Curing Chamber

[mr_whipple]

Just remember that hacking a refrigerator or a freezer to use as a drying chamber is imperfect. You have to work with what you got. You have to play with all the parameters to reach a happy middle ground.

As a reference, my Bresaola is now on day 14 of drying. It is 3-3.5" in diameter. It has gone from 2276g. down to 1873g.; a loss of 403g... 17.71%....and it is drying properly. The mold is thick and full coverage. the surface is slightly drier than the center when I squeeze it.

Gotcha. I never thought I'd achieve anything near perfection on the RH and temp, but also didn't think the swings were all bad at first. I'm just concerned as it has been 10 days and one piece is almost at its target of 35%, hence my over reaction. I'm off the ledge now, but if those pieces reach 35-40 % before a month passes I guess I'll just remove the cases, vac seal and wait a while to try them out.. Also, regarding your earlier comment on the difficulty between salami and whole lean muscle, I assumed it would be the total opposite. I wanted to do this first before jumping into salami. I've been reading quite a bit and if I'm going to buy a ph meter I want to be sure I have a chamber that's working before spending that coin.

 

[indaswamp]

Hey mr_whipple , Cajuneric @ 2GuysandaCooler has a video out on using the Govee...

 

[indaswamp]

Calibration...

 

[indaswamp]

Adding this from Eric:

When you use sodium chloride (salt) to calibrate your unit, the humidity should read around 75% when placed in temperatures between 68f and 86f (20c - 30c). Here's the chart:

If your room temp is 68f (20c) - your humidity should read 75.5%
If your room temp is 71f (21c) - your humidity should read 75.4%
If your room temp is 73f (23c) - your humidity should read 75.3%
If your room temp is 77f (25c) - your humidity should read 75.3%
If your room temp is 86f (30c) - your humidity should read 75.1%

 

[mr_whipple]

Hey mr_whipple , Cajuneric @ 2GuysandaCooler has a video out on using the Govee...

Thank you. I haven't seen that video. Not the same Govee I have, but I'm tracking.

 

[mr_whipple]

Edit.... I'll post again tomorrow.

 

[indaswamp]

I corrected the temperatures in *F........

When you use sodium chloride (salt) to calibrate your unit, the humidity should read around 75% when placed in temperatures between 68f and 86f (20c - 30c). Here's the chart:

If your room temp is 68f (20c) - your humidity should read 75.5%
If your room temp is 69.8f (21c) - your humidity should read 75.4%
If your room temp is 73.4f (23c) - your humidity should read 75.3%
If your room temp is 77f (25c) - your humidity should read 75.3%
If your room temp is 86f (30c) - your humidity should read 75.1%

 

[mr_whipple]

I corrected the temperatures in *F........

I already had it in my head to order a back up for both controllers, but I had already ordered one of the boveda 75% calibration packets so I did some drunk amazon shopping last night and bought the controllers and another Govee. My plan is to calibrate the new Govee sensor and controller using the salt method, and if I'm confident of accuracy I'll swap them out with the current set which I'll try the salt and the boveda on to compare. Should be interesting to see the results.

That said, I weighed the three pieces I have in there again and the one tenderloin has hit 40%, the other 33% in 15 days. I'm going to pull the 40% one remove the netting and casing and see what we have, pics to follow later. Now, the duck breast has only lost 5% weight and it went in either the day after the tenderloins or maybe two days at the most. I'll have to go back and check. Either way, that seems to be a better pace.

 

[mr_whipple]

So here we are, first item out of the chamber. Hot Calabrian Tenderloin.

With the exception of the small fat spots it was completely cover in mold. Can't remember where I read it, but the mold 600 was described as smelling "mushroomy" and that is a spot on statement.

Peeled off the netting and collagen sheet. That sheet was a breeze to remove, something I cant say about the umai dry age wrap. Also, the mold went all over the place as the netting was removed. A shot from both sides. The exterior didn't feel hard in any way, and as a whole had a nice squeeze feel. Also had a very nice smell, nothing off putting at all.

Cut shot. The dark ring seems to be more noticeable on camera than to the eye... of course I'm blind as a bat without my glasses and only slightly better with them. Had a small taste and it was very good. The hot calabrian pepper had a slow lasting and tasty heat to it. Not overwhelmingly spicy, but you knew it was going to be warm as soon as you tasted it.

Over all, I'm calling this a win. All my hand wringing and worrying was apparently unnecessary. I think it could have been a touch drier, so I'm going to let the other tenderloin go a little past the 40% mark just for comparison. Thanks for looking!

 

[indaswamp]

Good job! Glad it worked out for you. FWIW, Looking at the cross cut pic., slightly more dry rim than I would like to see, but acceptable. Will be interested to see the cross cut again after a vacseal and rest in the fridge...

 

[mr_whipple]

Good job! Glad it worked out for you. FWIW, Looking at the cross cut pic., slightly more dry rim than I would like to see, but acceptable. Will be interested to see the cross cut again after a vacseal and rest in the fridge...

That's where it is now, but texture wise I didn't find the edge bad at all. Gonna let it ride in the vac seal for awhile, but not as long as I do the umai projects. Those have very hard edges and need a long time to equalize.

 

[indaswamp]

Yeah, generally, umai has a harder, more pronounced dry rim than what is produced in a drying chamber.

 

[KBFlyer]

Looks excellent. A couple of weeks should improve the look on the edge but I can say I have seen a lot worse and people call it a win so High five man, good job.

 

[mr_whipple]

Looks excellent. A couple of weeks should improve the look on the edge but I can say I have seen a lot worse and people call it a win so High five man, good job.

Thanks! The other piece should be ready fairly soon so we'll see how that one turns out.

 

[mr_whipple]

Calibration...

So I did this with my new govee and inkbird RH controller. Put the inkird in the 75% boveda bag and the govee in with the wet salt. This morning after almost 24 hours the inkbird is at 75.1 (it was there when I hit the rack last night) and the govee has been flat lined at 72.9 since sometime yesterday. Room temp has been steady at 70. I just swapped them around to compare so we'll see tomorrow.

 

[mr_whipple]

And... There seems to be a discrepancy between the boveda and the wet salt. This morning I checked the readings and the numbers were the same with very small differences. So I'm thinking the wet salt wasn't as accurate as the boveda calibration kit. The govee was flat lined at 74.7 so I adjusted the cal by the .3 and put it in the chamber and removed the existing to put in the cal pouch. The inkbird followed the govee numbers as well with the wet salt.
I've been monitoring both govees and the one that came out of the chamber is steady at 79%, and the now calibrated one in the chamber is showing a corresponding 4% drop in the average RH since I put it in this morning. The lower ends of the swings are now in the high 60% range, so when I get home I'll be swapping out the current inkbird controller with the one I just tested/calibrated. I have a sneaky suspicion I'm going to find the original RH controller is also out of whack.

Also, I picked up the other wine cooler yesterday so I'll be working on that all week.

 

[KBFlyer]

Well I shut down my chamber this morning. Some good news and some bad news. The Lonzino finished at 35.8% weight lose. The bad news is I had real bad case hardening on one side. I contribute that to not using proper casings or sheets to wrap it in. Also my mold 600 seemed to only do well on one side.
The good news I guess I was able to save some of it by trimming the hard meat. When I say hard it was like hard jerky lol. I sliced some but you can see some pieces still darker then the others. I have another half firming up in the fridge to be sliced later tonight. What I get out of it I will add to recipes to help with flavor.

Next fall I will get back into it. Time now for camping and fishing.

 

[KBFlyer]

All cut up and vac packed
Smells wonderful and melts in your mouth. So a little save but could have been better.

 

[mr_whipple]

Wow... that sucks, but it looks like you made the best of it. I'm hoping by doing the drying stage at higher temps and reducing the humidity as discussed in this thread I can avoid some of the pitfalls of running this small chamber. We shall see. Hopefully I can get the drying chamber up and running before the following weekend as I have two pieces of pork belly curing now for my attempt at making some pancetta tesa. I wanted to try guanciale, but I already had the pork belly and I have yet to go looking for a local source of jowls. This way I'm only out a few bucks if the pancetta is a fail, but I don't think it will be. I made two different flavor profiles so we shall see eventually.

Have fun camping and fishing. Life has been in the way of my outdoor adventures for the last few years, so I'm a bit jealous.

 

[pettitjoel]

Great thread here and thanks for sharing your project. Wish I had stumbled on to it weeks ago.

Our beverage fridge in the kitchen started running real loud and I replaced it and moved it into our mechanical room in the basement to give this a try.

Have the ink bird set up with similar dehu/humidifier and used an eye of round I had to attempt a bresaola. It has been hanging since 6-24-23 after a 8 day cure.

Have not weighed it yet and did not know about the Mold 600 step. Yikes. Should probably get up to speed on that. Do not see any mold but I have avoided touching it so I only see what I can see thru the glass door.

To get more product in there I need to find a way to hang from a higher place than the internal shelving allows. I have pork loin seasoned 3 ways curing now. Anyone find a good solution?