Homemade Sausage Making

Looks great! I would agree with Stefan on the 42-45 % weight loss, the texture and flavor improves with the extra time spent maturing.

rgreenberg2000 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 03, 2021 00:05

I think the only thing I would do differently next time is to soak the coppa a bit after it comes out of the cure to reduce some of the saltiness that seems concentrated on the outsides...

You may want to consider an EQ cure the next time, perfect salt content every time. No guesswork involved.

Bob K wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 03, 2021 19:20

You may want to consider an EQ cure the next time, perfect salt content every time. No guesswork involved.

Thanks, Bob. I will definitely let the second piece go to 42-45%, and then I'll have a comparison baseline for what I prefer.

On the EQ cure...... I used Victor's Capicola recipe on TasteOfArtisan.com as my recipe for this one. Isn't that using an EQ cure? If not, then I'm not certain that I understand what an EQ cure really was (my operating definition was a cure that used a specific amount of spices....chiefly salt.....based on the weight of the meat being cured.) If it IS an EQ cure as I think it is, then what level can I safely reduce the salt to, in order to not have to have some sort of soaking step? His recipe uses 2.75% salt and .25% Cure #2. I think I can safely back the salt down to 2.5%? Could I go lower?

Thanks!

Oh, and here's a couple of sliced pics.....definitely looks less red in natural lighting conditions:

rgreenberg2000 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 03, 2021 20:15

I think I can safely back the salt down to 2.5%? Could I go lower?

You can safely use a total of 2.5%. 22.5g sea salt and 2.5g Cure #2
The coppa looks perfect!

Looks great and how does it taste? (Please feel free to gloat if you want)

Looks delicious, yep even perfect to me too

redzed wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 03, 2021 21:05

You can safely use a total of 2.5%. 22.5g sea salt and 2.5g Cure #2
The coppa looks perfect!

Thanks! I think I will test out 2.5% and 2.75% total on the next batch I get going.

Butterbean wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 03, 2021 22:12

Looks great and how does it taste? (Please feel free to gloat if you want)

Thanks, BB! It tastes great! Now, I'm not sure that I've ever had coppa, so nothing to compare it to, but..... Super tender, the fat pretty much melts away, there's a nuttiness to it, and the juniper/bay comes through as a subtle profile (which is just great, as I did an UMAI version of coppa two years ago, and couldn't eat it due to the heavy spice flavor!) I'm looking forward to trying some different versions of coppa to see what I like.

R

Never tasted it before! Good gracious where have you been? Probably same place I've been as I'd never heard of it till I picked up this addicting habit of meat sorcery and such so I can emphasize with you on this and many other carnivoric delicacies. In fact, I think we both may have an unfair advantage in that we don't have something spectacular to compare our wares to so as long as its good to our tastes we can be happy. The down side to this is, in my situation anyway, many of my peers have no clue what good food is. Take for instance Mortadella. I made a lot of this one year and I was right proud of it and thought it was bologna on steroids however I was chastised by some people who said, "bologna ain't supposed to have nuts in it and you need to grind it better next time to keep from having those big chunks of fat in it".

Butterbean wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 00:48

Never tasted it before! Good gracious where have you been?

Ha! I'm sure I've had some in a grinder or other similar "Italian" sandwich along the way, but I have never sat down to a charcuterie plate that had coppa on it. I may have to scope out the local Italian deli counters to see if I can score a sample of a different style or two for comparison.

I LOL'd at the Mortadella story! Fat is bad, you know!

R

rgreenberg2000 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 04:34

Butterbean wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 00:48

Never tasted it before! Good gracious where have you been?

Ha! I'm sure I've had some in a grinder or other similar "Italian" sandwich along the way, but I have never sat down to a charcuterie plate that had coppa on it. I may have to scope out the local Italian deli counters to see if I can score a sample of a different style or two for comparison.

I LOL'd at the Mortadella story! Fat is bad, you know!

R

Your comment reminds me of a visit to a butcher shop where I found the leanest ribeye steaks marked at $12.95/lb and right beside them were ribeye steaks that would grade solid prime for $5.95/lb. You can imagine my surprise when I saw this and wanting to be helpful to the butcher I questioned him if these steaks were priced properly. He said they were and that most customers he sold to were women who viewed fat an marbling as a bad thing so he had to mark them at this price to move them. I raise my own cattle and know how hard it is to come across prime grade beef such as this so I purchased as many as I could afford which sadly I only had $200 on me. They were exquisite.

rgreenberg2000 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 04:34

Butterbean wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 00:48

Never tasted it before! Good gracious where have you been?

Ha! I'm sure I've had some in a grinder or other similar "Italian" sandwich along the way, but I have never sat down to a charcuterie plate that had coppa on it. I may have to scope out the local Italian deli counters to see if I can score a sample of a different style or two for comparison.

I LOL'd at the Mortadella story! Fat is bad, you know!

R

You absolutely have to find some imported Italian salumi to give you a baseline. There was an Italian deli/store that survived here in Atlanta for a few years trying to peddle top-quality imported salumi to people who only wanted to pay for American commercial meats. They sliced the coppa and mortadella paper thin--it seemingly took forever for an order--the slices neatly separated by paper sheets. It was that store that inspired me, though I have yet to get into dry curing--still trying to absorb knowledge from threads like yours. The realist in me fears that I will never build up enough knowledge and experience to approach even what the Italians consider commercial quality, let alone "artisan."

Lorenzoid...Star Provisions? If so did they shut down?

Scogar wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 07, 2021 18:08

Lorenzoid...Star Provisions? If so did they shut down?

I replied by PM so as not to sully rgreenberg's thread.