Charcuterie - DIY

[trc65]

Prosciutto is definitely the pinnacle of dry cured meats, and some day I hope to try a couple. I haven't made a drying chamber yet, just using the Umai bags. They work well for smaller cuts/salami, but wouldn't work for a prosciutto that can take two years or more to dry.

By the way, the world's oldest prosciutto is over 120 years old. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places...-ham#:~:text=The 119-year-old ham,Gwaltney Jr.

 

[trc65]

Cured a small venison tenderloin about a month ago and put it into bags to dry tonight. These are small enough it will take these 21 days or less to dry to 40% weight loss.

 

[trc65]

Trying to get a few more things started in time to finish for Christmas. This is a spicy capocollo/capicola/gabagool that I started today. About two weeks in the cure and then a month or so to dry. Also need to get a large batch of landjaeger and some soppressata made.

 

[trc65]

Venison tenderloin and a pork capicola in the drying bags along with some netting to keep them shapely. The tenderloin will definitely be done for Christmas, but it will be close on the capicola.



Still need to get more landjaeger and some soppressata made too.

 

[trc65]

Filled the oven again for fermentation. Smaller cased venison landjaeger in the back and home grown (peppers) Calabrian pepper paste pork soppressata in the larger casings in the front. About 17 lbs total.

It will ferment for around 65 hours before it goes in the fridge to loose 40% of the weight.

Soppressata probably won't make it for Christmas, but the landjaeger will.

 

[DLJeffs]

Tim - do you have a separate over you use just for curing your sausages or are you using your main over in the kitchen?

 

[trc65]

I use the main oven. The culture I use needs a temp of 65°-75° with high humidity. The oven is just a good place to leave them while they ferment and the pH lowers. They would ferment just as well wrapped in plastic and sitting on the countertop. Different cultures need different temps/times. Some will ferment and lower the pH in as little as 12 hours. Bactoferm T-SPX is the culture I use as it is very forgiving.

For drying I use Umai bags which allow you to dry in a refrigerator. If I was using natural casings I would need to maintain a chamber with 75% or so humidity at around 45°.

 

[trc65]

Fermentation is done and now waiting a few weeks for them to dry.

Venison landjaeger ready to be weighed.



Hanging in the fridge, pepper paste soppressata in front, landjaeger in the back.