So....after months of research and planning for my most recent batch of Calabrian Sopressata looking up sugars in the peppers, and then creating the recipe and making the salami, the pH dropped off the charts! The numbers I used were obviously wrong. I did use some of my home grown dried red bell pepper and I know the soil those peppers grow in. It is a super fertile soil so maybe those bell peppers were on the extreme high end of sugar content. Who knows....but I have a solution I will explain that later. For now, back to the sour salami....
The pH hit 4.56 and I stopped checking after that. I was frustrated and had to wait a couple days for my creativity to come up with a solution for a save....I hate wasting food. But no way was I going to leave the sour salami in the chamber and take up valuable real estate when I have other projects waiting for space. Finally, late last night it hit me....MEXICAN CHORIZO!! So I went back and rewatched cajuneric's mexican chorizo youtube. Yep-it'll work! Perfect fit!
I went to the store early this morning and bought all the spices, dried peppers, and picked up a twin pack of boston butts. ($1.49/#...good price for not on sale). Came home and got started. So in the 5 kg. of salami I used 2.75% salt (fast ferment-less salt) so did some math and I needed to add 2 kg. extra pork to it to bring the salt down to 2%. I mixed up the spices and subtracted out the 10 grams of BP I already added to the salami, and subtracted out 10 grams of chiptole powder for the calabrian hot I added. since the salami is already sour, I only used 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar to puree the toasted dried peppers.
The peppers..
Deseeded and toasting...
The pepper puree...
I weighed out the extra meat and set that aside in the freezer to start getting cold while I uncased the salami, then added that to the meat lug. Ground that through the 6mm plate...
The spice mix..(no salt)
minced garlic...
The 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar... I also used 2 limes for the citric acid in the sausage since the salami has cure #2 in it.
The extra pork..
All ground...
I stuffed the chorizo into 1# meat bags and put them in the freezer...got 13 1# bags plus about a pound that was left in the stuffer hopper. I'll cook that either tonight or tomorrow. I did fry a little up for a test sample...this has got to be the best save I have pulled off in all my years of fooling with meats. Home run! It is really good! The extra meat tamed the acid down and it is perfect! I did not even need to hold in the fridge because the salami had already lost about 7% weight.
The pH hit 4.56 and I stopped checking after that. I was frustrated and had to wait a couple days for my creativity to come up with a solution for a save....I hate wasting food. But no way was I going to leave the sour salami in the chamber and take up valuable real estate when I have other projects waiting for space. Finally, late last night it hit me....MEXICAN CHORIZO!! So I went back and rewatched cajuneric's mexican chorizo youtube. Yep-it'll work! Perfect fit!
I went to the store early this morning and bought all the spices, dried peppers, and picked up a twin pack of boston butts. ($1.49/#...good price for not on sale). Came home and got started. So in the 5 kg. of salami I used 2.75% salt (fast ferment-less salt) so did some math and I needed to add 2 kg. extra pork to it to bring the salt down to 2%. I mixed up the spices and subtracted out the 10 grams of BP I already added to the salami, and subtracted out 10 grams of chiptole powder for the calabrian hot I added. since the salami is already sour, I only used 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar to puree the toasted dried peppers.
The peppers..
Deseeded and toasting...
The pepper puree...
I weighed out the extra meat and set that aside in the freezer to start getting cold while I uncased the salami, then added that to the meat lug. Ground that through the 6mm plate...
The spice mix..(no salt)
minced garlic...
The 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar... I also used 2 limes for the citric acid in the sausage since the salami has cure #2 in it.
The extra pork..
All ground...
I stuffed the chorizo into 1# meat bags and put them in the freezer...got 13 1# bags plus about a pound that was left in the stuffer hopper. I'll cook that either tonight or tomorrow. I did fry a little up for a test sample...this has got to be the best save I have pulled off in all my years of fooling with meats. Home run! It is really good! The extra meat tamed the acid down and it is perfect! I did not even need to hold in the fridge because the salami had already lost about 7% weight.
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