Salame Calabrese

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redzed
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Post by redzed » Sat Jun 17, 2017 21:08

Pulled the calabrese in the thinner casings. Did not weigh before or after but maybe a few days too long after 30 days in the chamber The star of anise substitution worked very well. Flavour and texture fantastic!

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Post by Bumper » Sat Jun 17, 2017 21:53

redzed wrote:Pulled the calabrese in the thinner casings. Did not weigh before or after but maybe a few days too long after 30 days in the chamber The star of anise substitution worked very well. Flavour and texture fantastic!
Red those look absolutely delicious.
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Post by Butterbean » Sat Jun 17, 2017 22:06

Those look fantastic.
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Post by SMR » Mon Oct 22, 2018 22:43

Hi Redzed: I am trying my hand at your Salame Calabrese recipe. I had a couple of questions to ask if you don't mind. I was able to obtain pork back fat from a local amish farmer's market. I cut it up, but then took a look at your photo above. Mine has striations of meat mixed with the fat. See the Class 1 pork and back fat in the curing container.

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Do you think I should try to trim the meat off of those pieces and get more fat to make up for the weight loss or increase the quantity of back fat to approximate the 18% fat in the recipe?

Second question has to do with adding dextrose to the cubed meat during the 48 hour cure Your initial instructions have dextrose added to the pork cubes with the salt and cure. Your photo from the 2nd time around indicates just salt and cure in the pork for the 48 hour cure. I left the dextrose out in my version since I am intending on the dextrose being available to feed the culture, not whatever bacteria might be present during the 48 hour cure. And, so that leads to another question, why the 48 hour cure when the culture is to be added after grinding? I am doing it anyway, but would like to understand the need for this step.

And how did the star anise work out? I have both anise and star anise pods. Did you grind up the full pods or did you extract the seeds and just grind them? Cutting back to 1.5 grams/kg. Was that good, or would you go to 2 grams/kg?

Thanks for your insights and any recommendations. I have Calabrian dried peppers and am really looking forward to this recipe!
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Post by redzed » Tue Oct 23, 2018 04:01

Nice job in preparing the meat and fat! As to the fat ratio, I would add a bit more, either as back fat or similar to what you gave there and take it it up to 20%. When I started to make salami I used approx 25% fat, but while the products were tasty, the amount of fat, at least to the eye, looked a bit excessive. And by volume it is a lot of fat since it weighs a lot less than meat. So 20% works very well. Just make sure you freeze it before grinding, semi freeze the meat and grind together.

I have added dextrose to the curing mix and also after, and have not really noticed the difference.

The 48 hour cure is carried out for a numer of reasons:
1. The salt and nitrite will firm up the cubed meat and lessen the chance of fat smearing and aid in achieving better fat definition.

2. Because the salt is already in the meat you will be extracting the myocins when grinding thus reducing the length of time in mixing the batter.

3. It is not recommended to add the starter culture to the batter until you have already mixed in the salt. But if the meat is already cured, you can add the culture right after grinding together with the spices. This will assure that the culture is well distributed, with less overall mixing.

I ground the whole star anise pod and found the flavour very good but a bit more intense than fennel. Either one will work but take it easy on the amounts. If you decide that you would like to have more of that licorice flavour you can add more next time. The key here is to have balance and not have one flavour dominate. You will be happy with using the Calabrian peppers. They provide a nice touch of heat but at the same time the taste is soft and pleasant, unlike the generic red pepper flakes that are commonly used.

The Class I meat in you pic is very light in colour, I hope it's not PSE meat which can compromise the product. Is it all from a loin?
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Post by SMR » Tue Oct 23, 2018 04:59

Thanks, good info!

The pork is from center cut chops. Good sale and very lean looking. I dont know what PSE means, but I hope I dont have it!
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Post by SMR » Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:43

I Googled PSE and now I know what it is. Learn something new every day! And happy to report that I do not have PSE meat. The lighter color of my pork is based on the cut of meat. It is not due to poor carcass quality.

I will post some photos of the Salame Calabrese as we go forward.
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Post by SMR » Thu Oct 25, 2018 00:59

The Calabrese is looking promising! I followed Redzed's second version of the recipe as far as using star anise and grinding half the meat through a 10 mm plate. I ground the frozen fat and other half of meat through a 7 mm plate. Mixed in all of the spices and culture. I didn't photograph prior to stuffing the beef middle casings. Didn't think of it until I had filled the last casing. But the fat was well defined and did not smear.

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I laced them up and they are in the hanging in my chamber fermenting at 68 F (20 C) and 90% RH. The small guy is for testing the pH after 36 hours
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Post by StefanS » Thu Oct 25, 2018 02:15

It is not easy to follow @redzed's recipe and process on beginning of your adventure with salami.
first - IMO - instead of back fat you have probably pork jowls. (it is helpful for beginners that back fat is more "advance" to work with). ( on picture ).
second. - pork loin is very nice lean meat but ... fast drying, light colored, not so nice texture after processing. Then - if you are using BLC 007 as starter - it is very nice culture but needs some caution during fermentation ( of course if you know your destination pH). Any way looks good.
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Post by SMR » Thu Oct 25, 2018 04:06

Hi Stefan, I didnt have too much trouble following Redzeds recipe. I also relied on a bunch of good books and other resources. I maybe a little unclear on what constitutes good class 1 pork. So, maybe it will be dry... I am not sure why one version of lean pork would be dryer than another, but I guess we will see and adjust the source next time as needed.

The fatback was definitely not jowl. My local amish market butcher is a bit rough. He cut me a 5 lb hunk off of a 15 lb. slab. 2.5 to 3" thick. Not pork belly either by the way. When you get ribs from this guy, you get the chine bone too. But it ground up nicely and the fat parts looked good in the mix. Hopefully the fat will moisten the mix and give the salami the right texture.

I have made quite a few fermented and dry/semi dried sausages in my time with this hobby. I have learned alot from this website and from Marianskis books. I am currently ranked beginner because of my level of posted comments, but I will never stop trying to improve and believe that you guys are all doing the same. Thanks for helping a brother out with a very cool hobby!

I will be sure to report back in with the dryness factor due to the use of loin meat.
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Post by Bob K » Thu Oct 25, 2018 14:44

To be honest I used pork loins for a while for fermented sausage but no longer do. They are definitely easier to cut up with little or no waste and can be purchased at a bargain price. If you use shoulder, either picnic or butt, you will definitely get better color, flavor, and texture.

Star anise really has a much different flavor profile, and is from a different plant than anise. They both have a licorice type amoma and flavor, but star anise has a much stronger and earthy flavor.
For anise just use the seeds ground or whole, not the pod. It's a must for Pepperoni!!
Last edited by Bob K on Thu Oct 25, 2018 15:04, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by jcflorida » Thu Oct 25, 2018 15:03

Bob K wrote:If you use shoulder, either picnic or butt, you will definitely get better color, flavor, and texture.
When you use shoulder do you dissect it to obtain very lean meat (class I?), or do you just use it the way the pig grew it?
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Post by Bob K » Thu Oct 25, 2018 15:10

jc-
With a picnic you will have a lot of class 2 and 3 so you would want to separate it. Butts are almost all class 1 with a little class 2 so you can use the whole thing, less the fat cap if its too thick.
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Post by SMR » Thu Oct 25, 2018 21:09

Thanks Bob, I will keep that in mind. I was thinking about it. Maybe the lighter meat doesn't hold as much water as the dark meat and that contributes to it being drier than the shoulder meat. I know it works that way with poultry.

Either way, I have it fermenting now and will take it to the finish line. I just had some very nice Calabrese from Columbus Foods of San Francisco. I will be using that as a kind of benchmark to see where this batch lands.
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Post by SMR » Thu Oct 25, 2018 21:53

StefanS wrote:Then - if you are using BLC 007 as starter - it is very nice culture but needs some caution during fermentation ( of course if you know your destination pH).
Thanks for the heads up StefanS, I had not read about B-LC 007 before. I just reviewed http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?t=8446.

At 24 hours, my Calabrese has dropped from 5.61 to 5.25. I will be monitoring it over the next 12 hours and diving it down to 54 when it hits 5.2.
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