Even though DCM-1 suggests that it's not a ph reducer, and I've heard you can definitely use it on ground products also, I gave it a shot using some wine and dextrose, and sure enough the PH dropped below 5.3 in 30 hours. I have attempted to drop the PH in soppressata's using dextrose and wine only....

Ph is just one hurdle. If you hit 5.4, I wouldn't be concerned.

I dont understand the question. You hit a ph below 5.3, so where's the issue?

If you used a culture with the proper amount of dextrose, I never found a time where the PH wont drop below 5.3. What culture did you use? What temperature did you hang them at? DO you happen to know the original PH? Did you add dextrose? If so, how much. How long have they been hanging at that ferm...

Laying them down on racks will give you brown stripes in the salami

3-4. I normally use a culture and only watched one drop without a culture

But back to my question. Even adding sugar/dextrose to further drop the ph isnt happening without a starter culture to kickstart it, even if I hung it for the maximum 120 ferment hours. Im lucky if it drops 0.1 on a ph meter with 0.3-0.5% dextrose

Lou- did you use distilled or boiled and then cooled tap water? Stupid question I know, but after 20 years of making fresh and smoked sausages I have to catch myself and think about the water I am using when making salami. Tap water will kill the starter culture. I always used distilled water when ...

Pork Loin, no additional fat. It was about 12-15% fat, fine grind. Typical for me 2.5% sea salt, 0.25% cure #2, 0.3% cayenne, 0.3% ground red pepper flakes and I added 0.3% smoked paprika. I added 0.35% dextrose. The loin was processed on 5-11-20 and I ground the meat on the 21st. 1.6"x12' air dried...

This is now my 2nd batch of ground pork 40mm casings, using cure #2 along with 2.5% salt and 0.3% dextrose. Original PH of pork was anywhere from 5.61-5.7. I am now at 60 hours at 70F, 88% humidity with little to no PH drop. In fact, one batch I'm getting readings 0.5 higher than the original occasi...

There is a very easy way to calibrate your humidity controller without a hygrometer. Search online for the salt/ziplock bag method for calibration. Mine was off over 15% and the offset wouldn’t let me adjust for that amount, so I confirmed that I needed a new sensor.

I re-read your original post. I am assuming the question was that you're going to still use a culture, dextrose and cure #1, but you want to eliminate the cold smoke process for the 2nd batch? If that's the case, your fermentation should still reach your PH goal, then transfer them immediately into ...

Why pass up the fermentation process? Just do everything you normally do with dextrose and starter culture, let the PH drop according to the culture suggested temperature, then transfer them into the chamber? If it's a smaller casing that will only take 2-3 weeks to cure, the only thing you should c...

After hundreds of pounds of soppressata, I decided to be the nice guy and offer a buddy of mine to mix a whole batch and use the chamber. Of course, this is exactly what happened to about 10% of the batch. I had some brown lines that were very noticeable after fermentation along with some brown spot...

Food inspection is slightly different than building houses. You could be doing everything by the book, but if the inspector says you cant use a residential facility to make food to resell it, that’s the way it could be. There’s a company in town that dry ages their own meat by the thousands of pound...