Thanks all! I will continue to add extra culture to ensure I get a good ferment. It's really great to have this forum and other sausage makers I can reach out to for these questions.

I went to the directions for the T-SPX culture and it says the packages contains 25 grams that is good to treat 200 kilos of meat. So that would be .125 grams per kilo, given that I really only needed .275 grams for my 2.2 kilos of meat. I think the culture ships with some dextrose in it as well so ...

Thanks for the replies, I was wondering if I was using too much culture also, I just usually use 1/2 a teaspoon but I figured a little more would be better than too little. I will try a little less sugar next time and in the winter the temperatures will drop as well. Right now it gets to 71 or so in...

I made a batch of salami, recipe below, and planned on fermenting it slowly with T-SPX at 70 degrees. I thought it would take about 72 hours but in just over 24 hours it was down to 5.25 and in 31 hours it was at a pH of 5.15. The highest temperature was just under 72 degrees and at night it was dow...

That sounds and looks amazing!

I froze the meat and the fat before grinding. I ground it when it was not frozen solid but almost solid. I don't think I had a fat smearing issue. I did use pork belly which is softer than back fat but I have not noticed fat on the outside of the sausage or it leaking out of the casings where I pric...

Update on the Salami mold. It's filling out really well given it was smoked.

Thanks jcflorida.

I cold smoke usually during the day so the temperatures in the smoker are higher than my charcuterie chamber. The chamber temperatures are between 53 - 60 degrees and the temperature in the cold smoker is usually 80 degrees or even a bit higher. So if I smoke the salami after I ferment it then the f...

I had one other question about smoking before or after fermentation. Should I always smoke sausages after fermentation? I was smoking everything right after I stuffed the casings at the beginning of fermentation. I figured if I smoked it after fermentation it would allow the pH to drop further than ...

Thanks StefanS for the cure information and like you said the mold on the smoked salami is much less than when I don't smoke the sausages but it is still there. I will attach a picture below. Please forgive my small charcuterie chamber as the main one is broken right now so I have to use the mini fr...

Ok, thanks for the advice, sounds good.

Thanks StefanS, I used 65mm collagen casings. Also, right after smoking coated the salamis with a mold-600 solution and put the them in a glass baking dish covered in plastic wrap so it was very high humidity. I'm hoping this helped prevent the outside from drying out.

I made some smoked salami a couple days ago using the recipe below. I only used .2% Dextrose and .1% table sugar. I 'cold' smoked the salami for 3 hours right after I stuffed it but it was a hot summer day so was about 100 degrees in the smoker, then I let the salami ferment in the kitchen at 75 deg...

Thanks for the reply! I will definitely include the beef then given the difference it makes.