Lonza....Lonzino in improvised cellar

[Robert H]

Good day.
I made some lonzino about a month ago. So, lots of crushed juniper berries, hot pepper, garlic, nutmeg, black pepper, about 2% salt to weight and the calculated amount of cure#2. Cut the loin into thirds and removed most of silver skin. I want to build a curing chamber and have an inkbird humidity controller and waiting on the inkbird temp controller, not to mention a fridge or freezer. Anyway, I was gonna put into umai bags, but thought I would check the temp and humidity in my sump room/ crawlspace. House is a raised ranch, so not a full depth basement. Temp was 62F and humidity was 46%, so a little on dry side. I filled thre five gallon buckets with water and got the humidity up to 57%. Not ideal but better than the garage. They have been hanging for a week and still have some weight to lose but are looking and smelling pretty good. They are coated with black pepper and hot pepper. Will share some more pics when I slice open and enjoy with a nice beverage and slice of bread. I don't know why I didnt do this sooner. Oh, I do though. Covid boredom got wife and I clear out a ton of junk and the new space sparked an idea lol.

 

[indaswamp]

Put a rod over one of the buckets, drape a cloth over it and into the water. it will wick water up and giver a lot of surface area for evaporation. Get the RH% above 70 if you can...

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Like inda said and you can take a large unscented 55g plastic bag, cut the side drape around the charcuterie, tape the side up, put one of the water filled buckets below and just inside the bag, tape the bag to sides of bucket with just one side open for airflow and you will get the R/H you need.

 

[Robert H]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions. I will give that a try tonight and let you know how it reacts. I expect to have the rest of my stuff toghether for a curing chamber in the next week or two and am excited to get started on that. Inda, I was reading one of your older posts of your chamber build. Is it working well for you?

 

[BGKYSmoker]

I forgot about my fermenting barrel.
Use a ceramic reptile heater for fermenting, has a 3cfm fan on top that i can flip to blow or draw it has a screen under it to keep critters out and there are 6 screened holes around the bottom for venting. I have use a small pan of salty water for r?h

 

[indaswamp]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions. I will give that a try tonight and let you know how it reacts. I expect to have the rest of my stuff toghether for a curing chamber in the next week or two and am excited to get started on that. Inda, I was reading one of your older posts of your chamber build. Is it working well for you?

First used freezer lasted almost a year before it sprung a coolant leak. That put me in a scramble to find a replacement as I had about 60# of product in the chamber. I had to use a 16# bag of ice in a SS. tray pan on the floor of the chamber with a fan blowing directly upward to circulate air for about a week until my new unit arrived. But other than that-it worked great while it lasted. New chamber is doing good..might need to make some small changes to it, but I'll know more once I put new product in it.

 

[Robert H]

Thanks for the feedback. Great job on the ferm barrel. I did tent the lonza and the RH is at 68%, and wil keep an eye on it.One piece was hung three days before the other two and has been hanging a little over a week. it is almost at 30 percent loss already, and I know that it is too fast. It is a little case hardenned in a few spots, but I think the new rise in RH will help. I will keep an eye on it and try that piece at end of the week or possibly let it go to 40%.

 

[Robert H]

I decided to cut into the first piece of lonza that I hung. It is the piece hanging on the left side on my original post. It was about 70g under the 30% target. Firstly, it is delicious, garlicky, has a nice bite from the black and hot pepper coating, and the flavour from the juniper. The salt is spot on(to me) as I usually go at 2% to weight. So, after some suggestions to tent around the pails and meat, the rh is fairly consistent from 62 to 68%. There is more case harden on this piece than the other two as they were hung a couple or three days later and were tented longer. You can see the darker shadow on the outside of the loin. I have rehung the piece in the following pic and will go further with the drying. I don't mind a bit of crunch on the outstide, but it is just a tad softer in the middle than I would like. Thanks for the suggestions and thanks for looking. I will update again. Also, plan on doing a post on a curing chamber soon. Just ordered an inkbird temp control to go with the humidity control. Have a line on a couple of small freezers to convert.

 

[pushok2018]

Robert, the lonzino looks fantastic! I don't see any case hardening from here... As a matter of fact, I still have a few pieces of lonzino in my freezer from about two years ago.... Love them!

 

[Robert H]

Thanks, I am pretty happy with it overall. I have done in umai befor and once hanging in garage to air dry, I love this cut on a nice piece of breat, something green, a good cheese and a little olive oil. Glass of wine or a nice craft beer with is pure bliss.

 

[Robert H]

Just an update on this. I forgot to look in for a day or two, so looked in this morning , and to my surprise, had a bit of slime and some green mold spots. Sorry, I panicked and got the vinegar out to clean and rehung it. I think my little tent closed up and the humidity spiked. Looks like normal again. They are at 30percen, and I will let hang a bit longer then freeze.