Greetings all,

Thanks for the great class and all the reports.  I've fixed the group mailing list here to include just those that attended the class (plus tim) and adding Wayne, who was missing from the original list (Wayne, I'll forward you all the other emails).  So, in future group emails related to the class/curing, please use this for your "reply all."

A quick update on my end:

1) The Big Salami (the genoa) weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz!!!! Massive.  It's been hanging in my chamber at a steady 64 degrees and 91% humidity.  Great for now, but I have no idea how I'm going to reasonably drop the humidity when needed, since that log of humidity is filling my entire chamber....

2) I cured three tuscans in my oven over the weekend (approx 36 hours total).  Like several others I had trouble getting the temperature up/stable and esp. keeping humidity up.  I occasionally turned on the oven to bump up the temp and did a lot of misting water inside the oven (and on the casings) to get humidity up.  I definitely noticed that after about 24 hours, even with that misting, the casings were definitely drying out (and I could see the same in some of your photos).  I resorted to keeping them all on a sheet pan lying flat (still in the oven) for last night, covered with warm damp towel.  That did wonders to rehydrate the casings.  If your casings are starting to dry, I would do something like that, or mist them with a spray bottle the first few days/week in the chamber (if your casings start drying out now, you risk case hardening down the line).  I've now moved my tuscans into the chamber with the big salami, where they'll coexist at high humidity for a few more days while the the genoa continues to cure at 65/90.  Then, I'll try to drop temp and humidity.

Keep reporting, taking notes, and photos.  Once our webmaster, Tim, gets our site runnning, we can post everyone's material they're gathering now and perhaps each person can have their own little zone to post to so we can see running progress of each salami.

Happy curing!

Jamie