Homemade Sausage Making

I did a batch of Bergoma from recipie on forum. I used a Taste of Italy starter culture and 2% dextrose. Fermentation at 70-75 F, 85-90%. The ph was 5.95 after mixing. It has been
Fermenting now 72 hrs and ph has been at 5.33 to 5.35 for last 8hrs or so, It doesn't seem like it is going to drop any more, my question is, is this safe to move to drying chamber? Should I leave it longer to see if ph will drop below 5.3, or should I toss it and chaulk it up to learning?

Thanks in advance

I would not toss it. Let it go for another 8 hours and then move to drying chamber. How much culture did you use? and where is the recipe posted.

Hello from one newbie to another.

I’m not the guy you should base your decisions on but I enjoy the discussion.

You’ve salted and cured the meat and you are going to get the aw to a safe limit. I believe 5.3 is acceptable (plenty of people don’t have a meter) and I don’t think there are many PH meters that are that accurate to 2 decimal points.

Having said that What I’ve learned from Bob K, Red and and the other vets is the whole story is needed for those guys to help us guys

Recipe may have been somewhere else possibly not on forum, I think I saw it mentioned on forum but looked up recipe on line I added .025 grams of starter per kg. 5 kg mince 1.25 g starter.

thanks for the responses I will wait anther 8 hrs an transfer, next time maybe a little more dextrose?

This sounds like the one you used. https://tasteofartisan.com/bergamo-salami/
I would double the amount of culture ( Taste of Italy) next time. Some envelopes are not as viable due to shipping, handling, etc. Plus you really cant add too much culture....The amount of dextrose is plenty

yes that is it, thank you. I will make a note about the starter, thanks for all great information. this forum is Great

Did you use 2% dextrose? Or are we missing a decimal point? If you added 20g/kg the pH would be 4.5 or 4.6 which is as low as you can get. If you added only 2g/kg of sugar then that is why the pH is where it is. Usually 2g would be enough to take it down to 5.2, but your starting pH was a bit on the high end. Most of the time we start with meat in the range of 5.7 -5.8. And if you used a large diameter casing like in recipe, then fermentation tends to be slower than if in a narrow casing. You might get a further drop in the curing chamber, but not that significant. But with a 5.3 reading you should be fine.