All posts by Phil

The Salami Making Process

An attempt to demystify the salami making process.

To overseas readers, I apologise that the links to suppliers are all UK based, however, the information is relevant regardless of that.

The basic process
  1. Making the sausagemeat
  2. Adding a salami culture
  3. Stuffing the sausagemeat into casings
  4. Fermenting them in a warm environment for a controlled time period
  5. Hanging them at a controlled temperature and relative humidity to dry
The rules

Many governments have rules about the production of commercial salami products even if it’s only the level of curing salts that are allowed in them. The USA and Canadian authorities also have rules governing the time drying and time allowed for fermentation – it’s to those rules I’ve looked for good practice in those areas. It makes sense for home producers to follow those rules or at least make informed decisions about choosing not to.

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Calculating Maximum Fermenting Times

The US and Canadian governments have rules limiting the amount of time that a salami can be held above 15.6°C (60°f) for fermentation of cultures. They are very similar other than one uses Fahrenheit and the other centigrade. It’s the Canadian rules (centigrade) that I’ll use for this explanation.

The rules use a calculation based on what is termed degree hours. The salami must reach a pH of 5.3 within a set number of degree hours. This is the number of hours that the salami is above 15.6°C multiplied by the amount that the temperature exceeds 15.6°C:

Degree hours = hours x temperature in excess of 15.6° C (60° F)

This number of degree hours is limited depending on the temperature being used:

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Easy Salami – Snack Sticks

Back in 2016 my good friend Paul started a thread on the sausagemaking.org forum about making snack stick salami. Nothing new in itself, other than it allowed people to try curing a salami product in a domestic fridge; as such it was pretty ground-breaking.

Over the years the thread has grown as Paul has added further recipes to it. I encourage you to read it as it shows quality products made using best practices.

It’s not until now that I’ve got around to making any myself – it’s something quick and fairly easy in salami terms that I’ll be making regularly.

The ones on the left are fuet from the recipe by Jeffrey Weiss in his book Charcuteria – The soul of Spain and the others are an adaption of Paul’s cheese and Worcestershire sauce recipe using local Red Leicester cheese and Henderson’s relish – a sauce from Sheffield similar (and superior) to Worcestershire sauce. As I’m about equidistant between Sheffield and Worcester I could claim either as being moderately local!

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Air Dried Pork Loin with fennel

4th October 2021 The first stage – curing:

Forgive the long title; I was going to title this ‘Fennel Lonzino’ and had actually typed that when I thought that it’s a bit of a liberty to do so when I’ve not got a clue as to whether the Italians use fennel in their lonzino.

I’d got in mind to make a more classic product with the simple flavours of pepper and garlic, which I understand to be a traditional lonzino. However, given that this is a piece of industrially produced meat and is likely to have less flavour than the meat I would usually use, I decided to go with the stronger flavour of fennel.

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Hot Smoked Cured Pork Loin

When I wrote about the Kasseler style smoked loin, I said that I’d make some more but use a dry cure rather than a brine.

I started two last month; I’ll smoke one and leave one unsmoked as my wife, Pauline, is not too keen on smoked food.

We’ll use it sliced in place of ham and it may even find its way into the odd bacon butty as it’s a loin version of US bacon! I’ll not be stopping making real British bacon any time soon though – have no fears about that!

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Chicken & Spring Onion Sausage

I’ve been looking for a good recipe for chicken sausage and back in October, I made one that was devised by a friend and was flavoured with thyme, lemon and garlic having been inspired by Chef Thomas Keller’s famous recipe for chicken brine. I was so confident that it would be great that I even posted a ‘coming soon’ photo. After all, what’s not to like? They’re a classic combination. Well, somewhat embarrassingly, the family didn’t like it. I’m sure others will though and the recipe’s here for people who want to try it… …and I encourage you to do so.

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Universal Cure calculator

This cure calculator can be used for measured dry cures or equilibrium brine (wet) cures. Measured dry cures are also sometimes referred to as EQ Cures.

It is designed for the experienced curer – those who will know to adjust the meat weight for any bone. Those who realise that meat takes a very long time to reach equilibrium in an eq brine.

They will also be aware of curing safely and using a sufficiently strong brine to protect the meat whilst it is curing when using a brine cure.

The input to the form is in grams rather than lb and oz. This is for purely practical purposes; for example, 2.5% of 1000gm is far easier to calculate than 2.5% of 2lbs2oz. It also uses weight for all measurements; this is because the volumes of solids are variable.

To convert US measures to grams you can use our:

US measures to grams converter

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