Homemade Sausage Making

Question for you guys...after my final weight loss target has been achieved (say, 35%, 40%, etc) what is the process for finishing and getting the white mold to dry out, etc?

I had a friend who gave me an Olli salumi as a gift, and their finished product was very nice...mold was dry and powdery, casing (Hakki traditional I think) was nice and dry, and salumi inside was moist with no noticeable case hardening.

So the Olli salumi was nice to handle, dry, and easy to peel. Salumi retained great moisture.

Here is what their product looks like, you can see the case dryness and the salumi is moist.

https://olli.com/our-products/all-natural-salami/

This is what the salumi I opened looked like, and I would like to try to achieve this type of look (may not be for everyone, I understand) I am just curious.

My sopressatas are almost at target WL, so I would like to finish them and have them dry to the touch, etc. My M600 mold coverage is pretty much perfect and uniform, so I hate to ruin that great mold.

Is there a way to "final dry" at a lower humidity, say 50% or something, where my mold (which is soft and silky to the touch currently) would dry up and harden to the touch?

If I simply wrap in parchment paper and store in a cool, dry place at lower humidity like 40%, will my mold dry and protect the salumi inside, keeping it moist?

Thanks for the advice, I don't want to skimp on the final step and the finishing of my salumi, and I would like to get the look of the Olli, at least with the dry mold that can be handled without sticking to you fingers, smearing, etc.

Thanks!
Jason

To begin with, you have to be careful in assuming that the white stuff on all commercial salumi is mould. Dusting it with rice flour is quite common and a practice mentioned in industrial manuals. Yours probably isn't but after removing the salumi from the chamber it is not that easy to keep it looking perfect. If placing into the fridge for storage wrapped in paper I brush off any excess mould and that way it can stay there for a few weeks. It still keeps losing water and keeps on drying. It is shelf stable so you can also hang in a cool place for a while or even at room temp, and then the mould will become drier and powdery. However, you can leave it like that for weeks but the salami will slowly get harder and shrink more. It won't resemble the Olli products. The most popular method used by hobbyists is to remove the mould, vac pac and throw into the fridge where it will not only keep well but actually improve in flavour and texture for weeks and months. I remove the casings before vac sealing since by then the mould has done its job. And I've kept salami like this for over a year and it tasted superb!

I know that freezing often is not recommended, but a well cured salami will not lose much flavour if in a plastic bag and frozen. You can also freeze with the mould but it will turn a bit yellowish.

Thanks RedZed!

I vacpak'd my first sopressata about 3 weeks ago (before I found this forum), but naively left the casing (and perfect mold) on the salumi. 4 days later when I got a piece out of my fridge, the mold had turned a bit grey and started to get slippery.

I went online at that time and found out that the M600 mold is aerobic, and needs oxygen to live. Duh. I told my wife that I had now suffocated my first sopressata!

So when my second sopressatta was ready, I took off the casing (beef middle with mold) and wrapped it in dry wax paper, and put it in my fridge. I haven't opened it to see how the surface looks, if it has dried a bit, but will tonight. It has been wrapped in the dry wax paper for a about 3 days now.

When you say that most hobbyists remove the mold and vacpak, are you saying to leave the beef middle casing on, but just remove the mold?

My mold is soft and silky to the touch when I take it out of the chamber. I don't think I will have much luck brushing it off right out of the chamber.

So if I take it out of the chamber and leave it to hang in, say 68 dec F at around 40% humidity (my normal house temp/humidity during the winter) the mold should dry up and then I should be able to brush it off? If that is what you are saying then I will try that on my next ready sopressata (should at 40% WL and ready in another 8-9 days or so)

Thank you for the advice!

Went ahead and opened one of the small pieces of the soppressatta that I packed in dry wax paper 3 days ago (I had removed the perfect mold casing when I packed it)
It looked great! Surface was dry but no hardening at all, and all my friends commented how great it looked and felt. So that seemed to work better. I will keep another piece that was wrapped in paper at the same time and check on it in another week tosee if I get any detrimental hardening of the surface.

But pretty happy with it at this time! Definitely better than a slimy mold casing like last time!