Saltedtyme30 wrote:I used a recipe from the chef from Olympic provisions. Seemed ok and couldn't get a response on here I didnt want to try and do the math and mess it up and didn't have some of ingredients listed. I notice you mention 2 times the salt and less dextrose ? Everyone is different in the salami world I see lol it's kinda cool to see all peoples methods.
Making sausages is fun and rewarding because we can create something that we like and use ingredients that reflect not only our personal tastes but also our cultural and regional tastes. We can experiment and use whatever spices and herbs we like. However, when it comes to the use of salt in fermented dry cured products, there are regulations and standards. Unlike fresh sausage, where you can even use salt substitutes because salt is used only to flavour the meat, in dry cured sausage salt is used to extract proteins which make the glue to bind the meat and fat particles, and if you read our recent hurdle technology discussion, salt is essential in producing a safe product. I protects the salami from spoilage bacteria and forces water out of the meat cells.
For this reason it is recommended that you use at least 2.5% salt (salt and curing salt aggregate).
I have the Olympia Provisions book and it does not have this recipe in it. For the salami recipes that are in the book Elias Cairo recommends 2.6% salt and 2% #2. Do you have a link to the recipe that you posted?