Proscuitti - Unsalted
Today the two prosciuttos from the Big Pig Day class on February 24 came out of the salt boxes where they have spent the past five weeks.
They were pulled out of the salt looking like this:
Then into the basement utility sink to have the salt brushed off with a whisk broom.
Here is the smaller one:
And the other side of it:
And the larger one:
And the other side of it:
What they looked like before a wine sponge bath - note the size/length of the shank/bone protruding from them:
After the bath with some everyday Dago red (Vino da Tavola, if you want it to sound continental):
And the other side after the bath:
I had envisioned just looping some 1/4 inch nylon rope around the end of the shank to hang them.
Here you can see what I had to work with on both of them to do this:
After several futile futile attempts with various combinations of Boy Scout Knot Tying merit badge artistry, it became obvious there was no way to get something external to the object to successfully hang the 25-30 lbs. of weight. Everything I tried just slipped off of the skin.
So, I resorted to punching some holes in the skin and minimal meat about an inch and a half from the edge of the skin with an awl and using a doubled up length of 20 gauge galvanized steel wire threaded through the holes to fashion a hanging loop. NOT easily done - sort of like trying to sew linoleum. This worked rather well. Here is what the loop looks like:
Suggestion - leave more bone/shank to use for hanging in the future.
Another view of the whole hanging loop:
Here is the larger one hanging from a hook in a floor joist in my wine cellar:
And the smaller one in another part of the cellar:
Right now the the conditions are 57 degrees and low 60s for the RH, and they weigh in at 25.5 lbs. and 30 lbs.
There is no artificial air conditioning in this cellar. It is completely dark (except when I am groveling around for a dinner libation) with minimal air flow. And, it is well insulated and only approaches 70 degrees in the later, hottest times of summer/fall. There is a vent hole to the outside that I can open (at night) to let cooler air in if that becomes necessary. And, I am monitoring the conditions with the thermometer/hygrometer that you can see in the bottom of this last picture. If worse comes to worse, I can transfer them into the old refrigerator where they were stored in salt with an appropriate temperature setting on the external controller.
They are supposed to be in this condition for at least the next 6 months after which I will be conferring with Peter on the next step. Bertolli says to coat them with a mixture of leaf fat and rice flour for 6 months more. I am not sure if this is what Peter has in mind.
Tune in half a year from now!
