Firmness and weight loss - Salami Finocchiona

[salami dom]

Hi all. First time poster here. Hoping those with a little more experience than I can weigh-in on my present salami situation. Apologies for the rather long post.

I have recently made my first attempt at Salami Finocchiona. I followed Stanley Marianski’s recipe to a tee. I used 60mm fibrous casings.

I use a purpose built curing cabinet that allows me to set temperature and humidity as desired.

I fermented at 20c for about 48 hours until the meat reached pH of around 4.94-5.04 (it shot past my target of 5.1-5.3 a little quicker than anticipated). I then set to dry at 13c.

Humidity in the cabinet was set to 85% through the whole process however my cabinet is in a very hot/dry environment (many days around 35c-45c) so actual average humidity in the cabinet was probably around 70% (maybe less).

I made several attempts to apply Mold 600 (brushing/spraying) over the first couple of weeks however the cabinet failed to achieve the necessary humidity for mould growth to take place.

After 30 days the salamis have lost just over 40% of their original weight. They are quite firm on the exterior but still soft in the middle (hopefully the images below provide a clear enough illustration of this). 40% weight loss is commonly noted as the upper end of dryness for this type of salami however in my opinion the middle is still much too soft. I cut one open to taste test. The aromas and flavour of the salami were good but the texture was a little “raw meat” like.

I removed the casing from the test salami then vacuum sealed and placed in the fridge. The others are back in the cabinet.

Is this sort of softness unusual at 40% weight loss? I suspect this may be a case of case hardening and am unsure whether I should be taking any action to remedy this for the salami I have not yet cut into (rehydrating/wrapping in towel and placing in fridge etc). On the other hand, maybe I just need to let them dry out more? If those with a little more experience than myself would be willing to offer their thoughts I would be most grateful! Thank you.

Before removing casing:

Interior:

Applying pressure:

[Bob K]

Welcome to the Forum!
It looks as if they are drying to quickly at your current humidity level. Are you using a humidifier in the chamber?

[StefanS]

IMHO - dry ring. Damage made by dryness at 40% weight loss is irreversible. Capillary to remove moisture from inside are permanently close. Main driving force for osmosis ( salt solution on outside layer of salami ) are dried out. Your salami has too much moisture trapped in core. Practically your salami was drying not maturing. As BobK mention - humidity inside chamber should be in range of 80% humidity constant.
You can try change humidity but I don't think that will help. Eventually you can dry them up to 45-48 % of weight loss then close them in vacuum packages for some time (in refrigerator). Also you can try to keep them a week in vac-pack then unwrap and put them in curing chamber ( at 85% of humidity) for week or so, then again in vac-pack (repeat a few times). It may help a little.

[salami dom]

Thank you both for your input.

Bob K,

The cabinet itself has an inbuilt facility for providing humidity however it does not pump moisture into the air as aggressively as the humidifiers I have seen other home salami makers use.

The cabinet is designed to operate all year round however it is the middle of a very hot and dry Australian summer so I am probably pushing the limits of what it is capable of.

StefanS,

Yes, it would appear I have left it too late at this stage. I will check on the vacuum sealed salami in a few weeks and I will dry the others to around 45% or so just to see if there is any improvement however I doubt there will be. I only made a small batch to give my new cabinet a test run so it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work out.

I may just need to wait another month or two for milder weather. Hopefully by then the cabinet will be able to maintain the set humidity and I can have another shot at it!

[Bob K]

The cabinet itself has an inbuilt facility for providing humidity however it does not pump moisture into the air as aggressively as the humidifiers

Just curios on how that works and can you adjust/regulate it?

[salami dom]

The cabinet itself has an inbuilt facility for providing humidity however it does not pump moisture into the air as aggressively as the humidifiers

Just curios on how that works and can you adjust/regulate it?

You can find the cabinet I use here: https://www.cleaversalumicabinets.com/salumi-curing

There is a water container at the bottom of the cabinet with a small fan attached that is used to generate humidity in the cabinet. There is a digital control panel in the cabinet that allows adjustment of temperature and humidity. Hope that helps!

[redzed]

Hi dom, in the past few years I had a couple of failures somewhat similar to yours. I had a large diameter soppressata that lost weight but remained soft and was off colour inside. To this day I still don't know what happened, possibly unwanted bacteria or bad meat, I just don't know. Another incident was with a salami with 50% horsemeat. Weight loss was there, pH drop was there, yet the salami never firmed up and after weeks in my chamber, had the consistency of a sausage that was just stuffed. Here I suspect antibiotics in the horse meat, but without having it tested, it's only speculation. And neither of the two products I described took on any mould, even though they were inoculated and other items in the chamber were well colonized.
It appears that you are following correct procedures, so it's difficult to analyze what happened. I did note that your humidity may be on the low side, but you still should have had better binding and gelification. Make another batch, making sure to grind semi frozen meat and frozen fat and keeping it cold right up to the stuffing stage. This will prevent fat smearing, the number one cause of what happened to you. Ferment at an RH of 90% and higher. High humidity during the fementation stage and the first three or four days after that, is critical in avoiding excessive case hardening. Also make sure you have a minimum of 2.5% salt. So don't be discouraged, just move on to the next project. I'm sure it will turn out.

[salami dom]

High humidity during the fementation stage and the first three or four days after that, is critical in avoiding excessive case hardening.

I really think this ^ was the major cause. Humidity was no where near what it should have been early on and throughout the drying process.

Thanks for the words of encouragement! I will certainly be having another go.