Just wondering why you're going with 200 ppm? Normally 156 ppm is used, which is 0.25% of the weight of the meat.

I bought some Cure #2 from Allied Kenco over the weekend. They're about 30 miles from my house, so we made the drive over there to check it out in person. Let me tell you, there's a LOT of stuff in that store. Very cool. Wanted to get a pic of the label up here to show the cure percentages http://i6...

Cool, thanks for that. I'll probably go with the 3 weeks as I still need to find the time to clean my chamber and get the mold-600. Haven't heard any dissenting opinions on the 54° F chamber temp, so I'll go with that. Any value in hanging it for 1 1/2 days at a higher temp? There's nothing to ferme...

Cool. I'll get the mold-600 on order. Should have asked my question last week, as I made a trip to allied kenco. What a store. Gotcha on the RH, does the 54° temp sound good?

So, I've got everything I need to do a Lonzino...I think. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! I'm going to use Bob's recipe: 2.5 Salt .5 Cure #2 .25 Sugar .8 Pepper .6 Paprika .15 Garlic Powder .2 Cayenne Since I'll have two pieces I may give this one a shot too: Salt 2.5% White Pepper 1% Clove...

I'd love to use this for smoking sausage etc. but the problem is getting the temps down low enough. It's a struggle to get down to 170°, and that's still too hot for my tastes. I'd like to run no hotter than 150°, but I'm going to have to do something different to do that. I may end up going to a sl...

A bit more work before it can be useful was needed. Step one was to reconfigure the pit. Now it's 31"x15". Next was to notch the blocks to put in supporting rods for the grate. Yeah, they're a bit thin. Came from some old political yard sign. I figured they could stand up OK to hot air. http://i94.p...

So, having some room and some spare cinderblocks, I figured why not make a smoker today? http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l95/sleebusjones/20170422_124619.jpg http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l95/sleebusjones/20170422_124629.jpg http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l95/sleebusjones/20170422_124641.jp...

Threw one of the 5# loins in the sous-vide Saturday to be ready for Sunday's dinner. Cooked for 4 hrs at 145°. Force-chilled in a ice water bath directly after, and the sliced. Screw-up #1 was not getting it cold enough. Meat was still a touch warm when slicing, so that didn't work very well. Next t...

Nice! If you use any of the dry cured salami recipes check with us on the amount of FRM 52 culture to use. They recommend 20 gram per 5lb, which is overkill, and costly. Just for giggles, I checked what the rate shoudl be for 5# of meat... 0.57g! Holy moly, you aren't kidding about the overkill and...

Ah cool. Well that'll work out just fine then. I'll pull one of them and cook it, then I'll do the other one at the 3 week mark and give 'er the ol' taste test. I did see that orange Lonzino elsewhere, at first glance it seems kinda odd, but i'd give it a try.

Yeah, I've read several warnings about the cure quantities used in the recipes. I got a lot of education from our past discussions! I check all the recipes on a percentage basis now. I will check back on the FRM 52, as fermented sausage is still uncharted territory for me. I really need to get some ...

Man, do I have the best wife or what?

I think not mixing enough is a common problem. Yep. I had some sausage the other day at a festival in Chappell Hill and it was essentially meat crumbs in a sausage casing. Yuck. Definitely not mixed enough. I think people worry about making a "rubber sausage" but I like a sausage that holds itself ...

When it starts pulling off my nitrile gloves, I figure that's a good time to stop. :) I've found it takes some real muscle on the bigger batches to get enough mixing to get it to get sticky. Going to be interesting with the next batch as I'll be using my new meat mixer, but we'll see. Doing the mix ...