I am going to be making pork rillettes for Christmas and New Years. I am curious how far in advance I can make it and what is the best way to store it? Bruce Aidell’s recipe says to use a quart terrine to put the finished product in however I am currently lacking one of those. Any advice or insight is highly appreciated.
Pictures of the fuzzy mold on my lonzas http://ift.tt/2zzSLtk
tldr - Can't seem to control the mold on lonza, should I wait to put my pancettas in the fridge until I can get the mold under control? And how to control it?
Here are all the details I can think of for my situation. So I bought a kinda gross used fridge, hosed it down inside and out, cleaned it inside and out with dish soap, and then wiped it down with lysol wipes. I prepped and cured the lonzas according to the recipe, and hung them up after curing. My humidity controller was set for 78%, but the humidity would rise up to 82-84% after a couple of hours, and it wouldn't drop (unless it was really cold outside and the little heat lamp would turn on, then the humidity seemed to go down a bit). I finally noticed that the freezer portion of the fridge had condensed water drops in it. I think that when I hosed down the refrigerator, some water got into the cracks and crevices of the part that separates the fridge and the freezer. I dried the freezer, and decided to leave the freezer open overnight and see what happens. The humidity of the fridge in the morning was 76%, which seems pretty good, but the mold on my lonza just keeps coming. The mold started occurring 3 days ago. I wiped it down with white vinegar at night, and when I checked it the following night, more mold was back. So each night these past 3 nights I have wiped them down with vinegar. This morning I decided to check it, and the mold was back. I wiped it down this morning, but I don't really know what to do at this point.
Structured Timeline:
Nov. 13th: Hung lonzas after their cure.
Nov 14th-19th: Humidity would creep to the low 80s even though humidifier controller would stop humidifier at 76%.
Nov 20th: Didn't check on the lonza for 2 days, and on the 20th, they were growing some fuzzy white (and a teensy bit of green bits) of mold. Wiped with vinegar in the evening when I found it. Completely unplugged humidifier (even though I trust the controller was turning it off).
Nov 21st: Wiped with vinegar in the evening.
Nov 22nd: Wiped with vinegar in the evening, and found the water in the freezer. I have left the freezer door open since then.
Nov 23rd: Humidity was lower than 80% finally (around 75%) but the mold was back. Wiped it in the evening.
Nov. 24th: Humidity was 75% in the morning, mold was back in the morning. Wiped it in the morning.
I have a dehumidifier being shipped right now, should I use it to drop the humidity down even more (below 75-ish)? Should I clean my fridge again in hopes of removing mold? If so, should I just spray with down with bleach? I have 3 pancettas that are just about finished curing that I wanna hang...but not if they are just gonna get fuzzy moldy too.
Any advice/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced.
Pictures of the fuzzy mold on my lonzas http://ift.tt/2zzSLtk
tldr - Can't seem to control the mold on lonza, should I wait to put my pancettas in the fridge until I can get the mold under control? And how to control it?
Here are all the details I can think of for my situation. So I bought a kinda gross used fridge, hosed it down inside and out, cleaned it inside and out with dish soap, and then wiped it down with lysol wipes. I prepped and cured the lonzas according to the recipe, and hung them up after curing. My humidity controller was set for 78%, but the humidity would rise up to 82-84% after a couple of hours, and it wouldn't drop (unless it was really cold outside and the little heat lamp would turn on, then the humidity seemed to go down a bit). I finally noticed that the freezer portion of the fridge had condensed water drops in it. I think that when I hosed down the refrigerator, some water got into the cracks and crevices of the part that separates the fridge and the freezer. I dried the freezer, and decided to leave the freezer open overnight and see what happens. The humidity of the fridge in the morning was 76%, which seems pretty good, but the mold on my lonza just keeps coming. The mold started occurring 3 days ago. I wiped it down with white vinegar at night, and when I checked it the following night, more mold was back. So each night these past 3 nights I have wiped them down with vinegar. This morning I decided to check it, and the mold was back. I wiped it down this morning, but I don't really know what to do at this point.
Structured Timeline:
Nov. 13th: Hung lonzas after their cure.
Nov 14th-19th: Humidity would creep to the low 80s even though humidifier controller would stop humidifier at 76%.
Nov 20th: Didn't check on the lonza for 2 days, and on the 20th, they were growing some fuzzy white (and a teensy bit of green bits) of mold. Wiped with vinegar in the evening when I found it. Completely unplugged humidifier (even though I trust the controller was turning it off).
Nov 21st: Wiped with vinegar in the evening.
Nov 22nd: Wiped with vinegar in the evening, and found the water in the freezer. I have left the freezer door open since then.
Nov 23rd: Humidity was lower than 80% finally (around 75%) but the mold was back. Wiped it in the evening.
Nov. 24th: Humidity was 75% in the morning, mold was back in the morning. Wiped it in the morning.
I have a dehumidifier being shipped right now, should I use it to drop the humidity down even more (below 75-ish)? Should I clean my fridge again in hopes of removing mold? If so, should I just spray with down with bleach? I have 3 pancettas that are just about finished curing that I wanna hang...but not if they are just gonna get fuzzy moldy too.
Any advice/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced.
I don't have a refrigerator or anything available. Anyone try hanging it out a windowsill during the fall and winter months?
Hey all, I know these are frowned upon without searching, but I couldn't find anything on it with the search bar. I'm assuming it's because my understanding of electrical is thin. All of the temperature controllers I see recommended are 110v, but refrigerators I look at are all 115v. Is this an issue?
I just made my first beef charcuterie (3/4 lb of beef top round) cut into four pieces each with different seasonings. It has reached it's goal weight. Should I leave it in the refrigerator or how should I store it?
Hi, as title says the reefer unit I use for dry curing broke down at some point today. I have easily $2000 worth of meat curing, most of it has been hanging 4-5 weeks. I have a tech coming in the morning to look at the fridge, but I'm not sure what the best thing is to do with the meat overnight. I could move it all into a refrigerator, but I'm probably more concerned about humidity and not getting case hardening than I am with temperature. Right now ambient temp is 74F, will dip down to mid-upper 60s overnight. Advice please!
When I was at the store the other day I just perused through the fridge section and didn't notice any that said "frost free". What makes a fridge frost-free so I know what to look for?
My understanding of wine fridges is that they're a little nicer because the temperature range it works at is already at curing temperatures, so you don't need a temperature controller. Is that right? What's the advantage of a wine fridge over a regular refrigerator?
On a different thread, it was mentioned that wine fridges are very limited in space, and so you're left to cure only small pieces. Is that about right? By far my biggest motivation to start curing is to replicate commercial hard salami, which I love on sandwiches but is so expensive to buy--so I guess I'd need a large chamber, right?
I saw a fridge at the store yesterday that had a lot of open space and a freezer at the top. I also could use a second freezer. Isn't it possible to leave the freezer section as-is and use the bottom as the curing chamber?
I lean slightly toward just buying a fridge because I'd need to rent a truck to get a Craigslist one, which would lose a lot of the cost savings of buying used.
This is general, but I'm curious if some of you had this thought before getting into this: I could eat salami sandwiches every day of my life and I enjoy fiddling with food. However I don't exactly get much company, so there isn't any real call for me to be making cheese/salumi boards. I have some feeling like this would be a greater expense (I already have the grinder and stuffer, though) than the value I get out of the hobby. I wonder if a curing chamber will mostly just be a Christmas present machine and that I won't get much personal value out of it.
I'm kinda new to this whole meat curing thing. I have tons of cooks and am about ready to jump all in. The Sausage Maker offers a dry-curing cabinet that appears to control the temperature and humidity really well. He temperature range is 41-90 degrees F and humidity range is 40-90%. Is this adequate? I keep my personal refrigerator at 35 degrees F. Does anyone see a potential problem with only going down to 40 degrees F?
Ok I need some advice. I just got a small refrigerator to use as a curing chamber and the owner of the restaurant I work at has agreed to fund my curing chamber project. I already found this inkbird combo humidity/ temp controller all wired up and ready to go. I also found a ultrasonic humidifier. My question to you is while she has her credit card out and ready (as this may be my only chance) what else do I need? I know I need some type of fan, I've heard of people using computer fans??
First of all, I apologize in advance if I sound ignorant here, I am just starting to look into how all of this works.
My family and I are looking into using some of our pigs to create products such as Coppa, Pancetta, Guanciale and several others. I have seen several great DIY aging situations involving frost-free refrigerators. The only problem I see here is that we would be butchering a pig that is around 200lbs and using as much of it as we could for aging.
In my mind this means we need a larger area. I am picturing about 8x8 feet.
We live in the mountains in Colorado. I believe that a cellar would hold around 60 degrees Fahrenheit and around 70% humidity for most of the year, just not in the winter.
So my main question is, is a cellar the correct solution? Possibly with temperature and humidity control for the times of year when we need it, or is there a better solution?
Thanks!
I've been reading up and preparing to do my own homemade charcuterie. At the same time I got a Umai Dry Salumi bag as a gift. What are the primary differences between the real thing and these bags? From what I can tell its that you cure them in a regular refrigerator at a much colder temp.
I have four cured duck breasts hanging in my refrigerator. Recipe calls for them to hang 7 to 10 days. If they hang an extra week will they get too jerky-like? If I take them down should I freeze them or put them in plastic bags? They are currently wrapped in cheesecloth. I am using Tony Maws' youtube recipe.
(Weight of meat and water determines pink salt quantity)
these are the ones i bought specifically
I wanted to make some coppa, but all I have is the spare fridge. Can a coppa be cured at 36 to 38 degrees?
I've thought a lot about this and taken many measurements and realized that due to various sizing reasons getting even a small fridge into my basement would be excruciatingly difficult. Narrow doors, cabinets too close to the basement door, and several awkward 90 degree turns make it so that it wouldn't be impossible, but it's way more work than I can commit to.
It occurs to me that what I can do is build a chamber taking things down a piece at a time.
My current rough idea is a full height chamber, probably 3 feet deep, eight foot wide. A door on the front that's reasonably sealed. I want to line the inside with showerboard and seal seams with food grade silicone caulk.
For those not familiar with shower board, sometimes called tile board or marker board, it's a 4x8 sheet of 1/8" thick hardboard coated in a thick, white glossy resin on one side.
It's intended to be used in a shower environment, so it's fully waterproof and the surface looks like a white board. People actually buy it and use it for that it works perfectly with white board markers. Based on everything I know about it and how I'm thinking of using it I should not have any problems associated with runaway mold blooms any more than if it were lined with plastic or metal.
So here's the questions I can't answer.
I am considering using a small window AC or similar to cool it, though in my basement I don't think it will run very often. I'll do the same small humidifier that others use, and high quality temp/humidity controls.
I have one question in two parts.
I see people building fridges out and adding air circulation. Others are doing it without. What are the best practices around circulating air through the chamber. I've got enough electronics skills that a small computer style fan could gently circulate the whole time or be on a timer. Venting in from the outside, as I've seen, seems a bad idea but I don't know.
The problem with using an AC unit is that it's a blower. It's very definitely going to blow in cold air at a pretty decent rate. If the air flow above is a bad idea this seems to be a really bad idea.
I've read all about the coolbot, but nearly $800 for the unit and the AC seems way overkill for this.
I also thought about a small dorm fridge with the door removed and the opening connected to the wall of the chamber. I know I've seen the homebrewers use this model for cold fermenting chambers.
Any suggestions are welcome. I've read every post in this sub and googled every possible combination of terms I could find.
So I'm looking at building my own curing chamber and I have all of the parts except for the fan. My questions are;
Do you need an external air source for the fan to move fresh air around, or is the fan meant to just keep the air that's already in the chamber moving around? If you're using the fan to push air from outside of the refrigerator into it, how are you keeping foreign debris from entering the fridge (think dust, or anything like that)?
It would be great if you could include pictures of your set up.
Thanks everyone
Can I use the wine refrigrator for curing lonza? I find that most of them can provide the constant temp. and humidity needed, but how strong the air movement is needed though?
