# Chorizo de la Vera



## harleykids (Jan 6, 2016)

Made my first batch of Spanish Chorizo last night, calling it "Chorizo De la Vera" since I used only pimenton from the De la Vera region in Spain.

As usual, I didn't follow any specific recipe, rather made up my own after reading a ton of other recipes.

These have Pimenton De la Vera (sweet and hot), smoked paprika, some Calabrian hot pepper paste, Spanish oregano, good wine, demarara, dextrose, and fresh minced garlic.

If anyone is interested, I can post the recipe.

Set my chamber to 19 deg C @ 85% RH, and will ferement them for 48 hours (used SafePro B-LC-007 on these)

At 24 hour fermentation mark (tonight), I will spray with Bactoferm M-600 Mold. 

After 48 hours fermenting, I will lower the chamber to 13 deg C @ 82% RH and dry until 35% WL, then taste for texture.  May need to be dried until 40%, have to wait and see.













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__ harleykids
__ Jan 6, 2016


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## harleykids (Jan 6, 2016)

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__ harleykids
__ Jan 6, 2016


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## harleykids (Jan 6, 2016)

I used 35mm hog casings on these, and am curious to see how the casings come out. 

Definitely more delicate than the beef middles I used in my sopressatta, and more of a distinct barn yard smell.  

After thoroughly cleaning these casings, I soaked them for 2 hours in water that I added two large quartered and squeezed oranges to.  

Seemed to help greatly with the unique odor. I do this to all my casings and I think the orange juice and the citrus oil from the peel are beneficial to the end product.


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## dirtsailor2003 (Jan 7, 2016)

Looks tasty!


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## smokin monkey (Jan 7, 2016)

Looking Good!


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## atomicsmoke (Jan 7, 2016)

Great start on the chorizo. How much garlic did you use? What cuts of meat did you put in it? Any reason why you fermented at 19C? (Butcher packer says 20 and up for this culture).

How long do you expect to take for 35% loss?


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## harleykids (Jan 7, 2016)

Thanks DirtSailor and Smokin Monkey!

Atomic,

I fermented at 19 deg C because I still had three sopressatta's in the chamber drying, and I didn't want to raise the temp too much. 

So I compromised a little and fermented at 66 deg F (19C) instead of 68 deg F (20C).  Figured two degrees lower wouldn't affect the fermentation, and 2 degrees cooler would be just that, 2 degrees cooler for my curing sopressatta.

It was an interesting experiment, as I learned a couple of things from the 48 hours at 19C instead of 20C (fermentation), and from the 48 hrs at 19C versus my normal 13C.

First, I innocuated the chorizo with M-600 mold last night at 10:45pm.  This morning around 10:45am I check on them....and they already had signs of mold! Amazing!  Mold was visible in just 12 hours, versus my first curing project in the chamber (the sopressatta) at the same 19C temp, where mold wasnt visible for 3 days. 

It may have something to do with the amount of mold spores that are now inside my chamber from the month long curing of the sopressatta.  I did notice when I got back from vacation that the chamber horizontal surfaces had fine white powder on them, here and there.  I am assuming that my curing chamber is now "innoculated" with the M-600, so the chorizo benefited from this and it sped up the innoculation time. 

Or maybe I was just extra heavy-handed with my spray bottle on the chorizos.  I don't spray into my chamber, I take each one out and spray them outside and let them drip for about 15 seconds, then return them to the chamber.

Second thing is that at 13C and 80% RH my sopressatta was losing around 6-8g of weight per 48 hours. When I raised the chamber temp to 19C at 85% RH for fermenting the chorizo for the past 48 hours, the weigh loss was only 3g during that time.  I believe that was due to the higher 5% humidity for 2 days.  So that tells me little changes due affect the salumis over time.

I expect the chorizo to hit 35% weight loss in probably 2-3 weeks.  I base this on the fact that these are about 25% smaller in diameter than my sopressatta, and shorter in lenght as well.

My sopressatta took 25 days to hit 30%-33%, and looks like it will take an additional 14 days or so to hit 40%.  I cure everything at the same temp and humidity for consistency ([email protected]%RH)

I used 1% fresh garlic, which was 49g for the 4,872g batch. Hopefully that will be enough to recognize garlic in the final product, but not overpower the pimenton and pork.

For meat I used pork shoulder for lean (70-72%) and hard pork back fat (28-30%)

I read somewhere that chorizo made with 25% fat is good, but chorizo made with 35% fat is fantastic.  I would have aimed for the 35% fat range, but I only had enough hard back fat to get to 28-30% total fat.


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## harleykids (Jan 7, 2016)

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__ harleykids
__ Jan 7, 2016


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## atomicsmoke (Jan 7, 2016)

Thanks. Great details.I agree with higher fat content=better taste / texture.

Good luck. Looking forward to the cross section/tasting notes in 2-3 weeks.


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## harleykids (Jan 7, 2016)

Thanks! Mee too Atomic! I will keep you posted!


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## disco (Jan 8, 2016)

Terrific project and a good thread!

Disco


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## HalfSmoked (Jan 12, 2016)

yell man I love that chorizo one of my favorite sausages. Had no idea how much work and time evolved in making it though. Keep us posted.


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## diesel-gunner (Jan 17, 2016)

Just checking in to see how the cure is coming along. How does the mold look now?

Thanks


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## harleykids (Jan 18, 2016)

They are looking good!
Mold is coming along nicely!

The only spots where there is no mold is where a chunk of fat is against the hog casing. Funny!  

These spots are filling in with mold, but very slowly.
Not sure why.  

I used hog casings on these, versus the beef middle casings on my sopresatta (left hand side in the pic)  maybe that's part of the reason.

And today I just hung a spicy coppa that is cased inside a beef bung and netted.  It had been curing in my fridge for 8 days.  

And I have a bresoala that has been curing in the fridge for 8 days as well, and it will be cased and hung in the chamber this coming Friday (14 day cure on it, versus 8 day cure on the coppa)

Thanks!
Jason














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__ harleykids
__ Jan 18, 2016


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## foamheart (Jan 18, 2016)

That's a chamber full of deliciousness!

In my begining I bought a dozen bungs. <Chuckles> I threw 'em away because I just counldn't get rid of that smell. I thought they would be comparable to beef middles in size.  LOL..... you live you learn, but those thing sure did stink! 

Beautiful how the mold has wrapped around everything. I keep wanting to try fermented because I want to attempt a fermented thuringer. 

It looks like you have it all figured out!


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## mballi3011 (Jan 18, 2016)

First your meat looks awesome. I know it will taste really yummy. I have a chef friend that made some and it was fabulous. 

I just set up my curing chamber the other day. I have some beer crying in the frog right now. I will put it into the chamber next week. I will watch out for your continuing threads n pictures.


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