New Heat box

I have been using an old wooden box that I threw together years ago for a heating chamber.  It has served me well but is beginning to breakdown due to the moisture from both being used and being washed out.  So I have started on a new bigger, better unit. 

It looks a bit like a phone booth but that is intentional.  I want the heat to be consistent as well as the moisture so I am installing a heater in the bottom that has a small fan in it.  It will slowly circulate air and heat but the heat will "hopefully" be more consistent in the top half of the box.  That is also where I will measure the temperature for control.  Moisture will be provided by a small household humidifier that will be run on a humidistat.  The old box derived its heat from a 100 watt light bulb.  The humidity was from a water pan with an aquarium heater in it.  What?.....it worked! 

As you can see, there is a lot of work needed.  Insulation, power for an interior light, racks in the top for hanging, the outside skin and a door.  I will take a few more photo's as I go along but this thing needs to get done soon so keep checking back for more pictures in the near future.

Genoa week one update

Here is a picture of the development after the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Well on their way to perfection.  After weighing all of them, the loss is as expected and they seem to be progressing nicely. 

Cured Meats for Christmas

This past weekend, we produced a batch of Garlic heavy Genoa for Christmas gifts.  The batch started out at 12.5 lbs.  It made seven good sized salami's which should be done for Christmas.  I will probably cut these in half, vacuum seal them and send most of them out to family.

I just noticed today that a slight trace of white mold is starting to form on the casings which is exactly what  will help these become all that they can be.  This is the "beneficial" mold that helps slow moisture from escaping to quickly and prevents what is called "case hardening".  It will also protect the salumi from bad bacteria that may come into contact with it during the next several weeks of conditioning. 

Hoping you all have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

The Weekend Project

It has been a while since I have made any meat products and the weather is still a bit warm and dry to get me in the mood for that, but there is always things to do. Thus this past weekends project, cheese!
Cheese is easy to do with a few of the right ingredients, some basic kitchen equipment and an afternoon of commitment and care.  I always keep some starter and rennet on hand and usually make cheese several times a year but have not done so this year until this past weekend.

I was able to get my hands on some raw organic cows milk that is from cows that only eat grass hay and also some raw goats milk to try a new cheddar type cheese that I have been thinking about.  Due to this being made from raw un-pasteurized milk, I will age this for at least three months before we crack into it.  Also, this cheese will need that much time to mature and develop the flavor profile I am hoping for.  If it works the way I have planned, aging for longer would be more appropriate but patients has never been my strong suit! 

I will report on the experiment when the time comes.  That should be sometime around Thanksgiving.. Until then it will be pampered by flipping, rubbing and cleaning of the surface when and if necessary to do my part to give it what it will need to become something much enjoyed.  I will be rubbing the surface with salt for the first few days to protect it and to impart flavor leaving it at room temperature to form a "rind" of sorts on the outside prior to putting it in the cooler.  My cooler is not the fridge....it is my meat hanging cooler that stays at 55 degrees and at 80% RH.  A normal refrigerator will not do this without modification, just so you know.

This project was inspired by a visit to the Manwaring Cheese Factory in Rigby, Idaho a few days before.  We purchased some cheese there and looked briefly at their operation.  The cheese we sampled was very good and we were met by the owner with a warm welcome.  On their website, you can purchase their products.  The website is manwaringcheese.com and it is a very small family operation.  They do not ship during the warm months of the year so right now the shipping program is not operational.  They will ship as soon as the weather cools so the product will not be ruined due to the heat.

Scott

Hot August days and nights

As I have said in an earlier post, I don't make any cured meats in the summer time due to the heat and the low humidity.  It is very difficult to control the moisture more than the temperature because here in Utah, our normal humidity is about 13 to 25% everyday.  This makes it very difficult to maintain the 70% needed for proper curing.

Fresh sausage is a different story.  There is not many things better than a fresh made batch of sausages pressed out into 38mm casings and thrown on the grill....heaven.  One of the better books I have came across for many recipes for fresh sausages is Home Sausage Making by Peery & Reavis.  It covers basic equipment, handling, safety and techniques for making sausage with 100 well written recipes.  I recently purchased another copy of this book for a friend that is just getting into the swing of making his own sausages and will be delivering the book to him on a visit to Montana in a few days.  He is traveling down from Calgary to see friends that we will be visiting with at the same time.

I have over 100 pounds of pork in the freezer right now.  Deer season is in a couple of weeks here and my younger son and I will be participating as we normally do.  I'm kinda hoping he gets one and I get a few good walks in the out doors.  That way he can also have all the "dirty work" associated with harvesting an animal and I just reap the benefits....it's someone else's turn for this, I've had my time.

It would be nice to have some venison to make some summer sausage from, we'll see what happens by the end of the month.  Hopefully by then, this hot weather will start to subside and we will be able to enjoy a long Indian Summer for a change.

Later.....

Some people

We just returned from traveling last week and during the course of our travels we stopped by a premier meat shop in a small town in Montana.  The meat case was pretty impressive and featured many cuts of what seemed to be Montana's best beef, pork, chicken and some lamb from Colorado. 

In the front window and in other places in the store were proud posters announcing their partnership with Boar's Head of which they did have quite a selection of.  We purchased some steaks and I asked the woman to slice me about a half pound of Coppa.  She did this after struggling to get the slicer to work right but in her frustration with the slicer, she forgot to remove the netting which shredded all throughout the slices of meat.  I did not realize this until we got back to where we were staying.

All I can say about that is wow, what a disaster.  From what is supposed to be a "Fine Meat Purveyor" in a mostly upscale tourist town.  Some people need to learn to relax, take their time and do things in the same fashion that it took to produce a great product. 

The meat shop will go un-named as will the town.....

What's happening

Just to let you know why things have slowed down...This time of year here, it is so dry that it makes it tough to keep the moisture during both incubation and the maturing stages.  For this reason, I don't usually make any product during the summer.  When fall comes, we will get started again with a renewed excitement for what will come.

I have been working on the electrical controls for a new production chamber for a commercial producer in our area.  They are changing their process and I will be building the controls for the temperature and moisture controls in the chamber.  That's my real job, electrical design, sales and manufacturing custom controls.  Always tinkering......

Scott

Dario....NOT but interesting non-the-less

Today is test day for what I have been calling Dario.  Although it is very consistent in texture and color throughout, it does not have the flavor profile that I was looking for.  Actually, there is a somewhat bitter component that I think came from the nutmeg...just what I think. 

Below is a picture of the finished product and as you can see, the color is very uniform and there was not problem with case hardening.  I frustrate when the result does not come out the way I had envisioned it would taste but more over I am curious about the texture of this product.  These salami lengths were sprayed with Mold-600 the same way that I have done for a long time with the MEK product and even in the maturator that will product beneficial mold even on product that I don't want to have mold, these would not mold-up....?  Weird.

Very slow to dehydrate, no mold, consistant color and texture, the "correct" color profile, everything looks and smells great.  The taste, good...as good as I expected except for the little tweek that I believe came from either the nutmeg, allspice or the mace I added.  Anyway, one more reason to press on and try again to create a product that I am want a taste of.  Here is a picture of the completed product.  I'm not a food photographer but I try.

Scott

Quick note

The Chorizo is done and it turned out very mild.  Also, next time I will use a 3/8" grinding plate rather than the 1/4" to get a more coarse texture.  That should not effect the taste, just the texture which is traditionally done in a larger grind.  Nothing new as work demands that I concentrate on it rather than my hobby.  Dario running it's course and all goes well there.  I will probably need a few more weeks at it's current rate.
I will make an update then.

Oh and you in Oregon (and you know who you are), you will have a package coming soon.

Scott

The Pursuit of a Flavor Profile

So here's a new batch that I am trying to make that hopefully will replicate the taste of something that I really like.  The Batali's call it Dario and Christiano Creminelli calls it something else but it is infused heavily with nutmeg, mace and allspice.  We'll see how this test works out in about 30 to 40 days.  I wanted to do this in 60 or 80 mm casings but did in in 100's....long story, no big deal.  It will make it develop differently and take more time.  That's all part of the experiance....tasting the results.

Spanish Chorizo

Well, that dark colored thinner product is 5 pounds of Chorizo.  This stuff smelled terrific this morning when we stuffed it into the casings.  It needed to cure overnight in the pan prior to stuffing.  It smells like the smoked paprika and the red bell peppers that I charred, pealed and chopped into the mix.  Really, all I have to say is that I hope it turns out as good as it smelled this morning.

Genoa on the Rocks

A picture of the Genoa as it came out of the ageing chamber and a small packaged parcel of one of the earlier harvested hangings.  As you can see, I did more of a coarse grind than what we are used to seeing in the supermarket.  It changes the texture so it is not so "mealie" like some popular store bought brands.  You might also notice that I produce it a bit more lean.  I know I know, fat is flavor but in this case achieving the right balance leads to a product that won't leave a protective film on the roof of your mouth and will taste the way it was intended to be.....enjoyable and special.

Genoa's done

Just a quick note that the Genoa is all out of the chamber and ready for consumption.  Honestly, about one and a half pounds of it are already gone....what?, it's great!  And yes I shared.

Coming this next week, Spanish Chorizo.  I made a batch of this about a year ago using some elk a neighbor had given me and it turned out great.  Of course, using elk in place of part of the pork doesn't qualify it as "Spanish Chorizo" but it was none-the-less good.  This time the real deal.  I will try to post some pictures of it next week.

Oh and kinda excited, I just received my new grinder I ordered.......way stoked about this!  You know, boy and their toys.  New grinder today and new axles for my rock crawler.  Time to get busy but this work thing keeps getting in the way.

Later

Meat of the month

What do you all think about trying a "Cured Product of the Month" club?  One of my wife's cousins suggested this after tasting some of my products and I think this may become a reality if there is enough interest.   Since it costs real money to do this, I would be interested if I could just break even on product that I would be happy to share.....What do you think?

Here's what I am thinking: A couple different products and do this about once ever 3 months.....or quarter.  This would be best since shipping is so expensive and that way, I could keep the cost as real as possible...
To start with, you would be able to sample what I have been making for some time and are tried and true recipes.  I would also consider taking orders, but everyone would need to understand that this process takes time and is somewhat seasonal so requests may not be filled for some months.  Also, some things may not be practical for me to try (for reasons of time constraints and availability of the correct products).  I really want to know what you think about this. 

Feedback please.

Fresh out of the fermentation chamber, into the maturation cooler

These are going to be a Genoa style product but with more flavor than the stuff

we are used to purchasing in our local stores.

Lonzino, one week old.

This is a whole muscle product made from a pork loin. It should turn out similar to Prosciutto in taste and texture....we shall see.  

My Beginnings

Hello all, here we go.  My name is Scott and I have been making cured meats for several years and have been studying this for a long time.  How long, well I was reminded today after telling someone else last night at dinner when I got started doing this or thinking about it.

It was after stopping at a small Italian grocery store in Magna Utah.  I was looking to purchase some fresh sausage that these folks were known for and an older gentleman asked me if he could help me.  After a short conversation with me, he could tell that I have very limited experience with the type of products he made there in the back of the store.  He asked me to try a small slice of meat (some sausage type product) and I told him it was great.  After disappearing briefly and returning with a small sample wrapped and telling me that it was mine to keep, he told me to enjoy it and to come back.  Little did I know just what I had and proceeded to go home and make a red sauce with it.... it was sopressata.  It did however improve the tomato sauce I made and I decided at that time that I would definitely be back for more.

It was a struggling time of learning to cook for me.  It was in the early 80's and I didn't need to learn how to cook as my wife did a very good job with this but somehow I felt that it was important and I wanted to learn.  I would watch PBS television on Saturday mornings because there were a few cooking programs that I found interesting, one being The Frugal Gourmet with Jeff Smith.  I thought he was a bit quirky but non-the-less, informative.  He was doing a program about three ancient cuisines including Chinese, Greek and the Romans.  I found it interesting and that led to his next series about Italians which I watched every one of.  During these, he showed a few basic sausage demos about dry-cured meat products which perked my interest.  At that time, there was very little written about the subject that I could find.  The Internet had not come along yet and I didn't have much to go on.  I tried to go to the store several times in Magna to talk to the older gentleman that had given me the sample but I never seemed to show up when he was there.  This just would not come together for me.

I started researching how to make beer and did that for a while to satisfy my curiosity for making something.  That was rewarding but with penalties the next day after reaping the rewards.  I then started researching cheese making.  This is something that I had people to learn from.  I lucked into two customers that were cheese producers and through much time and many question and answer sessions, I learned the basic principals of making cheese and have at this time made many varieties of cheese with great success as far as I am concerned.  I need a cave if this is to continue and I don't have a cave at this point but have plans for this one day.

About 2003, I got my hands on a book about curing meats.  It was a small book put out by the Morton Salt Company that had basic instruction about using their salt products in making cured meats.  This small yellow book was like a present from heaven to me and I think I made every product that was described in the book.  I needed more.

I found more books and then I stumbled across a website written by Len Poli.  Len's website today, is not current and seems at this time to be only a fragment of what it was at one time.  I did not trust that the information on the website was true but I tried to contact Len and low and behold, I reached him.  He at that time was very genuine and was also very stern about the information and direction he gave me.  I trusted Len and to this day still use his basic formula on some items I produce as a starting point.  The basics are just that but non-the-less, the most important part of the equation.  The rest is style, flavor and regional variation if you will.

This blog is not a tool for me to teach you how to make your own cured meat products.  Nor is it meant to be a "bragging board" for me.  It is however a record of what I am doing in my cured meats endevor and what will be available for you to try if you wish. 

I have been making and enjoying a variety of different cured meats for several years now.  I have been sharing it with a select few neighbors, family and friends for some time but many have encouraged me to branch out a bit with this endevor.  So, with some reluctance I will do so but it will come at a price.  I will be working on that over the next several weeks and will come up with the plan.  As for now......enjoy and go out and purchase some cured meats, take notes and see what you like.  You are more that welcome to comment and tell me what you like that you have tried and what brand it was.  I have spent much money and time trying everything I can get my hands on and to date, I do have favorites but you may be suprised at what I think is good.....

Lets hear what you like and have to say.........

Scott