Most curing chamber problems trace back to four root causes: climate drift (temperature or humidity outside the safe band), insufficient air movement (saturated boundary layer around hanging meat), wrong starter culture or salt percentage (fermentation failure (failure to hit the USDA-FSIS Appendix A tables 2A-2D (pH 5.0 / aw 0.92 thresholds with time-temperature combinations))), or […]
I have case-hardened exactly two coppas in 18 months of running my chamber, both during the dry winter months when the basement humidity floor dropped below 65% and my chamber humidifier could not keep pace. The first one I rescued by paper-wrapping for 12 days; the second was past saving and went into the bin […]
I have wiped Aspergillus niger off the casing of more than one of my own salami chubs over the last 18 months, and almost every case was cosmetic — a 50/50 white-vinegar wipe and a re-spray with Bactoferm Mold-600 brought the casing back to a clean white bloom within 72 hours. The exception was a […]