Making soppressata issues

[wagsdmb1]

Looking for some thoughts on what is going wrong with making of my soppressata.

Made on & off for years with another family using their equipment. Purchased & inherited all necessary equipment and began making it in my own shop and have had no luck with the product curing properly.

Have lost 90% or more the last 3 years. NOTHING HAS CHANGED EXCEPT LOCATION… Same recipe, made in same batch size, meat pruchased from the same butchers shop. Hang for curing in the same area, casings and spices purchased from the same vendor. I cannot figure it out…

I have reviewed every aspect of machines used, product, meat, spices etc. etc. I cant find anything that would make a difference.

I just don’t feel I could have gotten bad meat 3 years in a row.

The only things I can find that are different are is that I do not have the dementions of the GRINDER PLATE (course vs fine ground) OR
STUFFING TUBES we used with the other family years ago & I also have a horizontal stuffer where we used a vertical stuffer in the past.

Does anyone feel either of these changes could be an issue??? I cannot… But looking for thoughts…

Any advice about this would be greatly appreciated…!!!

[John Belvedere]

What starter culture are you using? After fermentation are you reading the PH, if you are what are you checking the PH with? The PH should be below 5.2 after the fermentation step. What humidity and temp are you drying at? What type of casings are you using? Did you have mold growth on the casings during the drying step? Is the end product crumbly, dry on the outside but still wet on the inside? What percentage did you dry the end product to? We need more specifics before helping with your issue. Pictures and procedures would help.

[wagsdmb1]

John, Thank you for replying to my question. Been working & have had no time to reply…

To get right to the point the only question I can answer that you posed in your reply post is we always use collagen casings (non-edible) purchased through Waltons or L*m… Have had quality product turn out from both. And Yes, you called it… most everything turned out wet & mushy on the inside… outside was firm and cured properly but inside pocketed and was wet.

I honestly have made or been involved with the making 10’s of thousands of perfect sticks over the last 30+ years and never used a starter culture, checked a PH, monitored temp/humidity or used a growth mold.

I must assume you utilize a much more scientific approach to your process & I’m sure you can teach me many things if you are willing.

So as you asked I will give you a synapsis of my complete procedure to see if you can offer any expertise.

*Weigh out pork to batch size…

*Trim pork of bad fat & blood clots, cartilage etc

*Cube meat for grinding

*Grind meat

*Meat goes in mixed with all spices

*Once mixed, put in stuffing tube and stuffed into 12 or 18 inch collagen cases (sticks weigh b/t 2 & 3 pounds after curing) as mentioned above & tied

*Stick is thoroughly pricked to release air pockets etc

*Sticks are hung from rafters in cold garage with fan running for 80-90 days (checked on about every 3 weeks & location of sticks moved around as certain areas have better/worse air flow or may be warmer/colder than others)

This method has produced thousands & thousands of pounds of quality product over the decades using dozens of different recipes etc. for people that make it locally.

Normally if we make 200 sticks we will lose 6 or 8 but normally to mice or squirrels clever enough to get into the loft. Never ever like the last few years.

If you can add some insight to my issues (once you stop giggling from our hill-billy method of making my grandfather recipe) please reply…

Thank You in advance

[wagsdmb1]

Ohhh, also the temp in the loft is normally in the high 30’s… we insure the first 2 weeks or so the temp does not get too cold to allow the meat to freeze…

And also the one step should read (Meat goes in mixer & spices are added then mixed thoroughly…NOT MEAT GOES IN MIXED

[Dave in AZ]

wagsdmb1
Good description of process!
It sounds like your sticks got overdried early on, and you got some case hardening. This is where the outside layer dries enough it no longer allows osmosis of the inside moisture to pass through. So outside dries, inside remains soft and mushy. Because of this, there is also an increased risk of bad bacteria getting started in there and ruining salami over time.

You said in post#1 that “nothing has changed except location”. But then you said you are “hang for curing in the same area”… that is confusing and one of those two statements has to be false…

This is one of the risks of drying with local ambient air, using whatever nature sends your way for those critical first 3 or 4 weeks. Of course it works fine in certain areas of the world with steady temps and humidity, like Italy and Spain. And like it sounds your house is in. Or actually, WAS IN. Now it sounds like you’ve changed location, either new geographical area or a new house or a new drying room… I would say that if one of those 3 changed, then your drying area is no longer in the randomly lucky “sweet spot”, and that’s your problem.
Relying on mother nature to be consistent means you for sure will have a year where it doesn’t work out, even if you stayed in same perfect drying location.

To give you some numbers to relate to, in a controlled humidity environment normally 80 to 85% humidity is targeted at start. And 50 to 55 degrees f. This heat keeps meat safe from pathogen bacteria, if the pH is the “required” 5.3 or below. But it is warm enough to give good rapid drying. However, it the humidity drops to even 65 to 70% in the 1st 2 weeks, the meat can dry too rapidly and develop the harder outer layer case hardening, not allowing inside to dry. During later weeks, as meat dries out, lower humidity like 75% can be used. Commercial ops use an optimized temperature and Relative Humidity schedule to ensure rapid drying but without risk of overdrying the outside. At lower temperatures it is exacerbated, as moisture moves much slower from inside to out, letting the exposed case to get overdried more easily.

So those are so some rough numbers. Now, if youbhappened to have 2 or 3 weeks of drier than normal humidity when you started, you could easily develop case hardening in an uncontrolled environment. You wouldn’t even necessarily know, it would just look like nice dry weather, unless you had a few instruments to check air mass humidity. Additionally, colder than normal air wrings moisture out, so is usually drier (think of the water dripping from airconditioners or refrigerator). If you live downrange of someplace that had cold air and dumped a lot of snow or rain, when the airmass reaches you it could be 15 to 50% RH easily. Two weeks of that would cause your symptoms.

So… did you or areas up-weather of you have colder wx, more snow or rain, or hotter drier weather than normal during your drying?

It’s just a risk that WILL happen if using atmospheric drying. Just like farmers losing a crop to no rain or floods. Which is why folks whose livelihoods rely on a successful run, use a controlled environment. Not 100% necessary, just helps reduce risk of ruined product. Only you can decide where you live on that risk vs. Cost and effort spectrum.

However, even still doing things the way you do, there are several things you could do to minimize risk and help control the drying environment.

1. Get a hygrometer to measure humidity. They sell cheap and are combined with temperature sensors too. I have one for $20 that sits in my drying chamber and wirelessly sends readings to my phone, where I can look at a graph of temp and humidity for last day or months. It has an alarm if it gets too dry or hot. Size of a hickey puck, batteries, $20.
2. It’s not just airflow. If it gets too dry, you can first reduce or stop airflow, or even hang some plastic sheets around product to keep humidity in. Like shower curtains on some rods surrounding sausages, just close them up to keep it moister around sticks.
3. You clearly enjoy making the sopressata, and seem interested-- so I highly recommend you purchase and read The Art of Making Fermented Sausages by Stanley Marianski. It will tell you all you need to know

Good luck! Hope this all was helpful!

[wagsdmb1]

Dave, Thank you for the reply to my post and for sharing your information to help me get a better result this year.

I am going to make a little cheat sheet of notes this weekend from your post & would love to reply to you with some questions. If you would be so kind as to answer when you have time that would be great.

To clarify my earlier post. When I said NOTHING HAS CHANGED I was referring to nothing changing in the making of the product itself… meat from the same butcher, same casings, same recipe, same process, same hanging area etc. etc.

What I meant was the location of the making of the product has changed… I no longer make it at other persons homes & transport the product to my home for hanging… I now own all the hardware (mixer, grinder, stuffer etc etc etc) to make on site in my own home.

I look forward to our future posts…

Thank You…

[Dave in AZ]

wagsdmb1
Thx for you gracious reply, and as you can tell… I sure don’t mind answering a question I like cooking and this meat charcuterie about as much as anything, so reading folk’s great cooking posts here, and answering a question if I think I can add something, is an enjoyment for me.

Based on your added input, I’d bet odd weather was the culprit if all the rest has stayed the same. You didn’t mention any off smells or salami going bad, just not dried thru evenly, so that puts it pretty squarely on initial drying too fast.

John Belvedere above is a great resource, and if you search his posts you can get some good info and pics too!

Also, if you click here, this link will take you to the Youtube channel 2guysAndACooler. He has a ton of videos on salami making, even an old school few with no testing or drying chamber like you do. I think you’d love his 10 min videos and he is the most knowledgeable salami maker on youtube I’d say.
https://youtube.com/@2guysandacooler

[Dave in AZ]

wagsdmb1
Hey, just ran across this post from a guy whose knowledge I really respect, indaswamp. This is from Smokingmeatforums.com, another meat community. Someone had a sopressata mold question, his reply had application to your situation I think. This guy makes 40 salami types a year I bet, dry cured hams, etc, and is very scientific… but he also tries to replicate old school methods, then just safeguards against risk with some science. So I think you’d love his posts if you go there and read. Here it is:

Bad molds really start growing rapidly when humidity rises above 85%. I recommend to try and never let the humidity rise above about 83% to prevent this problem. If you are not going to use a surface mold culture, then it is best to dry the salami at a lower temp. and a lower humidity. Below 50F being optimum, and 70-75% humidity. IF you go down to 40-45F, then lower the humidity to 68-72%RH.

[John Belvedere]

wagsdmb1 said in Making soppressata issues:

John, Thank you for replying to my question. Been working & have had no time to reply…

To get right to the point the only question I can answer that you posed in your reply post is we always use collagen casings (non-edible) purchased through Waltons or L*m… Have had quality product turn out from both. And Yes, you called it… most everything turned out wet & mushy on the inside… outside was firm and cured properly but inside pocketed and was wet.

I honestly have made or been involved with the making 10’s of thousands of perfect sticks over the last 30+ years and never used a starter culture, checked a PH, monitored temp/humidity or used a growth mold.

I must assume you utilize a much more scientific approach to your process & I’m sure you can teach me many things if you are willing.

So as you asked I will give you a synapsis of my complete procedure to see if you can offer any expertise.

*Weigh out pork to batch size…

*Trim pork of bad fat & blood clots, cartilage etc

*Cube meat for grinding

*Grind meat

*Meat goes in mixed with all spices

*Once mixed, put in stuffing tube and stuffed into 12 or 18 inch collagen cases (sticks weigh b/t 2 & 3 pounds after curing) as mentioned above & tied

*Stick is thoroughly pricked to release air pockets etc

*Sticks are hung from rafters in cold garage with fan running for 80-90 days (checked on about every 3 weeks & location of sticks moved around as certain areas have better/worse air flow or may be warmer/colder than others)

This method has produced thousands & thousands of pounds of quality product over the decades using dozens of different recipes etc. for people that make it locally.

Normally if we make 200 sticks we will lose 6 or 8 but normally to mice or squirrels clever enough to get into the loft. Never ever like the last few years.

If you can add some insight to my issues (once you stop giggling from our hill-billy method of making my grandfather recipe) please reply…

Thank You in advance

Meat goes in mixed with all spices
** I have to assume that you are adding wine or something else when mixing to make your meat mixture more acidic (wine will lower the PH).

Sticks are hung from rafters in cold garage with fan running for 80-90 days (checked on about every 3 weeks & location of sticks moved around as certain areas have better/worse air flow or may be warmer/colder than others)
** This could explain the case hardening. If there is too much air movement the outside will dry to fast. It could also be the casings you used. If you changed casing manufacture there could be an issue with the casings.

This method has produced thousands & thousands of pounds of quality product over the decades using dozens of different recipes etc. for people that make it locally
If you can add some insight to my issues (once you stop giggling from our hill-billy method of making my grandfather recipe) please reply…
** Since I’m new to dry cured sausage making I’m taking the safest method to prevent any illness to myself or family. Since I’m self taught unlike you that had the tradition passed down to you I’d rather be safe then sorry. I would never laugh or giggle at someone’s family traditions, their results or talk down to someone’s results. What’s good for you may or may not be good for me but as long as we all play nice in the sandbox and respect each other all is good. By the way I would love to see pics of the final results and maybe a peak at your formulation.

[wagsdmb1]

Hey John … thanks for the reply…

I will have a bunch of 12 hour days in a row this week but plan on “picking the brian” of yourself and another gentleman this week as time permits.

I will send you some pictures etc and give some more explanations of my process then…

thanks again… this forum has been terrific…