charcuterie

[soccerguy83]

Does anyone make their own? I saw that YetiDave does, anyone else? If you do, want to post some pics of recent stuff and your chamber?

I would love to dive into this, but with three fridges in my garage already, I need another one like I need a hole in my arm at the moment haha.

 

[YetiDave]

Ah my ventures have all been at the shallow end, but I've made pancetta and guanciale as well as the usual bacon (and beef bacon) I'd love to have a bash at real temp and humidity controlled dry cures. Thankfully over the Autumn months where temps don't stray above 15C I can safely just hang something outside in a covered location like a garden shed and it'll lose a little water weight without drying out or spoiling. Curing meat is an incredibly easy process, rather it's the lacto-fermentation that 'real' charcuterie undergoes that's the time consuming and voodoo part

 

[oldtree]

i have't made summer sausage and hot sticks in 10 years. equal parts deer and pork with spices and quick cure stuffed in natural casing or hog gut then hang for up to 4-5 weeks in a hopefully cool and dry air conditions of winter. there was three of us and it would take 12 hrs on a saturday and a case of beer and a small cast iron pan to fry up samples for taste. my dad was a butcher and was able to order the pork at cost, which helped when we would make 300 lbs these memories will stay with me forever. we hunted together and shared the harvest all winter long , even made venison jerky with 3 dehydrators and 3 different types of sauce. we made venison pastrami one time and it turn out nice and tender but, was too much work for the amount we made

 

[Vespasian]

A really good place to start is with Jane Grigson's "Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery." A British writer, so be prepared for a different set of weights and measurements.

 

[Edcculus]

I've wanted to get into fermented sausages for some years, but lack the dedicated space to do it.

 

[eightysixCJ]

It's on my list. I converted a fridge for fermentation; changed the controls, added a heater, humidifier, and humidity control. I used it for wine and beer making, hopefully this spring a batch of salame.

Tom

 

[robinfresno]

Don't have a chamber yet but I've got about 5 or more books on the subject, 5lb grinder and stuffer. Just finished making a round of bacon that went over 20 days from start to finish. There is a good fb group called the salt cured pig that is an absolute wealth of information. If you have 3 fridges in your garage I'm sure one could be made into a chamber and the current contents could go into a new chest freezer

 

[soccerguy83]

Well let me put it this way I have a chest freezer converted to a fermentation chamber for beer (not mixing meat into that), a chest freezer converted into a kegarator (for said beer), and a beer fridge (for bought beer). Anyone see a trend?

 

[soccerguy83]

My birthday haul from my most amazing wife and son!

We have a local pork belly (soon to become bacon), framani mortadella, hot coppa, creminelli salame, whiskey and herb bacon, (all the above made in house at the local butchery, manchego w/ olive oil and rosemary cheese, aged Leicestershire red cheese, duchesse de Bourgogne (an amazingly complex sour beer), and lastly Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn! I see some cured meat hanging in a fridge in my future!

 

[eightysixCJ]

My birthday haul from my most amazing wife and son!

Nice! Good luck!

Tom

 

[DoctorShavegood]

My birthday haul from my most amazing wife and son!

We have a local pork belly (soon to become bacon), framani mortadella, hot coppa, creminelli salame, whiskey and herb bacon, (all the above made in house at the local butchery, manchego w/ olive oil and rosemary cheese, aged Leicestershire red cheese, duchesse de Bourgogne (an amazingly complex sour beer), and lastly Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn! I see some cured meat hanging in a fridge in my future!

Don't return them.

....I mean your wife and son.

 

[ChefJohnBoy-ardee]

Your beer fermentation chamber can double as a meat chamber with no ill effect. The carboys with airlocks should be exerting enough pressure to keep anything out. Plenty of people double dip those chambers... just wait until you start doing your own cheeses!

 

[MichaeltheRomanHistorian]

I've used the Umai Dry sausage curing kits to make salami based on my own experiments and the Polcyn book. I've also done Chinese 'wax sausage' (the bright red air dried and cured Chinese sausages you often see in fried rices, steamed over rice, or in buns). The latter took a while but I'd be happy to share the recipe if anyone is interested.

I have had the commercial varieties and they're okay but I kept thinking 'I can do better than this' to the point that I even made my own imitation style Chinese rose wine (food grade rose petals steeped in cheap brandy to get the aroma and flavour of the rose petals into the brandy in imitation of the Chinese stuff (hard to find in Seattle though easier in larger cities with much larger Chinatowns). It brought back memories of my immigrant parents making the stuff from scratch when I was a child in E. Washington. I shared my recipe with them and we and their employees sat down and made 100 pounds in one go last summer!

I've even done an experiment and let it cure in the air for another 3 weeks and then my colleagues and I ate it (sliced very thin) so it was tasty as a 'salami' as well as in the traditional Chinese applications.

 

[soccerguy83]

So, I figured I would bring this bad boy back up!

My wife is currently expecting and due mid-November. I'm looking to get my drying chamber up and running and have some items hanging to be ready by then. Oh yeah, I got another fridge for the garage haha. I ended up with a 35 bottle wine fridge that holds very nicely at 55-57*F. I know that the small enviroment is not the best, but it will have to due for the time being.

I will be controlling the temp via the fridge setting, the humidity will be controlled by an Inkbird IHC-200 with both a de-humidifier (Ivation IVADM10) and a homemade humidifier (pics below, couldn't find anything small enough). It's nothing more than an ultrasonic mist maker in a plastic tub that has a small computer fan glued to the top with a small hole also in the top, works incredibly well! There will be a small fan wired to run whenever the humidifier is on.

Going to start with a Coppa which most likely won't be ready in time. I'm also thinking about starting a lonzino or bresoala, or a duck breast prosciutto.

 

[Phog Allen]

Brian, awesome stuff! My intentions are to retire next summer and this sort of thing is on my list. Well that...and painting the house(again), replacing floor covering, etc. Oi.

 

[soccerguy83]

Started my first ever charcuterie a hot coppa. Took a nice pork butt and removed the money muscle.

3% salt
0.25% cure 2
0.5% black pepper
0.2% white pepper
2% chili powder
0.5% garlic powder

2.75" x 3.75" so figuring 13 days minimum cure, but most likely will go 3 weeks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[soccerguy83]

I got some new toys in yesterday! My inkbird IHC200 came in and my dehumidifier.

The below picture is the humidifier and dehumidifier in the fridge with a standard roll of aluminum foil for size.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[soccerguy83]

Tonight was week three in the cure. I took it out, rinsed it and the put it in a beef bung. Then tied it up and sprayed it with good mold. Now it's hanging in the drying chamber at 55*f and 75-80%RH until it loses 30% of its weight.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[eightysixCJ]

Looking great!

Tom

 

[DoctorShavegood]

Wow, you certainly know what you're doing Brian.

...wait, aren't you supposed to be making us a smoker?