Advice on patience please!
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 19:55
Hi all,
First post - please forgive my beginner status! I've just recently got into dry curing and love it. I've made bacon, and salami so far using so much of the good advice on these and other boards. They seem to have worked well. But I've run into uncertainty on my latest.
I recently made some big chorizo: three 800-900g sausages in fibrous cases of around 65-74mm. So pretty thick, but very easy to manage for a beginner like me. All went smoothly - fermentation with T-SPX, PH testing down to around 5.1 and so on - but they're very slow to dry in my curing fridge. After nine weeks, they are down to 73% original weight, but are only losing about 1-2% a week. Is that normal? Should I expect salami this fat to take 3-4 months? I'm happy to be patient but it's hard! Do I need to wait until 60% or can I try earlier?
I've got the fridge set up at 10-11C and 70% humidity. I'm pretty sure there's no case hardening - things feel firm and squidgy, not hard, and I started things off much more humid - around 80% for the first few weeks. Bactoferm 600 means there's lots of powdery white mold and no others that I can see. I've attached a picture so you can see where I am after 10 weeks or so.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
First post - please forgive my beginner status! I've just recently got into dry curing and love it. I've made bacon, and salami so far using so much of the good advice on these and other boards. They seem to have worked well. But I've run into uncertainty on my latest.
I recently made some big chorizo: three 800-900g sausages in fibrous cases of around 65-74mm. So pretty thick, but very easy to manage for a beginner like me. All went smoothly - fermentation with T-SPX, PH testing down to around 5.1 and so on - but they're very slow to dry in my curing fridge. After nine weeks, they are down to 73% original weight, but are only losing about 1-2% a week. Is that normal? Should I expect salami this fat to take 3-4 months? I'm happy to be patient but it's hard! Do I need to wait until 60% or can I try earlier?
I've got the fridge set up at 10-11C and 70% humidity. I'm pretty sure there's no case hardening - things feel firm and squidgy, not hard, and I started things off much more humid - around 80% for the first few weeks. Bactoferm 600 means there's lots of powdery white mold and no others that I can see. I've attached a picture so you can see where I am after 10 weeks or so.
Thanks in advance for any advice!