Hello all,
Yesterday, I decided that my salamis (saucisson in the text) were ready and took out the slicer. I think the results was very close in taste to what I wanted to achieve but next time, I will put less fat in them. I like my salamis when they are "meatier" (if that makes sense).
Also, I have finally come around making picnic ham. For the longest time, I imagined that it would be difficult to achieve but it was actually very easy and the results were very rewarding.
My next steps will be to bake some bread, slather some home-made butter on it and enjoy a cheese/ham/salami sandwich with a glass of red... or maybe homebrew to complete the fully home-made picture.
Life is good!
Pictures below!
Awesome fat marbling on the salami.
Care to share your recipe?
Absolutely beautiful! What relative humidity are you aging these at?
Dave in CT
So, if I can read my notes correctly, here is the recipe:
Cure for 1kg of meat:
22g of salt
6g of crushed pepper
10g of dextrose
1g of dried garlic
1g of yogurt ferment
Prague powder #2 as directed per package
I had 2.5kg of pork shoulder and 0.8kg of pork fat. I cut everything in big cubes, seasoned with the cure and refrigerate everything for 2 hours.
Then I diced everything in my grinder (big dice) and added 50mL of good red wine per kg to the mix. I mixed with my hand for a couple of minutes before putting back to the fridge for 20 minutes.
I then used hog casings to make the sausages.
I left the sausages in a warm, high RH place for 24 hours before spraying them with some water incubated with penicilium candidum.
I then hanged them to dry in my 90% RH cave. I then slowly lowered my RH to 75% in a matter of two weeks. The PC took over quite quickly and then receded slightly to become the fleur de saucisson/powdery stuff that is common on salamis.
I left them to dry for about 4/5 weeks.
Looking good there Helen and welcome aboard!
These look fabulous! I've already eaten dinner, but you are settiing my stomach a-grumblin'! Space and time permitting, I would love to give this sort of thing a shot at some point. I may have an opportunity to make some jerky in the near future, so that might be a tippy-toe step in a meaty direction . . . .
Are you using your cheese cave for the sausage as well, and is that why you used p. candidum? (I'm a newb...)
Brian
Debi - Thank you. I have been looking at your posts regarding charcuterie for a while and I have to say that you have been an inspiration.
Brandnetel - It is actually much easier than cheese, IMHO. The only thing that you need to be super extra careful about is sanitation. I started with dry-curing whole muscles because you have fewer things to worry about.
TananaBrian - I am using my cheese cave (wine fridge) for my cheeses as well. The only reason that I used P.candidum is because I had it on hand and it is cheaper than the stuff I could buy on butcher-packer. I have not noted any difference in taste.
Thank you Helen. You've done well. The good thing about living in CT is I have about 4.5 months my spare room is cold enough to cure sausages in so I make the bulk of them now. I will have to switch to the cheese caves soon as it is warming up some. I look foward to seeing more of your sausages and hams. I will add a recipe to the soppressata picture - that one is easy and a wonderful sausgage. I layed out about 30 pounds of it for a funeral breakfast about 2 weeks ago. Once they found it I don't think they ate anything else. I had to go home and get more twice! Luckly I lived close to the hall it was at.
Yup ...I am also inspired (and hungry)!
Helen, Maybe the post was from you but somewhere I saw someone asking about cross-contamination into cheese from the penicillin cultures used on fermented sausages if the cheese cave was used for both. I thought the poster said something about using the same culture as on the cheese in order to avoid this issue and that it worked well. I might be in the same boat, so it's interesting... I already have a separate mini-fridge for retarding dough, a wine fridge to be a cheese cave, and would hate to buy a THIRD fridge just for fermenting sausages!
Brian
Quote from: Helen on March 25, 2011, 11:37:18 PM
So, if I can read my notes correctly, here is the recipe:
Cure for 1kg of meat:
22g of salt
6g of crushed pepper
10g of dextrose
1g of dried garlic
1g of yogurt ferment
Prague powder #2 as directed per package
I had 2.5kg of pork shoulder and 0.8kg of pork fat. I cut everything in big cubes, seasoned with the cure and refrigerate everything for 2 hours.
Then I diced everything in my grinder (big dice) and added 50mL of good red wine per kg to the mix. I mixed with my hand for a couple of minutes before putting back to the fridge for 20 minutes.
I then used hog casings to make the sausages.
I left the sausages in a warm, high RH place for 24 hours before spraying them with some water incubated with penicilium candidum.
I then hanged them to dry in my 90% RH cave. I then slowly lowered my RH to 75% in a matter of two weeks. The PC took over quite quickly and then receded slightly to become the fleur de saucisson/powdery stuff that is common on salamis.
I left them to dry for about 4/5 weeks.
Amazing salami and interesting ingredients, I love French style salami. Now I start thinking making my own salami on top of cheese and wine. I have some questions though. Quick search led me find that nitrite salt (Prague #2) is not sold in Canada. So, can nitrate salt (Prague #1) be used instead? What is yogurt ferment? Is it the culture used to make yogurt? Can I replace dextrose with sugar?
Thanks,
Tan
You can find Prague #2 in Canada, I have purchased it and use it in sausage making. I am not sure where you are in Canada, I use stuffers in Vancouver
http://estores.wws5.com/stuffers.com/wecs.php?store=stuffers&action=searchadvanced&noform=1&advancedsearch_words=prague (http://estores.wws5.com/stuffers.com/wecs.php?store=stuffers&action=searchadvanced&noform=1&advancedsearch_words=prague)
Another common name is cure #1 and cure #2 for Prague #1 and Prague #2
Debi - a spare room for curing sausages and for aging cheese? That sounds like a dream to me. My wine fridge is currently the site for a raging battle for space between my salamis and cheeses. Thanks for sharing your recipes with us. I will definitely look for it.
Brian - Yes, that was me. I use PC on my sausages to prevent other bad molds from growing there. I age both cheese and salamis in the same space. However, my cheeses are in aging containers... so they are not really sharing the same direct environment. The only thing I make sure of is that my cheeses are above the sausages so that there is no dripping on the cheese.
Tan - Prague #1 is not to be used for dry-curing. Prague#1 is used to cure meats that will be cooked. Prague #2 has several other names: Instacure #2, Cure #2... Mine is called D.Q Curing Salt #2. Yogurt ferment is the culture that you would use to make yogurt. I have read that some people use plain yogurt instead of the culture. And finally, yes you may use sugar instead of dextrose. But you would have to adjust quantities. One of the reason I used dextrose is because it is said to be less sweet and the grains are finer.
Helen,
Your saucisson looks delicious! I'm in school at University of Idaho, currently in a class where we slaughter, process, and then make products out of steer, pigs, and lambs. We've been making various recipes of fresh and smoked sausages this week. I'm going to ask the meat lab instructor about making some like yours! It's making my mouth water!
~Laurie
Quote from: dttorun on April 01, 2011, 09:14:01 PM
Amazing salami and interesting ingredients, I love French style salami. Now I start thinking making my own salami on top of cheese and wine. I have some questions though. Quick search led me find that nitrite salt (Prague #2) is not sold in Canada. So, can nitrate salt (Prague #1) be used instead? What is yogurt ferment? Is it the culture used to make yogurt? Can I replace dextrose with sugar?
Thanks,
Tan
If I recall, nitrate converts to nitrite in the presence of unwanted critters (I'm not the scientist to tell you what 'critters' means) and is falling out of favor nowadays. I'm pretty sure a smaller dose of nitrites right from the start is the preferred way of curing meats. (I read my 'fermented sausages' book just once and it's been awhile so my info might be wrong or out of date ...when I get time for a new hobby, I'll read it again). Might want to look into that.
Brian
Brian you are correct that nitrate does convert into nitrite over time and the reason for that is to safeguard the protein from unwanted bacteria. Nitrate also adds to better texture, colour and adds to the flavour of the finished product. The amount used is 200parts per million along with salt, sugar and spices for the flavour side of dry curing.
The amounts of salt ranges from 2.8% - 3% of the total green weight of the protein
The amount of sugar (generally dextrose) is 2% of the total green weight of the protein. Dextrose is used because of its fine powdery texture and is easily consumed by good bacteria that drops the ph (5 - 5.1) so that the bad bacteria can't grow. This is fermentation and similar to the cheese process. If using regular sugar the process is slowed down considerably taking much longer to hit the ph level
Reg
How risky is it trying to do fermented meats without a starter give one uses nitrite and the pork is fresh?
That would be something I would ask you not to consider at all. Nitrite or cure #1 is used strictly for semi cured products that are finished by cooking. To do dry cured products you need to start with cure # 2 which is a combination of nitrate and nitrite. Try not to let the nitrate 'propaganda' influence your decision it is perfectly safe when used in the right amounts (ppm or parts per million). There is as much nitrate in celery than what is used in sausage making
I know some people that attempt to ferment sausages without starters but their success is 50/50. Some years they get it and others they loose the entire batch. I'm not willing to hope that there is natural bacteria cultures hanging around when doing up batches of sausage. Butcher and Packer can mail it out when needed
Reg
Only culture available is Bactoferm F-RM-52 (25 grams) , costing 30$ for 100kg of meat.
Im not afrid of perservatives since I know there are worst stuff "out there" nor im a "naturalist ,Curing salts are just not available only sodium nitrite.
I use yogurt ferment as is common in France. I have read on some US dry curing forums that this is an acceptable substitute.
Helen, just came to this. Gorgeous - absolutely beautiful, I'm dying as I write this and I'd love to have some of your wonderful meats. Inspiring me to make up some moulard prosciutto, but that's too darn far away....you've made me hungry!
Helen your sausages look fantastic and to be honest saucisson sec is one of my favorites to make and to eat, it shows off what pork can be using very few ingredients.
The only commercial bacteria that I have ever used is the RM-52 which is a quick fermenting bacteria. That can be offset by the sweetener used and by the temps used in the fermentation chamber. Years ago you could not get a commercial bacteria culture so what I did was to purchase an authentic Italian salami that was covered with that beautiful 'white mould' and hung it with my sausages. That worked out well.
Tomer1, the the RM-52 will last forever as long as you keep it frozen. I'm still using a 4 year old pouch that is kept in the freezer and it is fine. I vac pac it after use.
There are many outlets to order # 2 cure from, are you in the US or in Canada ?
Reg
I finally convinced my wife to buy a meat grinder and got the supplies. I found a mixture of all ingredients called Readycure. It also has bicarbonate which I don't know it's function. My other question is what is the function of yogurt or yogurt culture. Any idea?
Thanks,
Tan
Hi Tan,
Salamis are fermented dry sausages. For the sausages to ferment in a controlled way, one has to add some cultures to kick things in motion. Some people use a product named Bactoferm, which is dedicated to meat fermenting... I found that yogurt works as well and is much less expensive.
Hope that helps.
Here two places I know of in Canada your can get cures ...
http://www.butchersandpackers.com/ (http://www.butchersandpackers.com/)
http://www.stuffers.com/ (http://www.stuffers.com/)
I got my stuff from http://www.canadacompound.com/ (http://www.canadacompound.com/)
Tan
Thanks to Helen, I finally made dry sausage and half of them are gone already :-)
I had to modify original recipe; I cut the fat to 10%, I used yogurt instead of yogurt ferment, I removed the salt as I used Readycure (2% as per instructions which has 98% salt) and used fortified wine instead of regular. Next time I am going to use bigger diameter casings...
Here are the pictures,
Thanks again Helen.
Tan
Those look great Tan! Congrats!
To add to the conversation for using yogurt or whey it does work but will give you a slightly different flavor and texture. Just make adjustments as need to balance the flavor. I also find the bacterial culture give a more predictable flavor profile and less chances for spoilage. I have several friends that made sauages cured and semi dried using yougurt and whey but they have about a 50% sucess rate. For me it's cheap to buy the bacterial cultures. I have a 100% success rate with that so far. Except the time my fridge died and I didn't find out for a week. WOW! Meat can smell so bad when it goes bad!
Tan,
Those look great. Congrats! That's a nice hanging place, too.
Debi,
I would love to use the meat ferment as Bactoferm. I even have a pack in my freezer but it came with instructions to use the big pack (designed for 100 lbs of meat) for as little as 5lb batch. At $15 a pack, it's pushing it. Would you mind sharing what you use and where you buy it?
- Helen
Tan nice job on the sausages !!!
Helen you can get pretty much whatever you need from Butcher and Packer (google it)
Good luck
Reg
Helen -
Bactoferm is like using cheese cultures it's made for large batches and we homemakers adjust it to fit our needs! I get most of mine here:
http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=207 (http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=207)
They are great folks too! Keep them in the freezer like cheese starte cultures.