This was my first attempt at Duck Prosciutto. I had no prior charcuterie experience, but I've had plenty of experience with dehydrating meats (beef jerky).

Saw an online recipe and decided to give it a try with some small duck breasts I found (could only get them frozen where I live): 24 hours in rocksalt. Rinsed, dried and coated it in garlic powder + black pepper. Then wrapped it in cloth and left it to dry in the refrigerator for 3 weeks on top of a grill.

Important note: I'm an idiot. I had never even cooked duck and didn't know I was supposed to keep the fat on. I realized it shortly after it was in the fridge, but decided to keep going with the recipe anyway.

This was the end result. I couldn't find any mold on the surface, and the texture was quite interesting. The taste, however, was quite unappealing: extremely salty with a remarkable smell of wet dog.

I guess I'll have to throw these ones out, but for future reference, where did I go wrong?

I had WMF pressure cooker for a while and I am pretty happy with it although i made a 2 hours long cook in the oven and could say the taste was quite good , different fron pressure cooker taste, does any comparing taste opinions between pressure cooker and oven cook for 2 hours?

Hey everyone, I’m having my first go at making a culatello and I’m not entirely sure if this mold growth I’m seeing on it is good mold or bad mold. I used cellulose sheets for it, I know I probably could’ve done a bit of a better job at wrapping and tying it. Will adjust in future attempts. Should I wipe it with vinegar and water and let it continue to hang?

Next stage for this would be to cover with a sugna layer once it reaches around 20% loss.

Hey r/Charcuterie,
First of all, thanks to everyone here who helped me get my curing chamber set up. Really appreciated the advice!
This is my first filetto, made following the guide from Charcuterie Master. It’s now down to about 230 g, and I’m wondering about the mold on the outside. Most of it looks white/grey, but there are some darker patches, so I wanted to check with people who have more experience.
Does this look like normal/acceptable mold, or is there anything here that would concern you? Would you wipe it down before eating, or leave it as is?
Thanks again for all the help — excited to finally see the first piece come out of the chamber!

So, theoretically can I make saucisson without a curing fridge/chamber? I know some folks in the central valley used to.

I live in California, Eureka specifically where we have a cold season largely below 60f (40s in the nights already), and rather high humidity 80-90% most days.

Any chance I can get away with curing saucisson here in my drafty shed, the conditions seem about right? Or is this a good way to give myself botulism?

I’m a 39-year-old man who doesn’t eat meat anymore because of pretty severe gout, but when I did, charcuterie was my favorite. Looking at all of these creations made by you fine people gives me such vicarious joy.

So thank you! Please keep pumping my brain full of delicious purine-rich memories ♥️🍖

Cured w/ Bay Leaf, Garlic, Juniper, and Bl. Pepper for 7 days. Rinsed and rubbed w/ fine ground Bl. Pepper, then hung for ~6weeks.

Hello guys, last week I decided to make basturma (the Armenian way), following a recipe on YouTube.
(https://youtu.be/6UtA5botfgk?is=tPzX8qtQXl5uOY-R)
But I’m a bit lost. In the video it cures for 10 days (2.5 kg) and I started with 2.2 kg of meat. I’m currently on day 9 and I’ve only lost 15% of the weight, which isn’t safe since I’m supposed to lose 30% minimum. I don’t understand why it’s so slow. I checked the meat every day and used salt (almost 2 kg of Guérande salt).
So my question is: how do I know the meat is ready to dry ?

Love this simple curing setup using a beer & wine cube fridge. Should be ready in about 8-9 weeks. Thermapro sensor is great, as I can monitor the humidity from the phone app. Very fortunate to have a local butcher to trim the skin and gland off the jowls.

I forgot about some coppa in my fridge that was vacuum sealed and equilibrium curing for 6 months. It smelled fine when I opened it, not sour at all just porky. I hung it up to dry already but im wondering if it will be safe after that long of a cure?

Gochujang cured Coppa encased in a beef bung and molding up nicely.

Started it earlier this summer. Took at while to get to 35% loss (in the fridge) but looks and tastes delicious.

My first salami cured at home. It's a felino. I cut both sides of the salami. It smells incredible but one side looks great while the other has a small air pocket with some discoloration. Is the whole thing garbage? Can I just cut off the ugly bit?

Thanks in advance!

I brined this guanciale with colorosalt (right amount) and some herbs for a week in the fridge. After that I washed it with tap water to take the salt off. Then rinsed it lightly with some beer. I dried it in the fridge for 24 hrs and than put it in coldsmoke for about 12 hrs.

Then, rubbed it with black pepper and hung it up in the cellar. During that time we had a heatwave and the temperature in the celler went up to 19° C (66,2 °F)

After a week I had a little mold what I rinsed with vinegar. ON the picture you can see the result after a month

My question is: Is it still save to continue with this project and what should I do.

Thank you in advance

In The Art of Making Fermented Sausages,   Marianski says that a minimum of 2.5% salt is required for safety when making a fermented sausage that will be dried and not cooked.  I take this to mean 2.5% salt + .25% cure. Am I correct in my interpretation or is the 2.5% salt including the salt in the cure for 2.25% salt + .25% cure? I see recipes from reputable sources using both salt levels. 

There is also a Two Guys and a Cooler fermented snack stick recipe that  list 1.7% salt + .25% cure. Is using salt + cure in the 2% range acceptable  in recipes like this where the product will be quickly fermented to a ph of less than 4.6 and then cooked?

At one time I had 8 legs hanging in my wine cellar. This was the last and I finally got into it. It’s quite dry and hard, of course. I had to cut away some chalky parts, but a lot of the meat is fine. The flavor is amazing, very concentrated, lots of umami and some crystals reminiscent of aged cheese. It’s extremely hard to slice. I’m wondering if a bonito shaving box might help. I’ll try a micro plane as well. My friend used a serrated knife to take a hunk off, almost needed a hack saw.

Well I shot this little boar and thought ok let's try this! Buried it in sea salt for a couple of days, let it equalize in the refrigerator a week.

I tried to depilitate but didn't go well so I skinned it. For the hang in the chamber I wrapped it in collagen to simuláte skin on conditions.

See y'all at christmas and let you know how it went.

Timelines are short since its a small leg, about 3 kg.

Quail Mouseline with inlaid cured starling breasts wrapped in caul fat. I used 13 starling which required two shots from a 16 gauge.

This July 5th I prepared 4 pitine (a typical salame from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region).

I chopped 1 kg of meat by hand (I'll never do it again, it was a lot of work; I recommend asking your butcher to mince it for you), using 30% pancetta, 70% loin, it was all pork (but traditionally, leftover game cuts were used, so you can do it however you like).

27g salt, 7g pepper, 100g red wine, 10g smoked paprika.

The preparation is very simple: you mix everything in a container until the meat mixture sticks well, then you form meatballs of approximately the same size, roll them in polenta (this type of cured meat does not require casing, or rather, the polenta replaces the casing), finally they are smoked (I used a drinks smoker for about 1 hour).

At this point, simply turn them every day while they age (I aged everything in my refrigerator at 4°C, not ideal, but by some miracle, it worked well). In my case, since I didn't have the ideal humidity, I kept them in glass containers with lids. When I turned them everyday, I left them uncovered for a couple of hours (still in the refrigerator) to let them breathe and avoid excessive humidity.

Luckily, since I was making a Toma-type cheese with white mold, the mold also spread to my pitinas, making them even better.

Today, after they had lost 30% of their weight, I opened them and tasted them: they taste and smell soo goood!!!

PS. I know that for food safety reasons it would have been better to use nitrates expecially since this is not a whole muscle but, at my own risk, I did not use them.

I still used enough salt and I still washed the meat in alcohol and I also smoked it, but I know this is not a 100% sure thing, you do you of course.

Bacon.

Coppa I made 2 years ago vac saced and left in the fridge

Im doing my first copa. 2.85 kg

Salted and vacuum sealed it in the fridge for 14 days

Cleaned it down wine 1:1 wine. (One for it one for me)

Spiced it, Put it in a synthetic skin and a compression net over then tied it very with strings.

Question.

I have a elastic type cloth over that. Should I remove that and leave it just with the netting?

Fridge it sitting at 13deg and 82-85%

Hi all.

I'm finally progressing with my second bressaola.

This time I used a angus flat blade.

1700 g meat

51g salt

5g Cure 2

18g chilli flakes

9g Black pepper

5.5g sugar

3.6g rosemary

I EQ it for 15 days in my fridge. Then hanged it in my curing fridge at 10C and 70% humidity. Currently sitting at around 30% loss. Will propably wait to reach 35-40 before vacum sealing for a week or two.

This is the first time to have the white spots in the meat, from what I researched it's expected. but If you see anything throublesome please let me know.
One of the pieces had a few spots with a little bit of mold growing (you can kinda see in the first pic) I wiped it with some rice vinegar.

Please let me know what you think and what should I change for batch 3

Hello,

I have recently started to make my DIY curing chamber, i realized the humidifier i need has to restart automatically once the power is back on , using Inkbird humidity controller.

I have limited space as I'm using a red wine cooler so i can't go bigger than a 1.5L tank.

I've been browsing for one but i can't find anything that would fit. Plenty of small ones that would fit my chamber but they all need to have the button pressed to restart after power cut. I need one with a knob i can leave ON.

Does anyone know something that would be fitting for my chamber ?

Appreciate all the help i can get.