The Chorizo hanging in my cellar! (yes, I'll have a pic of them here too)
They're doing wonderful, as far as I can tell. The temp has been stable. Never got over 16C and hasn't gone below 14C. That's perfect as far as I'm concerned.
They're feeling stiffer everyday. And I've been misting them with water 3-4x a day to keep the casing moist enough to allow the centre to cure properly. My link that I molded DOES have mold on it still. However, it's all on the bottom tip of each sausage in the link. *shrug* Can't win them all I guess...
Humidity is still a problem. Everyone else I know who cures uses a large bucket of salty water with a cloth wicking water out onto the floor to up humidity. I have 2 5gallon buckets of salty water with wicks! in my cellar. The highest it's gotten is 35%. It's sitting at around 30% now...
Failure.
Why? My room isn't large by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most would call it tiny.
Could it be the shelving? Is the untreated (no chemicals for my cheese and sausages!) wood absorbing too much of the moisture? Is that a problem now, but an asset later (When it finally absorbs so much water that it's helping keep the humidity stable)?
Ideas?
I'm gonna be putting my parents old cool-air humidifier in there later this week. I forgot to grab it when I was out there this weekend. Made about a 1000 chocolate truffles with my sisters. Only ate maybe 6 throughout the day and that was way more than enough for me :P
They're delicious, truly, but one can only be around chocolate for so long.
Good thing they're for presents and not for me!
Also in the cellar right now is Duck Breast Proscuitto (recipe from "Charcuterie"). It cured in kosher salt for 24hrs in the fridge then was rinsed, dried, spiced, wrapped in cheese cloth and hung downstairs. Some people hang in the fridge, but I have a cellar and I better use it! lol
It should be ready by Saturday, that's when I checking it.
I'll get pics posted of it when I slice it. Then everyone can see how it turned out (good, bad, or ugly).
There's two breasts, one done in white pepper and another done in a blend of gingerbread spices (my own blend). Because there's nothing quite like the smell and taste of baking spices, especially around Christmas!
In the new year when I have the sausages and proscuitto out of the cellar I'm taking out the shelves that we built and reducing the width by 6inches. That's right, my cellar is sooooo small that 2' wide shelves are too big!
And then once that is fixed and the humidity is FINALLY up to where it should be... it'll be time for aging CHEESE! :D
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