Salame Calabrese

[SMR]

Redzed, the flavor of the Calabrese is phenomenal! Very happy with the results. Next time I will use butt for the Class I meat fraction as mentioned by Bob K.

Here is the finished product at 35% weight loss.

[Bob K]

Looks good!! Next time I would suggest slowing down the drying time, it will help to reduce the dry rim and improve the flavor and color. Under 4 weeks is rather fast, also the center won't be as soft. You can also try drying a few chubs until a 40-42% loss, a lot of folks find the texture to be optimum at that point, myself included.

[redzed]

Good job, you should be proud! And I agree with Bob about drying it a bit longer. It looks quite lean so it could lose a bit more moisture. Vac packing for a few weeks will also help to lessen the dark ring around the salami. And I'm glad you like the recipe, it's now one my favourites.

[SMR]

Thanks guys, I agree with the comments about going a little dryer. I will do that next time. Also, I tried to maintain the humidity at about 3% lower than what the sausages were giving off. Something I saw in Maranski's book. I think I developed the surface ring due to air recirculation. I have a variable speed fan and I dropped it to its lowest setting as the sausages were aging, but I think the air flow rate was still too high at the lowest setting. Next time I will turn the fan off or better yet, put it on a cycle timer.

Next up Coppa with some of those Calabrian peppers in the mix.

[SMR]

I took redzed's advice and vac sealed the salame calabrese for a few weeks to allow the moisture remaining within the sausage to equalize and it did reduce the dry ring around the perimeter. I then removed them from the vac packs and followed BobK's advice and dried them from 35% as prescribed in the recipe to 42%. December 9th until January 5th @ 54F and 80%RH. The texture of the salame is much improved. Thanks for the suggestions!

[SMR]

And, I have installed a cycle timer on my circulation fan to reduce the rate of drying. I have the fan now running for 5 minutes every 72 minutes around the clock. The timer has 20 programmable intervals. The Coppas are coming along nicely.

[redzed]

Salame Calabrese continues to be one of my favourites. This is a must try recipe for those of you who have not yet made it. You will be amazed by the explosion of flavour, and hands down will out class most the commrcial Calabrese that you might have sampled. It's very important not to substitute the Calabrian peppers and to use sea salt. Be careful with sugar additions when using aggressive starters such as 007. In this latest round I used only 1g. of dextrose and 1g of fine sucrose and the pH dropped to 5.15 in 55 hours. Here is a slightly modified recipe from the one I posted at the start of this thread.



Salame Calabrese
Recipe for 1kg of meat
Meats
800g class I pork, no fat or connective tissue
200g hard back fat
Ingredients
22.5g salt
2.5g Cure#2
2g garlic
2g white pepper
1g anise
1g toasted and ground fennel seed
2g sweet Hungarian paprika
3g Calabrian peppers
1g dextrose
1g fine sucrose
30 ml dry red wine
0.5g B-LC-007 starter culture
Process
1. Cube meat and fat, mix with salt, Cure#2, dextrose and refrigerate in a sealed container for 48 hours.
2. Freeze fat completely, leave the cubed and cured meat in freezer for one to two hours so that it it freezes partially.
3. Revive starter with small amount of distilled water and a pinch of dextrose. Add to meat within 20 minutes.
4. Grind everything through 6mm plate. If making a large amount grind half the meat through 10mm plate and the remainder, together with the fat through the 6mm. Do not grind fat separately.
5. Mix starter culture and spices with the meat. Keep ground meat cold, mix throughly, taking care not to over mix to avoid fat smearing. You may want to refrigerate the meat between the grinding, mixing and stuffing steps.
6. Stuff into 50-60mm protein lined casings or beef middles.
7. Ferment at a temp of 17-19C for 48-72 hours, until pH drops to 5.2. Be careful not to let the pH drop below 5 so that the salame does not taste sour. The Staphylococcus are also not effective in a high acid environment.
8. Mould starter optional, but recommended.
9. Hang for approximately 6 weeks at 12C and 80% RH, until a weight loss of 35%.

[Albertaed]

I just took 2kgs out of the chamber. Some minor case hardening which vac will fix. I’ll be making more!

[Markiz]

I took redzed's advice and vac sealed the salame calabrese for a few weeks to allow the moisture remaining within the sausage to equalize and it did reduce the dry ring around the perimeter. I then removed them from the vac packs and followed BobK's advice and dried them from 35% as prescribed in the recipe to 42%. December 9th until January 5th @ 54F and 80%RH. The texture of the salame is much improved. Thanks for the suggestions!

Surprised that the mold is intact after being vaccuumed for some time...

[SMR]

Right? But it actually kept growing after I rehung them to dry from 35% to 42%. You can see the mold on the cut surface on the 2nd half chub from the left.

[bluc]

I thought it turned to slime if not washed off before vacuuming...

[SMR]

I washed it off with vinegar before vac sealing and it grew back after rehanging to dry further.

[bluc]

Oh ok.