- This topic has 16 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 3 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Like most things in my life I do not need them. I seek them out to include them into this adventure. As off task as I am with this project, and not focusing on finishing an electric brewery, well fuck it.
So I purchased a dorm fridge a while back for a deep discount. I let this sit in my basement for a long time, this is the secret to seasoning the fridge to your climate.
Well I cut the shit out of the front of the door to make the refrigerator much larger. Cut some vents into the front, intake and output. I then have now glued some wood (a door from my old kitchen) to the door to make the vents and to mount the controllers, fans and wiring into.
Still working on this project but I already have been stocking meat to cure in this project.
So more to come in soon days.
This project build was completed and now has moved onto the next phase, curing some meat.
You can see in the following photos the remainder of the build.
For my first cure I started with 4 whole muscles. One trimmed pork butt/shoulder where I cut out the complete muscle from the interior (the remainder was saved for sausage), Two pork loins, and one Venison muscle. Each of these went through a week of seasoning and an EQ cure using 2.5% salt, pink salt #2, and seasoning to give it some good flavor. These were vacuum sealed and then refrigerated for a week to soak up the seasoning.
After the one week they were removed from the bags and patted dry. I then wrapped each one in collagen material and poked a series of holes into them so that the moisture could escape. Each one was then treated with a TSP-X culture on the exterior so that they would grow some protective layers to keep the nasty bugs outside. Then each muscle was wrapped in a netting material to hang from and keep the pressure on them. Each muscle was documented from its initial weight as I will be looking for a 30-40% weight loss at completion.
As of this posting I am now 2 weeks into a probably 8-10 week cure/dry time. I will post some updates as progres is made. In the last week the humidity in my chamber has leveled out to a fairly consistent 75% with temperatures in the 60-65 degree range. The smell for the first week and into the second week was strong; had a really pungent spice aroma as well as a musty smell.
I can’t wait to try it!!!
Cheers
Serving: Brooks Irish Red 4.8% ABV
Serving: Robert's IPA
Fermenting: We Are The Dreamer of Dreams (NEIPA)Cheer to that Colter! I cant wait either.
Day 17 of the drying update.
Making good progress on the loss of water weight. I am around 25-32% loss of weight on these muscles. The smell had subsided quite a bit in my basement (the the enjoyment of my wife). I had to knock down the humidity a bit in the last day or two to keep the drying losses going slow as preferred.
So the time came that I started hitting the correct weight loss from the muscles. I hit 40% weight loss on the three here. It is safe to take them down as low as 30% but I have read that the extra weight is worth it.
This is the Elk muscle from my friend.
A spicy pork loin:
A peppery pork loin:
Off the vacuum bags to equalize for a few weeks. The samples were delicious. Will update again.
Well, I’m WAY LATE to the party on this one …..I find it harder to visit this forum when so few people are contributing! 🙁 As a result, it takes me a much longer time to stumble upon really cool stuff like this. This is sooooo fricking cool Evan! I’m in awe. What a great way to marry meat and bier as this totally compliments your home brewing efforts!!
I totally agree I need to post more. Maybe I’ll start doing somthing weekly to keep it going. Evan when are we going to get try some of your cured goodness?
Cheers
Serving: Brooks Irish Red 4.8% ABV
Serving: Robert's IPA
Fermenting: We Are The Dreamer of Dreams (NEIPA)Well after completing those first muscles I did some more reading, completed more research and arrived at some new goals and challenges for this new hobby. I did realize some of the mistakes I made and made note on how to fix these in the future.
I decided that my next endeavor was to be into pepperoni, salami and Spanish chorizo. As a regular pizza chef on Friday night in my kitchen I love a great pepperoni pizza, how amazing would it be to have a scratch pepperoni pizza with homemade pepperoni, sounds fucking amazing to me. Or having an Italian sandwich with homemade salami or a bowl of rice spiced up with some chorizo. With the new setup this had to happen.
One of the things that I am loving in doing charcuterie and salumi is how the process works and how I interact with it. Like brewing was for me years ago, I struggled to understand and replicate the processes I read about and do it efficiently on a schedule. In experimenting with this new hobby I am constantly checking my notes and recipes to ensure my efforts will return the highest quality product I can attain with my skills and my tools. It is nice to feel new in something again, I love the feeling of new experience in creating and using my hands.
I started out this project with a 21 lb pork shoulder and 5 lbs of eye of round from Costco. Then the long process of cutting them down to 1″x1″ cubes to fit in the grinder. Which now I realize that is like the longest part of the process of sausage making. It also became apparent to me that this is something that I can do before grind day to save time, just cubing meat and refreezing till grind day. I do enjoy going through the meat and pulling out anything I deem not appetizing, this is where my process excels over mechanically separated meats.
I made an alteration from the last time I did sausage. I measured the meat mixes of beef/pork, then spiced the meat, and then did the grind. I found this to help spread the spices out over the meat, so much so that I even reground 50% of the product to really even out the spices. When I did sausage last the product was not consistent and evenly seasoned because I mixed the spices after I did the grind. Additionally, I have found the secret to a successful grind is having the meat at freezing temps, this really helps the grind go fast and the grinder work more efficiently.
The meat needs to be emulsified so that all the proteins, spices, and fats are bound together and will maintain integrity once in the casing and cured. Really this means getting your hands deep into some damn near freezing meat and mixing for 5 minutes. This is also the step where I mix in the starter culture and the wine. The starter culture I used for all of these recipes was Bactoferm TSP-X, this was selected because it is set to a slower and lower temperature fermentation and should end with more mild flavor and low acidity.
Once everything is mixed we pack it all into the sausage stuffer and prep the casings. The casings I ended up using were large diameter (3 7/8″) collagen casings. This was my first experience using the collagen casings and I was surprised how nice they were to work with, I really enjoyed the uniform size and the strength when compared to natural casings.
Once all three of the salami types were stuffed they were then brushed with some Mold 600. This is the newest addition to my process. I am hoping that this addition will help protect this project and keep all of the funky bad things in the basement air at bay. All of the casings then were pricked so that they can dry out. I ended up stuffing the small amount of extra into some bratwurst size collagen casings, which is cool because those will finish in less than half of the time that the large diameter salami’s will.
All hung and now it is a waiting game with fermented meat. Updates to come.
Damn….that is some dadgum detail my friend!,👊 The entire process smacks or integrity and I totally appreciate the level of commitment you are giving to all of this Evan! Carry on good sir….and hack me off a chunk!
I’ll trade you some brews!😋You better bring some to a club meeting.
Cheers
Serving: Brooks Irish Red 4.8% ABV
Serving: Robert's IPA
Fermenting: We Are The Dreamer of Dreams (NEIPA)Just giving a small update. All the molds and bacteria seem to have come into full swing. I now have a nice penicillin coating on the salami to protect it from any nasties that might find their way into the chamber. The smell of the chamber is perfect, like the smell of meat in a deli.
I just now have to wait till I hit the magic number of 35%-40% weight loss.
Well a guy has to know what he is packing, as far as the weight of his meat goes.
But, yes, I know I wont hit weight loss for some time on those larger ones, probably 2 months. But the smaller ones I will need to keep an eye on them around the one month mark. The pink salt #2 does need over a month to convert in the nitrogen cycle to be safe to eat.
So sort of like brewing with original gravity you have to know the original weight of the meat to measure your losses. I am keeping the chamber around 85% humidity. This will make the drying process much slower and will (as far as I know) make the flavors more subtle and nuanced.
- The forum ‘Off Topic / Non-Brewing’ is closed to new topics and replies.