My wife and I made a batch of Peperone from the class Charcuterie book recipe on page 185 last Thursday, December 24, 2009. It was about 2/3 of the recipe using beef stew meat from Bud's Custom Meats in Penngrove that we picked up while taking delivery of a pig about four months ago. We followed the recipe to the letter using hog casings for the stuffing which yielded eight 10 inch sausages.   This is a fast fermenting sausage which was incubated in our kitchen oven with the product hanging from S hooks on the electric broiler element. They were twisted into bunches of two and hung from the joint between them. The "WARM" setting  which turns on the bake element on the bottom of the oven was used as needed to keep the temperature in the 85-90 degree range as prescribed for 12 hours.   After incubation, I hung them in a portion of my basement that is sealed off from the rest and used for wine storage and for winter garden produce like butternut squash. The conditions were near perfect - 57F degrees temp and 60% RH. I expected the sausages to take a minimum of 12 days to dry cure since we used hog casings. This is what the book recipe predicted for the 30% weight loss target. After three days, it became obvious that they were curing faster than that as they started to become firm and showed exterior shriveling.   I weighed them today and found 40% weight loss after six days of hanging. And, they were pretty firm to the squeeze test. So, I decided that was it. Cut into them and tasted. BEST DAMN PEPERONE I HAVE EVER HAD!  Very rich in flavor...undoubtedly from the fennel and allspice, but those flavors were mysteriously unidentifiable on their own along with a very nice pepper level. They just melded into an enticing flavor that made it difficult to stop cutting samples from the first victim piece.   Here they are being held up by my lovely assistant near the kitchen window for illumination:     Another view on a platter:     The cut end of the first victim:     A few slices (consumed immediately after their posing for the picture):     You may be able to see from this last picture that there are visible signs of case hardening as evidenced by the slightly dark ring around the exterior - which is kind of hard to figure since the moisture/weight level dropped so dramatically. You would expect case hardening to prevent weight/water loss. The interior is at a good moisture level - nicely chewy. The sausage is definitely ready for consumption. If this this is really case hardening, I like it!   I wrapped the rest of the product in parchment paper, into a gallon Ziploc, and into the fridge.   This stuff is destined for home made pizza and/or salumi plates unadorned - YES! It's that good. I had difficulty ceasing consumption. Had to give my neighbor (who has been following our salumi exploits) the rest of the victim to save it from total immediate death.