- Oct 30, 2017
- 8
- 1
I used Bactoferm Mold-600 on some Lonzinos and Bresaolas without casings because I thought it would help with case hardening. I also had 1 smaller piece of loin that I just cold smoked (heavy) for 8 hours and put in my curing chamber with the rest. Well my mold-600 grew so well that they were completely covered with heavy mold in less than 2 days, and when everything was done I wished I hadn't used the mold. The ammonia flavor was too much, even if I brush it off and wipe it down it still lingers in the meat. The small piece that I smoked actually had less case hardening than the others and tasted much better. I have been making dried sausage for over 30 years and I always used heavy cold smoke and never had any mold or bad taste. I should have known better but I decided to try my luck at whole muscle curing instead of sausage. This of course meant making a curing chamber and buying fancy surface molds etc. (at least that's what everyone was saying on the internet). Since then I just dry cure and then give it a good dose of cold smoke and put it in the chamber. I do enjoy the curing chamber though (compared to just hanging in the open) so I guess some of the new technology these days does have its benefits. By the way, the smaller piece (smoked) never grew any mold even though it was right next to the others that were covered with an 1/8" of mold-600. I'm now a firm believer that enough cold smoking can protect against the bad molds and not cause much case hardening if your curing chamber is up to snuff, so no more nasty tasting surface molds for me (at least not on whole muscle without casings). I may try it again if I ever use a casing that can be pealed off later.
I searched but couldn't find much about the ammonia taste offending anyone, so I need some of you guys to let me know if you like the taste or not, and if using casings that can be removed later makes the ammonia taste in the meat less prominent.
I searched but couldn't find much about the ammonia taste offending anyone, so I need some of you guys to let me know if you like the taste or not, and if using casings that can be removed later makes the ammonia taste in the meat less prominent.