After a long 4+ months drying in the curing chamber, the salame Gentile is finally ready.
It took over 4 months for it to lose 40% of its weight; it’s still quite soft, as Gentile should be.
It’s normally hard to achieve such a long drying time with salami because they would tend to be way too hard by the end of 3-4 months unless they're huge in diameter. This one isn't that big in diameter and the reason it was possible this salame so long is because it was stuffed in a hog bung. The bung is a good 2-3mm thick with tremendous amount of fat in it which slows the drying considerably, making the wait for a first tasty nearly unbearable.
It's finally done, so let's eat!
 | Here is the Gentile cut. The bind is great. It has a nice amount of well distributed fat and it has nice definition between the fat and the meat. |
 | Closeup of the salame. You can see the thick casing around the slices and the main piece. |
 | I’m really pleased with the flavor. It’s nicely salted and extremely flavorful from the long aging. It’s quite soft which is a nice change from the very dry Mugnano. I think it might have just a little too much fat. Next time i'll use slightly less. Maybe 15% less or so. |
24 comments:
Looks insane - I have been waiting to see this monster ...
I dare you to eat that in one sitting haha-
looks great Jason ...
keep up the great work ...
wow. absolutely stunning. Love your fat definition here. I have recently been using 20% fat ratio in my salami, but might actually cut it down to 15% too.. especially when I hand cut it.
Eating this in one sitting would be a nice stomach ache for sure.
Matt, i'm thinking 15% less than what i used, not 15% total
hi jason, great looking salame. i have a question about your mold spray. once it is mixed, how do you store it and how long will it keep. thanks
This one is a winner.........I know, I tried it!
Mike, I've kept my mold spray in my chamber for a couple months.
Thanks Scott.
Mike, i haven't kept mine as long as Scott, but i have frozen it between uses and used it after defrosting and it worked...only used it twice.
Hi
I am Kenth from Sweden. I am follow your blog and realy like it. Actually i am building curing cambers that realy good. Temp +- 1'C and humidity about +- 2%Rh. My thinking is that i shall help people build, cheap and secure. I have started a blog korvoteknik.blogspot.com (sausage and technologie.blogspot.com) It s new blog so i haven't writing anyting. it is unfortunately in Swedish!
thanks Kenth! I'll take a look at your blog, even though i don't speak Swedish...maybe google translate can help me!
Google translate is sometimes good and sometimes bad. I am using it on polish sites, sausagesites.
Very nice as usual. Question about the casing in this recipe. Considering how thick it is, is it edible or do you peel it off?
Edible = won't hurt you. Then yes, it's edible. Might be pretty tough though.
I peel off all my casings before eating.
I'm licking my monitor. That's just truly gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.
Jason-
What determines which type of starter culture you use? In browsing your recipes you seem to use FL-C exclusively (?) while Ruhlman recommends F-RM-52. Have you experimented with the different cultures? Does it matter? In reading the descriptions of these two cultures on the Butcher and Packer site I truthfully can't tell what the difference is.
Thanks as always,
Brian
Different cultures use difference microbes suited to ferment optimally at different temperatures, and yielding different flavors and levels of sourness.
I don't like F-RM-52. it was too sour for me. It make a US style salame, which is very sour.
Looks so scrumptious. I really wanted to taste some meat that are prepared or made in a different way. I wonder how it tastes?
That looks amazing , I have been eating something called biltong all my life . I have eaten salame but none of it has been good - until i went to Italy and fell in love with them.
thanks sebastian
Jason - wow, looks great. And thanks for always linking back to stuff like your curing chamber, the type of salame that you're curing, other recipes, etc - makes it nice when I hit something thats interesting to be able to click around for more information without having to look back through old posts - the sign of a very thoughtful blogger.
thanks!
tim
thanks tim. Glad you enjoy the blog.
Jason-
For the green weight do you use the initial weight of the salami right after you make it or do you use the weight after the fermenting box just going into curing chamber? I did not think the two weights would be that different since it is a 24-48 hour difference but I just made a sopressatta: it weighed 2213 grams after the ferment chamber but the sum weight of the recipe ingredients is 2456 grams so it lost about 10% of its weight in 36 hours in the ferment box. I was a bit surprised by this. What are your thoughts/approach.
-BC
I use the weight after stuffing. I don't even weigh my stuff after fermentation. I know they lose a little weight, but not much.
Maybe you happened to have a fair amount of water in your casing or your meat was wetter then normal...
Jason-
Have you cut into a salami that has achieved targeted weight loss and found it is still too wet? I have and I assume my problem is the humidity is too low and I am getting uneven drying. Do you see a problem with putting the salami back in the curing chamber to dry further even though it has been cut? Or would it be better to put it in my fridge uncovered to achieve additional drying? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
-Brian
Brian, i haven't run into that. Is it wet or does it look raw? If it looks raw it's possible the meat did not sufficiently acidify/ferment, making it harder for it to lose moisture. If that's the case, i don't thikn it'll even be ok.
If it's case hardened and the outer edge is dry the the inner is not, you can try vacuum packing the whole thing and letting it equilibrate in the fridge. That can save it sometimes.
Thanks Jason. I think it is the latter as there is an outer ring that does appear to have dried while the inside is still "wet." It's not tacky but just too soft and when I slice it I can see some smearing on the slicer. It tastes fine (actually quite good), but the texture is not quite right. I may put a small bit of it back in the curing chamber and see what happens and vacuum seal and refrigerate the rest.
Thanks again.
Brian
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