Meat Club Charcuterie

random posts about our meatings

Finocchiona Finale

Below are a couple of pictures of the completed Spicy Finocchiona (to see prior posts, click on tag on sidebar of "finocchiona").  The salami were done curing over a month ago, but I just never got around to posting. 

Img_03891
Img_03911

In all, these are the best salami I've yet made.  Good taste, good spice, and good texture.  One interesting thing was that I originally pulled them from the curing chamber when the weight loss was around 33-35%.  But, I felt that the one I cut into was still too mushy and unconsolidated, so I let them dry for another few weeks until the total weight lost was around 40%, which I think improved them.  Also, my fat content was a bit too high on these, so next time I'll fix the ratio.  But, in all, a solid success. 

Finocchiona Update

Finocchiona are doing very well in the chamber, having been in for about three weeks. Temp has been 55-60 and humidity at 70-75%.

Below are paired pictures taken about a week ago and yesterday (each pair shows one side of the salumi). You can see the change in the plumpness. Here's one side, before and after (i.e., a week ago and yesterday):

Photo_2
Img_0302

And here's the other side:

Photo_3
Img_0304

 I'm also happy with the mold development.  There's a nice bloom of the mold I sprayed on and no visible bad molds. 

Finocchiona Fermented and Drying

Quick upate: the fermentation chamber worked great, with temperatures oscillating around 68-74 degrees (as heater timer cycled on and off -- see comment on last post).  I let the salami ferment for three days at around 85-90% humidity.  

When I pulled them from the chamber, some surficial mold had begun to grow (see first few pictures below).  I wiped that off with a salt water solution, then misted them with the M-600 mold culture from Butcher & Packer (formerly called the M-EK-4 culture), and put them in the curing chamber (see ghostly picture below with my bad camera).  Conditions in the chamber around around 57 degrees and 80% humidity. 

To make space for the salami, I pulled out some pancetta which was in there and let it dry in the ambient conditions in my cellar, which are around 60-64 degrees and around 50-65% RH.  I didn't want to keep them in with the salami, since I want the pancetta at a lower humidity.

A question to all: what are your practices for applying the M-600 mold culture?  Do you apply it before or after the salami goes into the fermentation chamber?  How much powder do you put into solution?  Do you spray it on or dip?  Do you precondition the mold if frozen (e.g., let sit in solution for 12 hours before applying)?  Seem to be mixed practices out there and not much good info on the mold package or Butcher & Packer.

(download)

Spicy Finocchiona Salami

I had a picnic roast on hand from a recent pig order, so decided to make a batch of salami.  I combined a few recipes from the Ruhlman/Polcyn book (their tuscan salami), len poli's site (http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Salami%20finocchiona.pdf) and the Marianski book (their finocchiona), and also added in some hot pepper flakes for extra zing.  

I used the T-SPX slow-fermenting culture (suggested in Marianski, and obtained from Butcher & Packer) rather than the fast-fermenting Bactoferm F-RM-52 (called for in Ruhlman), since the Marianski book places heavy emphasis on the better flavors with the slow fermenting SPX culture.  Having been bit a bit underwhelmed by prior results with the Ruhlman tuscan salami, I'm curious to see how this one goes.  For casings I used beef middles (several sections of which were a bit thin/ragged, and two blew out while stuffing; hopefully more won't fail while hanging).

Another fun endeavor today was inventing and building a fermentation chamber for the salami.  You'll see it in the final photos in the series.  It is basically a clear, upright storage bin, with a dowel mounted across the top, a heating pad hanging inside along one wall, a remote humidity and temperature sensor, and some water poured in the bottom and misted throughout.  So far, it's working great.  The SPX culture is supposed to ferment at 68-75 F for 2-3 days at 85-95% RH.  Right now, I'm getting a reading of 73 F and 90% RH.  I'm just hoping I don't wake up to find it's at 50 or 100 degrees....

(download)