When Fermentation gives you Lemons......Make Chorizo!

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

indaswamp

Epic Pitmaster
Original poster
Staff member
Moderator
OTBS Member
Apr 27, 2017
16,417
15,575
South Louisiana-Yes, it is HOT
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..
IMG_20210320_084134.jpg


Deseeded and toasting...
IMG_20210320_111953.jpg

The pepper puree...
IMG_20210320_123811.jpg


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)
IMG_20210320_084140.jpg

minced garlic...
IMG_20210320_112502.jpg


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.
IMG_20210320_112531.jpg


The extra pork..
IMG_20210320_130406.jpg

All ground...
IMG_20210320_131514.jpg

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.
 
Last edited:
So, I've got about 15# of pork leftover from this project. I will be doing some R&D with my pepper paste to ferment 0.5kg. batches to come up with a baseline I can use to know the pH drop for future salamis. Stay tuned,,,I'll report back the results.
 
Very nice... Great save.. I would likely have gotten frustrated with my failure and tossed the whole lot.

JC :emoji_cat:
 
No failure....only a learning experience.

I will be using a lot of home grown peppers for both powder and paste so I will have to establish my own baselines for those. The internet is helpful for baselines if you are buying pre made powders and pastes though.

You been making any more salamis lately?
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky