Air Circulation Needed?

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 17:58

Hello all - first time poster to this board. A little background - I've been enjoying the hobby for 4 years now and last year I felt like I really hit my stride - just over 100lbs (45 kilos) and everything made was successful. Last year I used 2 commercial multi-kegerators in my garage. In the winter temps are fine and in the closed space humidity was easy to keep high as well - no humidifier needed as the meat alone woudl send it into the low 80's, i would crack the door for a bit until it dropped to the low 70's and repeat. After a few weeks humidity would lower on its own and require less frequent opening. At that point I woudl move them to my basement where keeping humidity up was more of a struggle but I managed it with by tarping off a space and frequent filling of the humidifiers. So this year I had a room built in my basement for curing - about 60 sq ft (18.25 meters) - controlling the humidity is now a breeze. However as I have moved more product down there I have gotten a very noticeable ammonia smell. I'm a regular on another forum and saw Chuchwagon's info there stating that is okay and a result of the mold and some great info compliments of Stan reinforcing that- I do use bactoferm 600. So that has eased my fear over the smell and it effecting the taste. However since I currently have about 75lbs of meat going and expect to do much more in the coming weeks I'm now wondering if I need to introduce some airflow to the new room - although it isn't air tight I'm confident it has little natural air movement. With my past setup I never had a need to consider that and consistently turned out great results but I would hate to find out in a month or two I have lost everythign down there due to lack of air movement. Debating installing a small computer fan to cycle on and off with the humidifier but then I worry about case hardening.

I've rambled enough for now - would love anyones comments/thoughts/suggestions.

crustyo44 · Post by **crustyo44** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 20:08

Hi Eric,
Welcome to the forum. No doubt you will get all the answers from the brains on this forum.
We have plenty of them.
Are you into making Coppa as well?
Cheers,
Jan.

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Fri Jan 17, 2014 21:08

There's another familiar name from the other site!! Sure am on the coppa - 45lbs (green weight) last year - have about that going now 2 months aged and just picked up another 25lbs of CT butts for more. Currently I also have Chorizo Riojano (recipe from Jeff Weiss), Truffle Genoa - genoa recipe from this site with 0.8% truffle oil added - I did that as an experient last year and it was great - rounding it out is Suszyc' which I havent made before. This weekend will be pepperoni and Sopressata.

Post by **redzed** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 04:36

Hi Eric and welcome to the forum!
Yes, that darned ammonia smell does appear after after two or three weeks of the salami hanging in the curing chamber. (I've never had it coming from solid muscle meats) But as you mentioned you now know that it is quite normal and dissipates after a few days. As far as air circulation, it is quite important. Even all the old recipies called for hanging the sausages to dry in an "airy" place. And you do need to dump the stale air, especially when it reeks of ammonia out, on a regular basis. Since you say that your curing room is not air tight, you could install a ventilation system and set it to run on a timer. A small fan should do the trick, because a large one will cause your temp and humidity too long to recover. My curing chamber is an all-fridge conversion and I have a computer fan to expel air every twelve hours for 30 minutes. I have a small intake hole at the bottom that is partially open all the time. Since my curing chamber is in the utility room on the lower level of my house, I have also recently installed a charcoal scrubber in front of the exhaust pipe. This helps to clean the air so the smells from the chamber don't waft into the rest of the house.

Glad to have you aboard here. You seem to be running on all cylinders with your volume of production. Please post pics and reports of your creations. Hopefully you will inspire more of the regulars here to get into the "other" fermented stuff.

But I have a question for you, what the heck is Suszyc? I have never heard of it. (Not that it means anything)

Chuckwagon · Post by **Chuckwagon** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 04:47

Hi Eric,
Wow, we'll all be over to your house soon!
You wrote:

This weekend will be pepperoni and Sopressata.

Please post some photos and keep us up to date.
Nice work pal!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 15:01

Redzed and Chuckwagon -thanks to you both for the warm welcome - love how active this group is!

Redzed - thanks for the feedback - was looking at adjustable speed incubator fans, small like a computer fan and I can plug it in, no need to hard wire. Admittedly I'm not the handiest with tools. Now food, that's another matter. Not sure if just having the fan in the room will draw enough new air in - may need to get someone to install something that pulls from outside the room. Also, I didn't get the ammonia smell from the coppa, they are already 2 months old. It came when I moved my first batch of salami down there. I now have orders not to run out of coppa from the wife - my 2 1/2 year old daughter loves it - not uncommon for her to get home from daycare and ask me for "meat".

redzed wrote: But I have a question for you, what the heck is Suszyc? I have never heard of it. (Not that it means anything)

Recipe is from Poli's site - labeled as Polish style Salami in the listings. I was out of back fat (just got 10lbs more) so wanted to make something that didn't call for it, hence that and pepperoni.

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 15:02

Slow day at work today (hope most of you are enjoying the day off). Imageshack seems to be giving me problems so I figured I would try another site.
Last years Coppa and always a beer nearby
http://i.imgur.com/XQcTGWK.jpg
Pepperoni in the curing chamber - bottom left you can see the electric hotplate and pot of water - easy way for me to manage the higher fermentation temps and very high humidity (90%+ at this stage).

On to the Polish Sausage (Suszyc) in the second beverageair - usually keep salami in there after fermentation for a week or two with continued very high humidity (85%-80%)

Lastly onto a newer shot of the curing room with the coppas (each was 4lbs-6lbs green weight) and two kinds of salami for now - those are 2-2.5lbs each done in 61mm collagen casings.

Igor Duńczyk · Post by **Igor Duńczyk** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 17:28

ericrice wrote:...rounding it out is Suszyc' which I havent made before.

Eric - every time you make one of your admirable fermented sausages you actually make "Suszyc" because this word means "DRY IT"

(it is the imperative form of "to dry")
Correct spelling is suszyć (with an accent over c)

Otherwise I especially wellcome your stressing the fact that you hold a high humidity during fermentation for up to two weeks and I hope that as many as possible out there got the message, because it is the right way if you once and for all wants to avoid the problems of dry rim and case hardening which is prone to occur when humidity is reduced too fast.

Do you measure pH or just go by experience and intuition ?

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 20:34

Appreciate the additional info on suszyć, - like Kielbasa meaning sausage although most folks in the states (me included until recently) know that as a pretty specific type of Polish Sausage.

For the humidity - I learned the hard way my early years and frankly then again when I began using thicker diameter flat collagen casings - I have spoken to others who feel the same - the flat collagen casings seem to be even more prone to case hardening than natural casings. Seems we both agree on the need for very high humidity early on. Bugs me what I see in Rhulman`s books recommended humidity well below what my experience tells me will result in success. I`m sure humidity after fermentation in the low, mid or high 60`s is doable but I think that is asking for trouble, especially for beginners. For me, as I stated - 90%+ during fermentation - then approximately 2 weeks in my smaller curing box where humidity remains mid to high 80`s to high 70`s - I allow it to gradually and naturally decrease - no humidifier in this chamber and I regulate the humidity by cracking the door once or twice a day for short periods to lower it. Then into my long term curing room where I still shoot for low to mid 70`s at all times.

For Ph - I have never measured it - about the only thing I have never monitored (I do use cure, starter cultures, measure temp and humidity and starting/ending weights)- I wouldn't say intuition but more a product of the diameter, what culture (or fermenting temp) and usually the recommendations in the recipes. I know that isn't the best way but unless/until I run into a problem I'll keep going as I do today.

How about you on the Ph?

Post by **redzed** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 21:07

As Igor points out, Suszyć in Polish means "to dry" something. There is no such name for a Polish sausage. The misnomer comes from Papa Poli and his recipe where he translated Polish Dry Sausage as Kiełbasa Suszyć. The correct translation would be Kiełbasa Polska Suszona.

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 21:13

and you are correct redzed I got the name from Poli - I'll make sure to update the name in my files and on the salami tags - nothing worse that ticking off a good salami

Igor Duńczyk · Post by **Igor Duńczyk** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 15:56

redzed wrote:The misnomer comes from Papa Poli and his recipe where he translated Polish Dry Sausage as Kiełbasa Suszyć. The correct translation would be Kiełbasa Polska Suszona.

to which I´ll just add that if you ask for a Kiełbasa Polska Suszona in Poland you will get a matured & dried "Raw Polish" sausage filled in hog casings.

I must admit that I have not read Mr. Poli´s recipe but if he calls for anything larger that a hog casing for making a "Kiełbasa Suszyć" then he is not only a misnomer but a misinformer as well! Either you make your Kiełbasa Polska Suszona in a hog casing -or you just have to give it another name. And there is a simple gastro-historical reason: as Poland is not graced with the most ideal climate for producing fermented salami and cooked/smoked meats always enjoyed great popularity the Poles did only relatively late establish a salami practice in terms of drying and fermenting large caliber sausages with their demands for controlled humidity and extended drying out phase.

There are of course areas in Poland where the climate allows natural fermenting of large calibre products, like in the north east (Bialystok area and towards Lithuania) but production there has been very regionally rooted mainly aimed at the locals and it is only in recent years that a large calibre speciality of that region; the "Kindziuk" has gained nationwide popularity as it was adapted for mass production by some of the major meat processors.

Otherwise I am sure that many Poles will nod approvingly to my thesis: "Nothing beats the taste of a Krakowska Sucha" (Dried Krakowska)

And if there is something to it, it may also explain why the Poles never have put that much effort into creating a salami tradition. After all, during the drying of a Krakowska a few lactic acid bacteria probably also mingle in to add some piquante aroma notes and the end result may become so addictive that you really don´t borther too much about other types of dried sausages

Also the rather neglected cooked´n dried sausage in hog casing, the "Rzezowska" ("From town Rzezów") is a real treat with its distinct cardamon note and (at lest to my taste buds) a real contender to any mini-salami, but has to be really well dried out.

What however always seems to have been quite common among Polish consumers is to let some fresh cured "Raw Polish" that you usually buy for cooking or just enjoy raw straight from the hook (

yummy yummy yummy!!!) to dry out somewhere in a shack or under the celing until they reach the desired consistency, whether to become slicable or end up like a stone hard jerky (tooth-tester -and great snack too). Because with the small hog casing calibre water activity is bound to decrease rather quickly and with it also the risk of foulness. Usually +2% curing salt is added to a Raw Polish.

ericrice · Post by **ericrice** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 16:32

Igor Duńczyk wrote:
redzed wrote:I must admit that I have not read Mr. Poli´s recipe but if he calls for anything larger that a hog casing for making a "Kiełbasa Suszyć" then he is not only a misnomer but a misinformer as well!
He does call for it in natural hog casings for what it's worth.

"Nothing beats the taste of a Krakowska Sucha" (Dried Krakowska)
I did a search and got numerous hits on this site, including one link that went to the recipe in Polish. Does anyone have a link in English. This is something I have to try

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 04:44

ericrice wrote:....got numerous hits on this site, including one link that went to the recipe in Polish. Does anyone have a link in English...

Try copying and pasting into Google Translate. Sometimes the results are a little strange, but then... great fun, and a great recipe, I'll bet. Colloquialisms are often amusing. Enjoy!