I screwed up. But when you screw up, you learn. Here is what I learned.
This christmas me and my wife decided to go all out and get an Ankarsrum stand mixer. Then I went and bought the meat grinder attachment because... well meat is awesome. Pay once, cry once.
We regularly indulge in "charcuterie" as I am obsessed with cured meats, but that stuff is expensive and I thought what better way to break in my new mixer then try and make salami. So I do a minimal amount of research and end up using the method on a super popular youtube video called "Homemade Salami Steve Lamb" that has 435000 views, with 5100 thumbs up and only 115 thumbs down. In my mind this means it's a good recipe. If this recipe was trash, there wouldn't be a 98% positive rating! right???
https://youtu.be/7O_5KVr7Nxs
Fool proof I thought! He grinds up the meat, puts in fancy spices, and adds 3% to weight of normal iodized table salt, and some wine to create an acidic environment making it "safe". Then put them in intestine casings, hang them up for a few months and BOOM. Salami.
So that's what I do. 4 hours later I am standing with my hands on my hips and nodding in approval as I watch my masterpeice: about a dozen long-ass meat tubes (5 Kg worth) hanging from coat hangers and butcher string in my kid's closet (I hijacked his closet, but he's 2 YO so I'm sure he doesn't mind). A job well done. I close the closet doors and can already taste the delicious dry, cured salami that I will have in a few weeks time. My wife gets home from work and I tell her to open the closet doors and there I have a surprise for her. "*** is this", she asks with a passive-aggressive "here-we-go-again" tone to her voice, as she eyeballs her child's clothes in a pile in the corner of the room. I explained the meat dicks hanging from her child's closet, hence the clothes can't be in there. "And how will this ferment?" she asks. "Uuuh... salt? and... wine??:eyebrow:" I answered, now uncertain. And she said "2 words". And I said "Clean... up?". And she said... "Clostridium botulinum". You see my wife is a dietitian... and she doesn't **** around with botulism. She said IF it ever turns into salami, which it likely won't, she's not gonna eat any, neither are the kids.
In an innate resolve to prove my spouse wrong, I did some research. Turns out to make salami, you are suppose to do 3 EXTREMELY important things that this recipe doesn't even mention.
1. Use micro organisms/starter culture and inject it into the meat to actually ferment it. You are supposed to buy these lactobacilli and cram them into your salami meat mixture... as the bacteria eat the stuff in the meat, they release lactic acid, which lowers the pH of your dick tubes, making it a hostile environment to other harmful bacteria and mold.This also gives it that unique flavor and texture and is a crucial step in making salami. I looked into it and these microorganisms are "naturally occuring" in the air in the temperate, moist Mediterranean climates (where these cured meats originated from way back in the day)... so people just relied on LUCK to have these little suckers float by and infiltrate their meat . Needless to say, these bacteria are not naturally occurring in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba... so relying on incidental inoculation via airborne bacteria is not an option. I think that's why he was using wine, to "lower the pH", which is not an adequate method. People DIED from this **** back in the day, the germans called it "wurstgift" which means "sausage poisoning", before they knew what botulism was. The more you know...
2. Sodium nitrite (pink salt some call it) is also required to prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum. Pure table salt is sodium chloride (NaCl) and has little to no effect on preventing botulism.
3. Even if you did step 1 and 2, which the recipe doesn't... you STILL need a crazy precise environment for dry/curing... if you don't perfectly control air flow, temperature and moisture (which actually changes depending on the phase of the curing process) you might screw up your batch. Also, you might fail to prevent botulism. So you can't just hang it on your mantle and hope for the best. Also a child's closet isn't good enough.
It blows my mind that this video is so popular and highly rated, yet missing lots of information and clearly very dangerous. He basically just hangs a salty meat tube and leaves it to dry over his mantle for weeks and HOPES everything is safe. It might be... but it might not.
So I took the meat down the next day... and told my wife she was right. I cooked one up and tried to eat it but at 3% salt, it is salty as hell. I just froze them and will use it as normal sausage for topping pizza for the next several years. What a waste.
Long story short: Making salami is extremely complex and dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, like that guy on youtube, and me. So just buy the damn stuff.
This christmas me and my wife decided to go all out and get an Ankarsrum stand mixer. Then I went and bought the meat grinder attachment because... well meat is awesome. Pay once, cry once.
We regularly indulge in "charcuterie" as I am obsessed with cured meats, but that stuff is expensive and I thought what better way to break in my new mixer then try and make salami. So I do a minimal amount of research and end up using the method on a super popular youtube video called "Homemade Salami Steve Lamb" that has 435000 views, with 5100 thumbs up and only 115 thumbs down. In my mind this means it's a good recipe. If this recipe was trash, there wouldn't be a 98% positive rating! right???
https://youtu.be/7O_5KVr7Nxs
Fool proof I thought! He grinds up the meat, puts in fancy spices, and adds 3% to weight of normal iodized table salt, and some wine to create an acidic environment making it "safe". Then put them in intestine casings, hang them up for a few months and BOOM. Salami.
So that's what I do. 4 hours later I am standing with my hands on my hips and nodding in approval as I watch my masterpeice: about a dozen long-ass meat tubes (5 Kg worth) hanging from coat hangers and butcher string in my kid's closet (I hijacked his closet, but he's 2 YO so I'm sure he doesn't mind). A job well done. I close the closet doors and can already taste the delicious dry, cured salami that I will have in a few weeks time. My wife gets home from work and I tell her to open the closet doors and there I have a surprise for her. "*** is this", she asks with a passive-aggressive "here-we-go-again" tone to her voice, as she eyeballs her child's clothes in a pile in the corner of the room. I explained the meat dicks hanging from her child's closet, hence the clothes can't be in there. "And how will this ferment?" she asks. "Uuuh... salt? and... wine??:eyebrow:" I answered, now uncertain. And she said "2 words". And I said "Clean... up?". And she said... "Clostridium botulinum". You see my wife is a dietitian... and she doesn't **** around with botulism. She said IF it ever turns into salami, which it likely won't, she's not gonna eat any, neither are the kids.
In an innate resolve to prove my spouse wrong, I did some research. Turns out to make salami, you are suppose to do 3 EXTREMELY important things that this recipe doesn't even mention.
1. Use micro organisms/starter culture and inject it into the meat to actually ferment it. You are supposed to buy these lactobacilli and cram them into your salami meat mixture... as the bacteria eat the stuff in the meat, they release lactic acid, which lowers the pH of your dick tubes, making it a hostile environment to other harmful bacteria and mold.This also gives it that unique flavor and texture and is a crucial step in making salami. I looked into it and these microorganisms are "naturally occuring" in the air in the temperate, moist Mediterranean climates (where these cured meats originated from way back in the day)... so people just relied on LUCK to have these little suckers float by and infiltrate their meat . Needless to say, these bacteria are not naturally occurring in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba... so relying on incidental inoculation via airborne bacteria is not an option. I think that's why he was using wine, to "lower the pH", which is not an adequate method. People DIED from this **** back in the day, the germans called it "wurstgift" which means "sausage poisoning", before they knew what botulism was. The more you know...
2. Sodium nitrite (pink salt some call it) is also required to prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum. Pure table salt is sodium chloride (NaCl) and has little to no effect on preventing botulism.
3. Even if you did step 1 and 2, which the recipe doesn't... you STILL need a crazy precise environment for dry/curing... if you don't perfectly control air flow, temperature and moisture (which actually changes depending on the phase of the curing process) you might screw up your batch. Also, you might fail to prevent botulism. So you can't just hang it on your mantle and hope for the best. Also a child's closet isn't good enough.
It blows my mind that this video is so popular and highly rated, yet missing lots of information and clearly very dangerous. He basically just hangs a salty meat tube and leaves it to dry over his mantle for weeks and HOPES everything is safe. It might be... but it might not.
So I took the meat down the next day... and told my wife she was right. I cooked one up and tried to eat it but at 3% salt, it is salty as hell. I just froze them and will use it as normal sausage for topping pizza for the next several years. What a waste.
Long story short: Making salami is extremely complex and dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, like that guy on youtube, and me. So just buy the damn stuff.
