Friday, August 17, 2007

I'm back and it's time to start experimenting

Back from my nice vacation back home in Italy, done with my MBA and actually have free time on weekends! Time to start experimenting and making some cured meats.
I need to stock up on some supplies from Butcher Packer, some starter cultures, and some casings. I already have a whole slew of experiments lined up to investigate the differences in a few variables when making salame.


First experiment will be the flavor differences for different starter cultures used in the salame making process. There are 4 or 5 different ones available, I have used 2. My plan is to get 2 more, and make a batch of very simple salame and cure them side by side, keeping everything the same other than the starter culture. Taste them and decide if there are flavor differences, and which I prefer.

The 2nd experiment I want to run is using some farmer raised pastured Berkshire pork versus a standard industrially raised pig, and see if there are flavor differences when the meat is cured as salame or as other cured meats. This one will be interesting.

So, hopefully over the next couple of week i'll be able get get my supplies in and start my experiments. Hope you'll follow along.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I was wondering what the results were... I have being doing some Bulgarian dry cured sausage, aka "lukanka" that traditionally does not call for starting cultures, but I want to be safe as well get some more flavor. I have tried T-SPX and F-LC, and on last batch I used B-LC-007. Out of the first two I definitely prefer F-LC. B-LC-007 salami is still in the chamber. What is your experience with starting cultures in traditional South European salami?
I will appreciate your feedback. Thanks!

Jasonmolinari said...

I like T-SPX and BLC-007. the BLC i just used for hte first time recently and i love it.