jmolinari

Chris, the smaller amount works for my products...whether they are excellent isn't for me to say:) I normally just round up to make sure i get enough bacteria (in case it's slowly dieing in my freezer or whatever). I've also found that fermenting at a lower temperature for longer yields a better flavor (for me). I use F-LC culture, ferment at 72 deg. for about 48 hrs.

I just use the ratio to calculate how much bacteria i need. eg: if the 25g pack of bacteria is for 200lbs of sausace , 5lbs will get 0.625g...i would just round up to 1g. ( 5/200 * 25).

I don't think this is a problem. I've found that sometimes the meat in the cure gives off liquid, and sometimes it doesn't...it probably depends on the meat, where it came from, how it was processes, frozen, unfrozen etc. I haven't found this to affect the quality at all though.

Jason, I'm about to order a package of this. It says 30g for 10l. How much meat is 10 liters? And about what powder:water ratios do you use? ← Hey chris...the 30g for 10l is the the amount of water you dissolve the M-EK-4 in, it is then sprayed onto the salame that has been cased. This is the procedure i used last time: "They've been sprayed with a solution made from 1.5g of M-EK-4 mold culture which was bloomed in 27g of water for 3 hours and then added to 400g of additional water. The salami were sprayed when they were put into the box then 1.5 hours afterwards, and then 15 hours later the next morning." That amount of solution made plenty of mold liquid to spray 8 or 10 pretty large beef middle cased salami

Because naming it "pork belly guanciale" makes it sound fancy pantsy and high falootin':) It's totally incorrect, and basically meaningless. Guanciale is made only and exclusively from the cheeks. The name derives from that as stated above.

I've done some, so I'll give it a shot. Dry-curing would modify some of the previous steps. You wouldn't refrigerate your starter culture solution as implied by Mise #2 (and not overnight, per Mise #8, and not add cold per Mixing #6), because you want the starter bacteria to stay alive and happy. The starter should be mixed with distilled water at room temp and let bloom for a few minutes, then thoroughly mixed in as a final step after all the other ingedients have been mixed. Dry Curing 1. Ferment stuffed sausages in a warm room at 80-90% humidity for 12-48 hours per starter instructions. 2. Check sausage pH; it should be under 5.0 after fermentation. 3. Weigh and label one sausage. 4. Hang sausage for aging at 7-18C/45-65F; 60-80% humidity. 5. Check regularly for bad mold growth or case hardening. Wipe sausages with brine solution and decrease humidity for the former; increase humidity for the latter. 6. After 5 days for sheep casings, 10 days for hog casings, 1 month for beef middles and 90 days for beef bungs, start checking the weight of the labeled sausage. Sausage is ready when the weight has dropped by 30-35%, or when it feels firm all the way through. For the temp and humidity ranges, I referenced Kutas, Poli, Bertolli and Polcyn... there's quite a spread between them. ← i can add a little to this. 1) I ferment at 72 deg. in a closed box..don't really measure humidity During this stage spray with mold if you're using it. I used M-EK-4 from butcher packer, which i've bloomed for about an hour in distilled water. For fermentation i hang the sausages as if they were in a curing chamber, so all sides get equally warmed/sprayed with mold. 3) I weigh and label all of hte sausages. Position in the chamber and other things change the drying time, so i check each one individually 6) I weigh them after about 10-15 days for beef middles too...sometimes they dry pretty quickly.

My brother is thinking of putting together a 4 or 5 day itinerary of the greatest hits in San Sebastian; Mugaritz, Etxebarri, Akelare etc. What we're wondering is, is doing this around the week of Christmas (about December 19-24) worth doing, or are we going to run into lots of closed restaurants? We'd be flying from the US specifically for a culinary tour. Advice and restaurant suggestions are appreciated. thanks

Interesting thought about using strips of pork shoulder instead of cubes. Lord knows i'd like to reduce the amount of prep work to make salame/sausages, and one less cutting process sounds good to me! I'll hav eto give it a try.

I had a hell of a time finding facing heaven chilis, even online...i eventually found them at a chinese grocer in chinatown here in Atlanta. Good luck finding them online.

I use it as a filling for a chinese style onigiri...it's TASTY! Also helps to moisten it just a tiny bit with water before putting it in a rice ball.

Phong, how did you end up finding the beef navel plate? I've looked for it, even in hispanic groceries and nothing... Did you go to a specific type of grocery?

I clean out my chamber every few batches, i use windex or Fantastic and then let it air out for an hour with a big box fan blowing in it, and i've not had any "cross flavoring" problems.

Wouldn't a UV light kill mold growing on the outside of the salami as well?

Just make sure the butcher knows what he's doing. A friend had a hog processed at a butcher who was a hack, and he did a terrible job.

Hey man, it's PBS:)

I was coming here to say the same thing Foodmad said about the enthusiasm. It was awesome to see him get SO excited about everything..made the show fantastic. I didn't notice the music

Thanks for hte heads up. I'm setting my Tivo

The Fujian book looks interesting. I wonder if it is as well written as Fuchia Dunlop's books.

None of them will be contestants when they do the live Today show segment. The entire series is in the can, including the winner reveal epsiode, before the first episode airs. At least that's the way it worked with Season 4. With season 3, thy did the reveal live. So, I suppose at that point there were still three contestants left. But before that, everyone else had been eliminated before the first episode aired. ← Not sure that's accurate. SEason 4 finale was filmed well after the show started airing. In fact it was towards the end of the airing.

A fatty part, like the jowl, will lose less water weight than a meaty portion, yes. I think it is safe to eat raw as well. Pancetta in italy is sometimes served raw with other salumi on a plate. It's yummy.

Does anyone have any experience with the Bluestar cooktops? The specs are the same as the rangetop, but at about $1000 less. http://ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/RBCT304BSS.html One of the downsides is that the grate system is different, so you can't remove the grate and use a wok, like on the rangetop.

I found that blog and the bun cha recipe last week as well. It sounds like the author uses plain nuoc cham as the "soup/sauce" though...

Uhm...yes. I would be. I would deep freeze it before using it for however long the FDA recommends freezing it.

She reminded me of a knowledgeable Rachel Ray....but hte show was pretty good..

Thanks for the process thoughts Importfood!