I did it! I built my curing chamber! (Massive amounts of Build-View)

[4EvrDude]

Thanks. I understand your curing explanation as the first step.

My question is if you have product in the drying/aging chamber that has already been fermented and/or inoculated, how can you add new product that requires fermentation at higher temps and RH?

It seems to me that you would have to have a separate chamber solely for fermentation and inoculation. Or, alternately, plan your product accordingly so you will not be adding product to your batch of meats.

 

[4EvrDude]

You cannot. Each step is a sperate environment with the exception when these separate environment are close. Like when I add freshly mold inoculated meats to the drying/aging chamber.

Fermentation is in my belief too different a temperature setting verses drying/aging. Fermenting is done around 80 degrees and drying/aging is around 57 degrees.

Meats may ferment at 57 +/- but it may be too slow. Fermenting is supposed to be a fairly fast process to get the pH to the point where its inhospitable to certain bacteria and the added benefit of a different taste to us. While meats may ferment in 57 degree temp it would probably happen too slowly to be effective.

So you will have to ferment if and when the outside air conditions are right or build a small fermentation chamber. The good news is since fermentation usually happens at temperatures (80/85) higher than what is generally comfortable (70/75) most of the time a chamber can be a container w/o mechanical refrigeration. A big new Sertite plastic container or trash can with the addition of heat and humidity will work. When I built an inoculation chamber I used a new trash can setting on a heating pad with distilled water in the bottom covered the opening with cheese cloth and then a clean tea towel over the top as a baffle/thermometer. It took some adjusting but I ended up leaving about 1/3 of opening uncovered and the heating pad on low it held perfect temp humidity until mold established about 48 hours later.

I did a DIY pictorial and posted it here a year or so ago. If I find it I'll post a link.

Ok, I got it. I think our DIY built out may turn out to be the easy part....making product should be a real challenge. Gotta get my newbie head wrapped around that.

Thanks again!!!

 

[4EvrDude]

The hardest part is not the build or the recipe its waiting for the meats to dry and age.

You betcha!!! Now I have figure out a starting point. Namely what salumi to make. And understand what starting culture I need, casings as well as any netting. Moreovercwhat spray to use to get that white color.

Thoughts???

 

[4EvrDude]

I think I understand. You inoculate before fermentation. Next comes the drying stage???

Btw, we completed our chamber based on your tutorial. Everything is working. Now we just have to find a Salumi recipe as a beta test.

 

[indaswamp]

Great looking stuff guys, i kniw this thread was started some time ago but i have some air flow questions. I have a large double door True glass door cooler. When it is in cooling mode, there is a large internal fan that is quite powerful, i havemt hooked everything up yet but im wondering if this fan will be on enough throughout the day to give me case hardening issues ? Also is the exchange of air as important as air circulation ? Pease help.

I just obtained a True double door cooler with glass doors. I have been researching online and reading a ton of info on the project. Thanks to Al, I found this youtube:

and he addresses the large fan issue in true coolers by removing the large fan and replacing it with a computer fan and a rheostat controller. Which is direction I think I will go on my build.