I’m not feeling like a sausage genius at the moment.

For starters, the Saucisson Sec I put in to cure awhile ago is still pretty soft, and has lost some of its red color.  I cut one open, and it’s still looks rare inside.  A few days ago I turned off the humidifier to see if I could get it drying a bit faster, and the casing has gotten papery, but it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

It almost goes without saying that the Sopressatta is a disaster.  I have some of the stuffing in a bag, and the fat is just mush.  Same goes for the sausages, which have also turned a bit pale and have splotches of fat under the casing.  I should throw them out, but keep them in the cabinet for curiosity’s sake.

My only hope is for the Chorizo.  They seem pretty firm at the top, but they sagged a bit and are wider at the bottom, and there it’s still a little soft.  I took one out today and cut a bit off the bottom to taste, and it was pretty good, although spicy (as it should be).  I put it in the fridge to see if the humidity would even out there (as it did with the Tuscan Salami), and turned the ones still in the curing cabinet upside-down.

With the humidifier off, the humidity has dropped down below 40% - time to get it turned back on, although I think I’m going to go for a lower humidity setting than the 70% everyone seems to call for.

To top things off, I’m getting concerned that the temperature in the drying cabinet is uneven.  The cooling unit, in the back, seems to always have ice on it, whilst the front of the cabinet seems much warmer.  I raised the temperature by five degrees to see if I can get the ice to melt and the humidity to rise.

I hope some of this works out.

Planning on making Linguica tomorrow to go into the Feijoada for Saturday.  Wish me luck. <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Been too long since we posted.

Three weeks ago my friend Jeff and I picked up just under 10 lbs of pork belly from Paul at Countrytime Farms. This was Pancetta #2. We improved some things (weight measure instead of volume; plastic bags instead of pyrex casserole), and set about curing. Jeff decided to hang his flat in cheesecloth (as they do in Spain and some parts of Italy). I rolled mine, and hung it in a cool room in our house.

I was worried that it would be too cold if I left it in the Fridge in the garage (remember it’s temperature regulated, but only to keep it cool, it can’t keep it warm enough). It seemed to be aging well, although I noticed that the fat wasn’t keeping the marbly white color I see in pictures online, rather it was a bit more yellow and almost translucent. I also found two small dots of mold on the end, which I promptly wiped off. No idea how that could happen…need to do some investigating. Obviously that part will be cut entirely off.

Jeff says his is really good, but that it’s a little too salty. We decided that the problem was we had enough cure for 5 lbs, and Jeff’s portion of the belly was barely 4 lbs.

I pulled mine down last night (it had cured for 11 days–probably a day or so too long–and hung for 12 days). I think some of the issues that troubled Jeff’s Pancetta have surfaced with mine as well. No further signs of the mold, but in my first tasting (sauteed in olive oil), the meat is chewier than I’d like, and the fat doesn’t have that savory flavor I’m used to.

NOT IDEAL. I give it a B.

Since I’ve promised to sell portions for $10 lb I’ve decided to give them a discount.

I think the issues come down to the amount of cure as well as the imperfect aging environment.

Jeff and I are really thinking we need to construct a clean chamber where we can regulate the temp and humidity.

Here are a couple pictures…

When I retrieved the Sopressata from the fermentation room this morning, there were little stalactites of pork fat on the tray under them.  For whatever reason, the fat had melted and dripped out in the warm room.  With low expectation, I moved them to the curing cabinet.

Went about making Sopresatta today with the shoulder I picked up from John last Sunday.

I’m not sure it went well.

I didn’t freeze my bowl, or blade or plates from the grinder, or the cylander from the sausage stuffer.  I chilled them, just didn’t wait to freeze them.

I had a time deadline - we were leaving at 5:00 to go to the BAM to see Arjuna’s Dilemma.  I rushed.

I cut up the fat (which I’d gotten from Chris) and partially froze it before grinding.  However, when I went to scoop the fat out of the bowl I’d caught it in to put it into a smaller one, the stuff in the bottom was, well, just mush.

I froze it again, but when I was mixing it with the meat, I could tell it was just falling apart, or “breaking”, in sausage-maker talk.

I also focused, for the first time, on the measurement of the F-RM-52 starter culture.  The instructions with the culture say that you can use 1/4 of the package for something like 50lbs of meat, so I did.  The cookbook calls for 3/4 of the package!  I hadn’t paid attention to that before, so I dumped the rest of the package in (I’d used 1/4 yesterday for the Chorizo).

The sausages seemed particularly greasy when I hung them up to ferment.

With the onset of fall, I found the humidity in my curing cabinet dropping down below 50%.  I bit the bullet and ordered a humidistat, which arrived today.

I hooked it up to turn a small room humidifier on and off to control the humidity.  So far it’s working like a charm, with the humidity hovering around 70%.

Finally found the time to attack one of the shoulders down in the basement fridge.  Made Chorizo and put it in the downstairs bathroom to ferment.

I used the largest casing I could find and stuffed them as full as I could.  They’re much wider than the other sauusages.

A confession: I forgot 1 tsp of chopped garlic.  Other than that, they’re perfect.

I also cooked up the Pork Loin Roast.  It was out of this world - some of the best pork I’ve ever had.

Anxious to try Guanciale in my pasta recipes, I finally got John to save some pork jowls for me.  His restaurants snap them up, but he finally held them off and had a couple for me last Sunday.

I’ve tried very hard to figure out excatly what the difference between pig’s cheeks and pork jowls are.  I’ve never seen a recipe for Guanciale that mentioned anything other than jowls, and never seen a recipe for braised cheeks that mentioned jowls.  I did see plenty of articles on the internet which said they were different, because jowls were cured (which, they’re not until you cure them) and articles saying they were the same thing.

So I asked my pig expert, John.  He told me he wasn’t really sure either, although I could see he’d been puzzling over it too.

The package he sold me had one large piece and two smaller ones.  It looked more like bacon than a piece of meat you could braise.

I mixed the curing spices and spread them over the trimmed, larger piece, then put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in the fridge.  We’ll see…

After making Saucisson Sec with Chris yesterday and pulling the sailboat out of the water this morning, I made it up to the Farmer’s Market in Pound Ridge to meet John for the Pork Jowls and a shoulder.  I also picked up a chicken and a pork loin roast to try out the old fashioned way - cooked in the over.

It was too late to do anything with it, so I dumped them both into the fridge, along with the extra shoulder I brought back from Chris’ yesterday.

I drove down to Ardmore to make Saucisson Sec with Chris and August today.  It was August’s first sausage-making experience, and I thought he did exceptionally well.

August Henry - Sausage Maker In Training

Everything went like a charm, except that I forgot to bring sausage casings.  We scrambled around, and Whole Foods came to at least a partial rescue.  We managed to make Saucisson Sec but not the Italian Sausage we’d planned on, which worked out OK as we used the time to demolish the moldy wallboard in the basement.

Grinding