Category Archives: Air Dried Sausage

Air Dried Sausage, Tutorials

The Salami Making Process

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An attempt to demystify the salami making process.

To overseas readers, I apologise that the links to suppliers are all UK based, however, the information is relevant regardless of that.

The basic process
  1. Making the sausagemeat
  2. Adding a salami culture
  3. Stuffing the sausagemeat into casings
  4. Fermenting them in a warm environment for a controlled time period
  5. Hanging them at a controlled temperature and relative humidity to dry
The rules

Many governments have rules about the production of commercial salami products even if it’s only the level of curing salts that are allowed in them. The USA and Canadian authorities also have rules governing the time drying and time allowed for fermentation – it’s to those rules I’ve looked for good practice in those areas. It makes sense for home producers to follow those rules or at least make informed decisions about choosing not to.

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Air Dried Sausage, Calculators, Tutorials

Calculating Maximum Fermenting Times

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The US and Canadian governments have rules limiting the amount of time that a salami can be held above 15.6°C (60°f) for fermentation of cultures. They are very similar other than one uses Fahrenheit and the other centigrade. It’s the Canadian rules (centigrade) that I’ll use for this explanation.

The rules use a calculation based on what is termed degree hours. The salami must reach a pH of 5.3 within a set number of degree hours. This is the number of hours that the salami is above 15.6°C multiplied by the amount that the temperature exceeds 15.6°C:

Degree hours = hours x temperature in excess of 15.6° C (60° F)

This number of degree hours is limited depending on the temperature being used:

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Air Dried Sausage, Sausage

Easy Salami – Snack Sticks

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Back in 2016 my good friend Paul started a thread on the sausagemaking.org forum about making snack stick salami. Nothing new in itself, other than it allowed people to try curing a salami product in a domestic fridge; as such it was pretty ground-breaking.

Over the years the thread has grown as Paul has added further recipes to it. I encourage you to read it as it shows quality products made using best practices.

It’s not until now that I’ve got around to making any myself – it’s something quick and fairly easy in salami terms that I’ll be making regularly.

The ones on the left are fuet from the recipe by Jeffrey Weiss in his book Charcuteria – The soul of Spain and the others are an adaption of Paul’s cheese and Worcestershire sauce recipe using local Red Leicester cheese and Henderson’s relish – a sauce from Sheffield similar (and superior) to Worcestershire sauce. As I’m about equidistant between Sheffield and Worcester I could claim either as being moderately local!

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Air Dried Sausage, Calculators, Sausage, Sausage Calculator

Chorizo

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When I started making my latest batch of ASDA clone chorizo it was my intention to photograph everything and create a sort of mini-tutorial. Needless to say when I got involved with making them I forgot to take most of the photos!

I started off with a big chunk of pork collar, also known as shoulder spare rib, and cut it into strips. If you have a small mincer you will have to cut it smaller. I prefer strips to chunks as the screw in the mincer pulls them through with very little need to use the pusher.

The meat with plenty of fat attached was cooled right down and then minced through an 8mm mincer plate.

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