Handmade salami

Salami is one of the simplest and most exuberant forms of meat processing. It's an alchemy that transforms a piece of raw meat into an extremely tasty and durable product. Creating a quality product by exposing a piece of meat to time, without any type of cooking, is something fascinating!

Preparing a salami is something that requires time, attention to detail, hygiene and a close eye on problems that may occur during the process. It is an art that requires a minimum of technical knowledge and care in execution. Anyone can make salami, but it takes motivation and patience, both in acquiring information and in the preparation process. Making mistakes, throwing it away, researching the source of the error and starting again is part of the process!

The ideal is that you are already familiar with the sausage making process and have some experience with the process of grinding the meat, dealing with the casing and filling, as salami is a step forward, if you have never embedded anything before, read the post about how to make sausage. If you really want to make salami at home, this recipe is the simplest and most recommended to start on your journey. It's a basic recipe that only uses salt, curing agents, black pepper and garlic, but the result is surprising, especially for those who have only eaten industrialized versions.

The first step is to have a meat grinder, which can be a hand-cranked one or a homemade automatic one, like the one below that I use from KitchenAid. It performs the grinding process well, but is not good for embedding, I'll talk more about that below. It is possible to cut the meat by hand, but you need an excellent knife and lots and lots of patience.

The next equipment needed is to stuff the meat inside the casing. I use the same kitchenaid with the built-in adapter, but it is not a good tool as you need to apply a lot of pressure for the process to happen. I recommend that you purchase a 2-kilo manual vertical cannon. Unfortunately, I don't know of any equipment like this in Brazil, if anyone knows of one, please leave a tip in the comments.

Fermenting and drying the salami is the most challenging part and requires a controlled environment, with specific temperature and humidity, variations may occur, but not very large. For this step I use a small wine cellar with temperature control. Control humidity with a hygrometer inside the cellar and a container with water and salt. This way I can monitor the humidity and increase or decrease the humidity with more or less containers of water. It is important to add salt to this water to prevent mold from forming in the container.

Functional additives

Sodium nitrate – is the famous curing salt that serves to add color, flavor and preserve. You can use sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate or a mixture of both, but nitrate is most recommended for long cures. To better understand curing salt, read the post Curing salt what it is and how much to use.

Starter culture – serves to add flavor, aroma and helps prevent contamination.

table salt – It may seem like just a seasoning, but it is the most important ingredient in preservation and flavor.

Casing/Gut – Use collagen or natural casing. Buy one with a high caliber (40mm or greater), cut it to the desired size and, if one of the ends is not attached, tie one of the ends with a string. The easiest thing to do is to buy a casing already prepared to make salami, that is, already cut to the right length and with a steel clamp or string tied to one end.

Sequence of steps to make artisanal salami

1. Choose, clean, grind/cut meat and fat;
2. Add seasonings and functional additives;
3. Mix well to work the protein (binding myosin);
4. Embed;
5. Ferment at room temperature and high humidity to develop the inserted culture (meat yeast);
6. Desiccate, that is, mature/dry the salami with controlled temperature and humidity.

Ingredients

• 2 kg of pork shank;
• 200g of belly fat or skin removed from the ham itself, the important thing is that the fat is rigid;
• 50 grams of salt (equivalent to 2.5% of the total meat);
• 6 grams of curing salt 2 (6% of nitrite, 3% of nitrate and 93.75% of salt) – (equivalent to 0.3% of the total meat);
• 10 grams of ground black pepper;
• 30 grams of garlic;
• 1/3 cup of red wine (optional);
• 1/4 cup of filtered water (to mix the culture);
• 0.1 gram of starter culture (lactic acid bacteria) for meat;
• Natural beef tripe or collagen casing 45mm or superior.

Preparation of artisanal salami

Prepare the tripe

Natural beef tripe: rinse well and leave it immersed in water while you prepare the rest.
Collagen casing: hydrate in water with 10% (1 liter of water and 100g of salt) of salt for 5 to 10 minutes.

Cleaning meat and fat

The meat can vary, it can be just ham, shoulder or a mixture of beef and pork. The important thing is to buy meat of good origin. Clean it, remove bones, skin and as much fibrous tissue, nerves and anything that is not protein as you can. Take the opportunity to separate the fat from the shank, which can also be used. Cut the fat into small cubes, half a centimeter or smaller, and the meat into large 2 cm cubes.

Freeze the chopped fat separately and refrigerate the meat well, almost to the freezing point, this is important so that the meat fat does not melt during grinding.

Processing the meat and mixing the ingredients

Grind or chop the meat very finely. Dissolve the culture in filtered water and add it along with all the other seasonings and additives, except the frozen fat, and mix well until it becomes very sticky and sticky. Once it is well mixed, add the frozen fat until it is well spread. Return to refrigeration.

Embedding

Always leave a space at the end of the casing to close the end. You can tie a knot, secure it with a specific clip or tie a string. After filling all the casings, pierce any air bubbles there with a sterilized needle, also make random holes throughout the salami to facilitate drying.

Fermentation

This process is important as it will allow the added culture to thrive and acidify the salami, reducing the chances of other contaminating organisms appearing.

Let the salami rest at room temperature and high humidity, around 80%, for 12 hours. During this time, the added culture will proliferate quickly, inhibiting the emergence of other harmful organisms.

Maturation

This process is long, it can take between 20 and 60 days depending on the doneness you want, the longer it takes, the tastier and more rigid the salami will be.

The important thing is to keep the temperature at approximately 14 degrees. As for humidity, leave it at 80% for the first 5 days and then lower it to 70%. Maintain this humidity until the end of the process. Personally, I prefer it more tender, so I leave it for between 20 and 30 days. See in the photos that this salami I made has a slightly lighter interior than the outside, because it still has a good amount of moisture. If it stayed for another 10 or 20 days it would be all darkened and much more rigid. But it's a matter of taste!

Mold

It is normal for mold to appear on salami during maturation, if this occurs, follow the instructions in the post Mold on salami and other sausages.

Conservation

The ideal is to remove the casing, clean it, apply olive oil and pack it well, preferably in a vacuum, and refrigerate it, this way the salami will last for at least 90 days. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, wrap it several times in PVC film and keep it refrigerated.