Hey team, I got the front and back wheels off a young fallow made into salami back in June and decided to have a go at Curing/Aging them as usually I would just put them straight in the freezer and eat one or two then and there. The results were really good and worth the wait.
I managed to end up with 18x 1kg Salamis when I picked them up from the butcher. The butcher I have been using is Vaughn at Blue Mountain Butchery in Tapanui, hes been bloody good with advice and makes a top product so if you ever get lucky in a Blue Mountains block take your deer to him and he'll see you right, small good are his passion so he can do all sorts of wonderful products.
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The idea is to hang the salami and allow it to dry further to develop the flavor and provide a product that will last a long time out of the fridge once opened.
Winter is a great time of year for this, I read all sorts of advice from different sources and also spoke to Vaughn about what I wanted to do, the general consensus was that you wanted to hang the Salami somewhere with good airflow and temperature that wont go much over 14 degrees, and not much under 5 degrees, fluctuations overnight etc are acceptable but too hot to will run into problems with undesirable bacteria, and too cold your salami will not be able to breed the good bacteria used to protect the product as it dries. The salami is going to form a layer of white mould on the outer casing as it dries, if like me you haven't seen this process before it can be a bit alarming! Dont let the salamis touch each other while hanging as this could lead to the touching areas not being able to develop the protective mould and possible spoilage. I hung mine in a coat wardrobe in our garage.
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I left mine hanging for 25 days, checking regularly to make sure none were touching and no nasty black mould was forming, I could see them "shrinking" a bit as they sweated out any moisture. They look quite alarming covered with the mould layer!
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At this stage you want to take them down and wipe them all clean with a damp cloth. Put them all into your fridge for a further 5 days and they will very slowly develop a white mould again, this time due to the constant cold temperature it will be a fine layer almost like a powder, allowing them to form this white mould again let's you confirm that the "safe" bacteria is the only bacteria present.
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Your salamis are now ready! The flavour has really developed nicely and they will last a lot longer now out of the fridge so a lot better for taking away on the hill for a few days.
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At this stage I cut them in half and Vac Pac them and put some in the freezer, they're now going to last a really long time anyhow so you can keep a few months worth just in the fridge. I took a bit of a risk doing all of them at once being my first time but I would challenge anyone to give it a go and see and taste the difference between the cured ones and the ones straight out of the butcher's shop. They also look a little "Artesan" now which I think is nice, makes them look great on a platter if you have guests around and they are a nice gift. Enjoy
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