Bob K wrote:Rg-
When you smoked them were they hot smoked or cold smoked?

Bob, these were cold smoked. They could definitely do with more smoke flavor. I didn't smoke with 100% hickory though so that might have contributed to the lighter smoke flavor (since hickory is so strong).

Now if only someone would go through and enter all of Len's recipes into the diggingfarm version for easy scaling

What type of chorizo did you make? I just bought Charcuteria: The Soul of Spain , by Jeffrey Weiss and have been reading the different chorizo recipes. It's an amazing and inspirational book. Would probably make a great Christmas present for any one of us meatheads! Red, I used the recipe from the ...

Looks like you succeeded RG! The % of weight loss is simply a guideline and not always the correct indicator since there is often a considerable difference in the amount of water between different cuts of of meat and where they came from. So there is no steadfast rule, it's ready when it's ready. Y...

So a few of these have finished. I pulled 2 of the links down from the dowel and the 1st weight in at a 40% weight loss and the other 41%. They're a little softer than I'd like, but a little time of the fridge vac sealed should even them out. I had some last night and I must say that they are very c...

Alrighty. So here we have the Chorizo after it's 2 day ferment. It's got a nice deep red color now and looks great. Into the fridge to hang out with the Soppressata until it's ready.

My Tublin 10 plastic casings arrived a few days ago from Umai. Fast shipping. Unfortunately won't be able to do anything with them for a couple of months. I will then undertake an experiment where I will make three different products and make half of each using the plastic in the fridge technique a...

Shuswap wrote:

Yep. I'm actually going to ask for more casings for Christmas. I think I'll be making quite a bit more and trying lots of recipes!

My son broke our home laptop so I had to wait to get back into work to get this updated. On Tuesday, I pulled the Soppressata down and stuffed and hung the Chorizo. Here are a few shots. The Soppressata took on an amazing color since the cure and ferment. No off smells at all right now. They are cur...

If you are making Coppa, Bresaola etc etc, you can stuff them in an UMAi bag without a vacuum seal but encase it all in stretch netting and dry the same in your kitchen fridge. This method works also very well. Cheers, Jan. Jan, for now I only picked up the 50mm bags. Once I'm through these, I migh...

Bob K wrote:FLC will work fine as long as there was dextrose in the recipe.

Yes dextrose was added to each batch. I had a couple containers of brewers priming sugar (dextrose) around the house so that's working nicely.

Bob K wrote:Rg-
Learning curves suck!

What culture are you using?

I know right! It's odd to because I'm usually one to research everything before I even try it. Ohwell, I'll count it as a frustrating but rewarding 1st time.

I'm using FLC for the ferment since it's what I'd order a bit ago.

Thanks! I'm using the 50mm casings with the twist ties, but I'm gonna watch that video still to see. I'm sure it's the same throughout. I'm still very hopeful for this process. I guess for some reason I was under the assumption that a vacuum seal must be present inside of the bag for the system to w...

This is my first time using these bags for fermented and dried meats so I'll document it up to the finish line. Yesterday I ground about 9 lbs of pork shoulder through the largest plate in my grinder and mixed 4.4 lbs with the Soppressata spices and 4.8 are waiting for the Chorizo spices (I'll expla...

Thanks Devo. I'll use this on the Soppressata and Chorizo I'm doing in the Umai bags this week.