Summer Salami Production - Farmer's, Venison 2 ways and attempt #2 for Curry

[Mmmm Meat]

Here's a few of my new babies I made this spring and summer.

The first of these I started in early May. I had quite a bit of Blacktail Deer backstrap on hand. It's not my favorite table fare because it is often very high in iron content making it taste like liver. I decided to make a batch of salami using only venison backstrap with pork backfat The meat is almost purple in color which carries through to the final product. This first effort took two months to cure to 40% weight loss. The taste is absolutely fantastic and completely different from pork based salami. It has a very deep somehow woodsy flavor that is indescribable, but so damn good. This could easily become my favorite salami.

 

[Mmmm Meat]

Next up - I had a lot of pork and fat in the freezer - stuff I'd bought on sale and just put away till I had time to do something with it. This next batch, I just wanted to do a basic salami that would allow me to play with the grind on the fat. I found a recipe online for a Farmer's Basic Salami, or something like that. I used 75% lean, 25% fat. I used a 10 mm plate to grind the fat which resulted in some massive fat inclusions in the grind. This recipe used garlic and onion powder, liquid smoke, black and white peppers, ground nutmeg and red wine. The final product tastes very good. Nothing crazy about it. Just a nice average tasting salami. From the pictures, you'd guess the fat content was way higher than 25%. I myself had to check back on my notes to verify that was true.

 

[Mmmm Meat]

Onward. July first: Once I got a taste of the Blacktail Backstrap salami, I decided to play with the recipe a bit by cutting down on the venison (I was almost out). In this recipe, I used 594 g of vension backstrap and 949 g of lean pork. For spices, I used the Fuet Salami recipe from the Marianski book. The final mix used 26% pork backfat all of it with - grinding fat and meat separately through a 6 mm plate, fat first then the lean. Fat went back into the fridge while I mixed the lean and spices/starter with the Kitchenaid stand mixer, then the fat was added once the mix was starting to get sticky. A few more minutes of mixing incorporated the fat in very well.

I stuffed collagen casings and fermented for 24 hours at 75 degrees (the house stays pretty warm in the summer, warmer than I'd like for fermenting sausages). I smoked them overnight for 9.5 hours at 68 degrees ambient starting temp which dropped to 60 degress by morning. I finished the ferment at 44 hours post stuffing, pH 5.02.

I weighed these chubs today. They were at 38% weight loss, and though my target was 42% loss, the chubs seemed very firm to squeezing. I decided to pull the smallest out and give it a try. Though not nearly as flavorful as the pure venison salami from last spring, the smoke combined with the spices and meats produced a wonderful full flavored meat. Somewhat similar to Pepperoni sticks available commercially, but without the heat. 38% is certainly adequate moisture loss for this one, though I will let the rest of them hang to 40% and 42% so that I can compare the three levels of dryness.

Lastly, also shown in the pictures is the smallest of three chubs from my second attempt at a curry salami. I started this one on the first of August, and though I'm a couple days short of four weeks, the 50 mm beef middle casing allowed this mix to dry a bit faster. This chub was only at 32% weight loss today, but like the venison chubs, it seemed very firm for the short period of time that it had been curing. I was curious how this one was going to taste. I'd used tomato powder, coriander, hot madras curry powder, cumin, ginger, black pepper and garlic powder - pretty much everything I use to make curries for dinner.

The tomato powder addition reduced the starting pH to 5.41 after mixing. 40 hours ferment at 78 degrees dropped the pH to 4.66 - Wow did that drop fast. Anyways, this one needs a few more weeks in the chamber. The taste is a bit disappointing. The curry flavor didn't carry through nearly as well on this second attempt. The rest of the seasonings are a bit muddled as well. Not a great result, Not horrible. It will go well with a beer though, and that's what really counts.

Venison/pork mix

and the curry salami.....

 

[zippy12]

Well done Sir!

 

[Wurstmeister]

They all look outstanding! Thank for taking the time to provide good pictures and an informative narrative.
John

 

[BGKYSmoker]

Very nice.

Soon i will be able to get back to dry salami

 

[Mmmm Meat]

Thanks guys. If you were here, I'd cut one up and we could enjoy it over a cold brew.