when it comes to preserving foods neat
can be one of the hardest items to
preserve as we learned from my first
attempt at pickles fermenting can be
dangerous if done wrong the risk is even
greater with fermented meats like salami
where if done wrong can also cause
botulism so instead of feeling horribly
and poisoning myself I probably learned
hands-on from some experts and the art
of making salami first I talked to the
owner Mike my name is Mike Phillips and
I am a salumi maker here at read.table
meat company salami is part of a larger
group called salumi and salami being a
ground meat stuffed in a casing
fermented and then dried before I even
got there they had already gone through
the process of cutting and preparing the
pork meat and fat starting from freshly
butchered local pigs they separate the
lean meat from the hard fat which will
lead our combining a salami we break
them down on a Friday and a Monday
Tuesday we sort the meat that we have
figure out what we're making for salami
and by Wednesday morning we are figuring
out what we have for lean eat hard fat
and we grind those together first step I
helped them with was a grinding of the
meat we first started with a hard fat
those previously frozen ones that were
chopped we added in the lean meat a
starter culture and some salt and spices
just about everything has garlic and
black pepper and white wine we try to
use a low amount of salt and a low
amount of spice so that the pork is the
highlight and not the spice next
everything is ground to the right
consistency which vary depending on
which type of salami we were making once
ground we packed the meat into a bin
we hold that paste in a refrigerator
overnight
and the next day we stuff that into
casing
we use beef casing and we use hog casing
beef bung beef middle hog bung hog
middle and a sewn casing for the larger
calibre once a salami to put into the
casing you need to get tied we hand tie
everything with twine larger salami
industry in the u.s. that's probably not
very usual we're small so we can do that
and we like the look in the feel of that
learning the proper knots while keeping
everything tight with a bit of a
challenge but eventually I mostly got
the hang of it next the meat is hung and
fermented fermentation takes six days we
increase the temperature of the room the
product slowly increases temperature and
it perspires and then we cool off the
room pulling all the water out of the
room and we go up and down in that scale
for a number of days in that process
when we're heating it up that started
culture that we introduced earlier feeds
off the sugar as a waste product creates
lactic acid and lactic acid is acidic
and drops the pH of the salami bad
bacteria can grow and it drives safely
the Penicillium mold is fantastic
because it covers the casing and it
keeps it from drying out
so it shores that you have even drying
throughout the salami but it also helps
the pH buffer up a little bit so we
spray on some and we have some that
naturally occurs every place in the
world has its own Penicillium and it is
what makes every place very individual
after fermenting the salami then ages
for 21 to 70 days depending on its size
slowly drying out until loses enough
water we get it below a certain water
activity point and it's safe to ship and
it's ready to eat
how much longer kind of lasts and out of
that preserve versus just the raw pork
they're good for as long as they're
there they just get harder and drier
after the drying they are cut labeled
and ready to be sold and eaten we have
some of the finished product here how
long that's been aging for so this just
came out today basically 21 days in
aging this is called the vecchio it's in
a style of salty so insects so pretty
simple salami black pepper white wine
and garlic or some of the top slice dick
and eat good strong flavor yep pretty
garlicky young and fresh at the best law
may have a red well that's good
it better be well thanks for showing me
everything about preserving meats
through making salami an interesting
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