle of wine!) I tend not to eat nearly as much as I make, so I have a fridge drawer filled with stuff I've made. I'll post more pictures if there is interest.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:25
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CaptainCrunch posted:There is also interest in hearing about how you rigged the freezer! This is easy (because I don't have to dig up photos). I originally used an old refrigerator, but when it blew out, I replaced it with a freezer. Either works fine, but he freezer has more storage space. Literally all I did was buy an Auber TH210 thermostat/hygrostat. I plugged the freezer into that, put an ultrasonic humidifier in he freezer, plugged it into the Auber, and bingo! Done. If, unlike me, you are handy, you can do it cheaper with a more DIY setup. You can also do something like install a computer fan in the side of the freezer, but I would electrocute myself. I figure that I check it once a day anyhow; when I open the door to look at mah meats, that creates enough airflow. The Auber keeps it at 55 F/ 75% RH, more or less. Works great. That's it. The whole setup was about $300 ($125 for the Auber, $100 for the freezer, $40 for the humidifier and a few bucks for random items like S-hooks.) As I said, you could do it for cheaper if you have more know-how, but this was really easy. The only other piece of advice I have is that I wouldn't recommend using a dorm freezer or wine fridge unless you live in a small apartment or whatever, or if you're really low on funds. It can work, but you'll have less control.
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Jul 28, 2016 22:30
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Subjunctive posted:Are there heaters that people would recommend for this purpose? The space I'm thinking about charcuterizing in is a cold cellar, and winters here get down to freezing. I don't know how cold the cellar itself gets, because I haven't done a winter in the house yet, but I suspect it's well below 55F. You mean a space heater, right? I don't have a specific answer, but I imagine the two issues are power (how big is the space you're using, and how much warmer do you want it?) and precision. Ive never used a space heater that was all that precise; I'm sure there are some but I bet they're expensive. Better to get a cheaper model and hook it up to a PID temperature controller, IMO. What's the humidity in the cellar? Chemmy posted:That's all they had. It came out ok. Looks better than OK, Chemmy. Fattier pastrami is always better if you can get fatty brisket (or even better, plate), but lean pastrami is still pretty great.
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Jul 30, 2016 20:13
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Subjunctive posted:I figured it would be a lightbulb sort of thing rather than a space heater. Like for terrariums or such. Space is likely to be mid-sized freezer or fridge, but I haven't bought it yet. Outside temp as low as 20F, have to measure indoors as winter arrives. Not sure of humidity either. Ah, I thought you were converting part of the cellar itself. Got it. In that case, yeah, a ceramic terrarium heater works great. My chamber is in the garage, which gets pretty cold in the winter. Last winter, the chamber itself stayed at around 50-55 degrees without me doing anything to heat it. However, since the compressor wasn't cycling, it got crazy humid in there and the humidity sensor stopped working. I put in a ceramic heater just like the one Slimy Hog linked to, and hooked it up to a timer that I had lying around so that it didn't get too hot. (A dimmer switch would have worked better and I need to get one before the winter.) At some point in the spring I turned it off, and I haven't installed it yet in the new chamber. As far as a container: if you can get it down the stairs, you might as well go big, with a full-sized upright freezer. I prefer that to a fridge, since you can use all the space (a fridge will have a separate freezer compartment, which you can use for casings, etc., but that's only marginally useful IMO.) If you can get a beverage cooler (the kind they use for sodas at convenience stores), I've heard those work well and have a lot of space. My recommendation is to start trawling Craigslist now, so you can get one for cheap. Good luck!
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Jul 31, 2016 03:13
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Jimbozig posted:Hey folks, I made the Bresaola using Ruhlman's recipe and it's been hanging for 3 weeks, and has lost nearly 30% of its weight, which is good, but it seems too squishy still. I realize now - perhaps too late - that I made a mistake early on and didn't know until I went over the recipe again just now: I forgot to trim off the fat and silverskin, so it has a (relatively thin) layer of it along one side of the meat. One other weird thing that happened was that when sitting in the cure in the fridge, not as much water came out as the book described - it was wet, but not sitting in a puddle, so to speak - so it might have had more water than it was supposed to when I hung it. It's hard to tell from here what's making it squishy. If it's the fat on the outside, well, that's never going to dry fully, but it's not a problem. And at 30% loss, I would expect it to still be somewhat squishy. That's said, I'd be a little concerned that it's drying too quickly (3 weeks/30% is faster than I ever see) and you might be getting some case hardening. If it hits 40% and the inside feels squishy, then that's the reason. Not the greatest thing but not the end of the world. You can always vacuum seal it for a couple of weeks and it will even out somewhat. Don't trim the fat. Some people don't like the flavor of beef fat, but IMO it's fine, and gives it a little funk. I've even made lamb prosciutto with a lot of fat left in it and it was great (if you like that sort of thing.)
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Aug 15, 2016 22:14
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Just boneless leg, trimmed, cured (garlic, rosemary, juniper), rolled as tightly as I could and cased in a beef bung. It was good stuff and I need to make another in the near future.
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Aug 19, 2016 00:24
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 Party time! I brought a selection of my salumis. Clockwise, from 1 o clock: lamb prosciutto Orange/fennel lonza Saucisson sec Fennel/red wine salami Hot coppa And in the center, 'nduja
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Aug 22, 2016 20:07
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Thanks for the props, all!Ckwiesr posted:Can you go a little more in depth on that? Id love to give this a shot at some point. How much curing have you done? If the answer is "not much," it's not the best place to start- you want a lonza or bresaola, which is easier to work with. If you've done some, I can get you the recipe in a week or so (I'm out of town and my notebook is at home). But it's basically the same technique as you'd use for other solid muscle curing: the difference is that a deboned leg is a little messy and requires rolling as tight as possible before casing it (I used a beef bung cap).
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Aug 23, 2016 02:35
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Nice! 'Nduja is indeed amazing stuff. (One of my goals for this winter is to work on other spreadable salamis, including non-fiery varieties.)
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Aug 25, 2016 13:43
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If you haven't opened it, it will last a very long time in the fridge. Once you open it, I'd eat it within a couple of weeks, I guess. Probably it would last longer, but I'm really conservative about that sort of thing.
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Aug 26, 2016 17:09
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Suppose a forum post reminds you that you have leftover risotto, mozzarella and 'nduja in the fridge- what do you do? Make arancini, obviously:  And this is why I don't have a good answer about how long 'nduja will last in the fridge; it always gets eaten...
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Aug 26, 2016 18:16
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Nice! What spices did you use?
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Oct 9, 2016 00:56
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goodness posted:Scored a vinotemp 27 bottle touchscreen model at the dumpster. I got it to turn on but it wasn't cooling. Turned out to be an easy relay/overload fix. Pancetta, coppa or lonza are good first projects.
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Nov 26, 2016 02:18
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Here's my chamber as of this morning: 2016 was not such a great year but thanks to my hobby, at least I have some good stuff to look forward to in 2017: simple salamis, sweet coppa, lamb prosciutto, salame pignolo, salame piccante, and a big-rear end 'nduja I just added today. Happy new year!
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Dec 31, 2016 17:02
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Slimy Hog posted:What's a good indicator that my salami has case hardening? I forgot to weight it before I hung it, so I'm going by feel right now and it feels a little too squishy for the feel of the casings right now. You can kind of tell if it feels like it's squishier on the inside. But you really need to weigh it in advance to know how done it is.
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Jan 11, 2017 10:34
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Stringent posted:Pancetta's out! Had some mold problems so I wound up wiping off a lot of pepper. vOv Nice! Now get out there and make you some carbonara.
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Jan 24, 2017 12:17
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No, they totally will. You just need a pork butt: you can cut the coppa muscle out. There are videos/ tutorials online for doing that, it's not hard.
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Feb 6, 2017 12:52
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The slicer looks good. I have a cheap one and even that makes a huge difference, especially when it comes to whole muscle meats. I probably ought to start looking for a good deal on a used commercial slicer.sinburger posted:Meat slicer works well. Those peeps at the deli make slicing look a lot easier than it actually is. The spinning blade is scary as gently caress when trying to clean it. Tell me you're not actually trying to clean the blade while it's spinning. Right?
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Mar 1, 2017 14:24
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sinburger posted:Absolutely not, I unplugged and disassembled all the parts before cleaning them. But the blade stays attached so I need to rotate it by hand to clean it off. You phrased it a little unclearly; I figured, though you never know... The blade on mine comes off so I can clean it pretty easily. But slicing soap-bread is clever and I'll bear it in mind once I upgrade! 
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Mar 1, 2017 19:55
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 Pulled a couple of new goodies from the chamber today: on the left is a sweet lonza, and on the right, lamb prosciutto. In the middle is the last little bit of some simple salami that I've been enjoying for a while now. This is the first time I've done a bone-in lamb leg. Last spring I used a boneless Costco leg to make a prosciutto that just about blew my mind. This time around I bought a lamb from a local farmer. I was pretty psyched to do a whole leg. The result was... interesting. There's a really deep, pronounced lamb flavor, some nutty funky flavors (even a little banana flavor, of all things). Honestly, I preferred the earlier one though, and if I do it again (I have the other leg in the freezer), I'll salt and spice it a little more aggressively to get it more to my liking, flavor-wise. Anyway, still good and definitely a nice snack for a Saturday afternoon, especially with a glass of wine.
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Mar 11, 2017 21:53
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lifts cats over head posted:This weekend is one of the largest community yard sales for my city. Every year I consider buying either a mini-fridge or wine fridge with the hopes of converting it to a curing fridge. Looking for honest opinions, is this a realistic goal? I'm not experienced with changing electric components of something like a fridge but I'm good at following step-by-step directions and I've seen several online for just this sort of thing. Do you have space for a full-sized fridge? If so, don't mess around with a mini-fridge. Go on Craigslist, buy a frost-free model (or a standing freezer, which is actually better), a humidifier and a hygrostat/thermostat. It will work way better than a wine or dorm fridge, there is no need for any wiring or electrical equipment and the whole setup will be under $200.
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May 18, 2017 23:28
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Just bear in mind that many small fridges (like dorm fridges) aren't frost-free, which makes controlling humidity a hassle. I suspect a wine fridge is a better bet but I've never used one. Ultimately it may depend on what you're trying to make: duck prosciutto will work in pretty much any environment, but I wouldn't want to use a dorm fridge to make salami or coppa, for example. Good luck!
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May 19, 2017 17:53
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If you vacuum seal it it will last a long time- at least a year and probably longer than that. Not vacuum sealed, it will dry out but I don't know how long it will take. Nduja takes a while to eat so I'd hesitate. Maybe you have a buddy to split it with?
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May 24, 2017 22:43
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Just pulled a fennel/black pepper coppa out of the chamber. Very nice: Goes great as part of a sweet/salty plate with Cypress Grove Purple Haze, apple and spicy pickled vegetables: 
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Jun 11, 2017 20:11
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Stringent posted:Ok, you convinced me, gonna do it. Do it! Once you have a little experience and have set up a decent chamber, coppa is dead easy. Speaking of a decent chamber, toplitzin: unless you are very short on space, don't monkey around with a mini fridge! Controlling humidity will be a massive PITA. Get a used refrigerator or freezer (frost-free) instead.
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Jun 12, 2017 02:51
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Not over stuffing will help, yeah. Are they bursting when you cook them? If so, try cooking at a lower temperature.
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Jul 19, 2017 17:36
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Elizabethan Error posted:they're bursting because the air and water inside has nowhere to go, maybe stab them with a fork a few times before cooking and then all the juicy goodness will leak out.  I'd say keep practicing cooking your sausages until you hit the right temperature and technique. I usually poach them or cook them sous vide before browning them to finish. It's pretty rare for one to break, though it does happen.
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Jul 19, 2017 22:24
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I think it's pretty clear that I was advocating learning how to cook sausages without breaking them open or puncturing them. But if you enjoy being snotty to people in a dead comedy cooking website, go right ahead!
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Jul 20, 2017 21:13
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You do you, friend, and enjoy your leaking sausages.
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Jul 20, 2017 21:24
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turing_test posted:Hello thread! The tongue looks... yeah, like a creepy tongue. But I bet it tastes awesome, good job! And it will taste even better with your own kraut and on your own bread.
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Aug 24, 2017 12:24
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CaptainCrunch posted:Every year I go on a week long camping trip with friends. Every year I make a passel of sah-seges to share around in return for much alcohol. Bet that will be amazing with a cold beer. Are you planning to grill it?
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Sep 12, 2017 10:52
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 homemade fig preserves, saucisson sec, smoked lonza, Piave, cherry preserves. Together with some homemade sourdough toast and a couple of glasses of red wine, not a bad Friday night dinner. (I got the fig preserves from a neighbor in exchange for some salami. A great thing about this hobby is that I make more meats than I can eat, but I know lots of people who make other things and are happy to swap. This week I got a couple of homemade jams and cider donuts. I'm owed a pie, and another buddy makes Worcestershire sauce. Score!)
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Sep 30, 2017 01:49
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toplitzin posted:Join the Salt Cured Pig on Facebook. SCP is a very good group. Even better, for this question, is the Curing Chamber/ Umai Bag Support Group. I know that putting together a chamber is initimidating but it doesn't have to be hard. If you want, I'll post a photo of my chamber. I did zero electrical work or anything complicated and it works great. As to your other question, you'll need to warm up your chamber, for sure. Mine is in the garage; it's not heated in there, and in winter, the temperature is freezing outside and drops to 50-55 degrees in the garage. That's actually perfect in terms of temperature; the problem is that when the fridge doesn't cycle, the humidity spikes. I bought a ceramic terrarium heater and attached it to a dimmer switch. Once the weather starts getting cold I'll turn it on. I don't know if that will work if your garage is below freezing. I suspect so but you should seek advice from people with more experience in cold climates.
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Oct 27, 2017 02:10
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Mikey Purp posted:Thanks you guys. I joined both the Salt Cured Pig and the Curing Chamber groups. Sausage Debauchery is another very good Facebook group. Two good blogs to read that will walk you through the process are Jason Molinari's "Cured Meats" blog and "Our Daily Brine." For sausage and salami, Len Poli's website is also solid. I assume you know about the standard books on the subject, right? Capocollo is a very good place to start with dry-cured meats. Here is the recipe I use for a sweet coppa. All numbers are percentages: salt 2.5 #2 .25 fennel (toasted, then ground) .75 black pepper 1 garlic powder .5 Really for coppa, the only things you need are at least 2.25% salt by weight and .25% #2. At that point you can add whatever spices you want- sweet, spicy, whatever. I just pulled a really nice lemon coppa. It's hard to mess it up.
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Nov 3, 2017 04:05
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hakimashou posted:do you know or does n e one kno how too maej uncured bacon wit celery? start with a human leg
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Nov 3, 2017 15:33
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Mikey Purp posted:Question - what's the best type of charcuterie to make if you want a quick turnaround? We are hosting a holiday party during the second week of December and it would be awesome to have some home-made charcuterie to serve. Duck prosciutto, pate, gravlax, any kind of cooked sausage. Mortadella is somewhat of a challenge to make but it doesn't need to dry and it's awesome. I always make this chicken liver faux gras at the holidays and it's spectacular: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/chicken-faux-gras-50113284
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Nov 4, 2017 00:15
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