# Finocchiona Salami finished up!   Comparing two recipes.



## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

Two smaller diameters finished up today - 40% loss - 7 weeks. 

I'm pretty new so my first time today scrubbing the mold off - with water and drying them out afterwards. 







	

		
			
		

		
	
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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)




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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

Will post some tastings shortly.  These two are fortunately from two different recipes executed the same day.... So it will be fun to compare the results. 

This is one -  I'll refer to it as 'Hank" 









						Finocchiona Recipe - How to Make Fennel Salami | Hank Shaw
					

A recipe for homemade finocchiona, an Italian fennel salami. This is how to make this salame at home with fennel seeds and anise liqueur.




					honest-food.net
				





This one I'll call "artisan" 









						Finocchiona (Fennel) Salami - Taste of Artisan
					

Finocchiona is a type of salami characterized by the aroma of fennel, used as seeds and/or flowers, and by the soft consistency of the slice which sometimes tends to crumble. This salami comes in a variety of sizes, from 0.5 kg to up to a maximum of 25 kg. The meat is has a medium-coarse...Read More




					tasteofartisan.com


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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

Of note: made a lot more of this but in larger diameter, so this is a preview for what's to come in upcoming months with the larger 4" casings.


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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)




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## shoebe (May 25, 2021)

Great looking how it's taste ?


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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

So.. .. Honestly not a huge difference - the official tabulation from tonight with 6 votes was mostly for the artesian - I think the Hank version was a little saltier . The fennel came through in the artesian perhaps a little more but both recipes turned out really integrated in profile so not a huge stand out variance to compare against .


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## forktender (May 25, 2021)

Yum, I love fennel salami my Gramp's used to make the best ever.
Your's looks awesome as well.


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## indaswamp (May 25, 2021)

Looks good. So you just scrubbed the mold off the casing and left the casing on?


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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

The casing on this was the really thin hog casing  to begin with and really bonded to the sausage - even after scrubbing there wasn’t any delamination.  . Once slices were cut  thin you could pick some off if you wanted to -


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## SCBBQ (May 25, 2021)

forktender said:


> Yum, I love fennel salami my Gramp's used to make the best ever.
> Your's looks awesome as well.



thanks ! Look forward to pulling out the bigger stuff this summer !


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## indaswamp (May 25, 2021)

Ah...hog casings...
Hard to get 100% of the mold off...but the mold left on it give that 'funk' that defines salami.


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## SmokinAl (May 26, 2021)

They both look great to me!
Al


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## Mmmm Meat (May 26, 2021)

I'm liking the looks of those too.  They look like 60 mm links in the earlier pics then about 25mm in the latter.  What are they now?  An inch or so in diameter?

I've got my own Finocchiona hanging in the chamber - maybe 3 weeks into drying, max.  I used the Two Guys recipe if I remember correctly.  From the way my other 60 mm collagen casings are going, I'm guessing it will be two months minimum drying time.  Maybe we can trade samples on these down the road.

Lastly, I'm wondering if there's a discernable taste difference in salami made with top of the line wines/vintages vs. a more typical 10 - 15 dollar bottle of wine (like I would use).  Have you done any experiments comparing salami tastes using different wines in a  large batch of grind?


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## SCBBQ (May 26, 2021)

Mmmm,

I did several diameters - these were the first to come out - the smallest. I believe the hog casings were the 38-42 mm range and normal shrinkage from there... The larger ones are still in for a while, I presume another two months or so.  So maybe a nice swap around that time would make sense.

As far as varying wines, I'm new to the hobby so I haven't experimented a lot yet. I've only used some of my old wines as they seem perfect for the job, since they have so much character and barn yard taste,  but down the road I'm sure I'll experiment with newer stuff and share feedback...


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## Mmmm Meat (May 27, 2021)

I noticed that  '88 white on a different thread and thought, holy crap - that bottle's been waiting to be opened for 2/3rds of my life!  What a wine cellar you must have.  

Look forward to seeing how your batch turns out.  I was worried that mine were feeling a bit squishy a week ago @ 30% weight loss.  Seven days and 4% more weight loss later, they feel like all is going along perfectly.


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## Robert H (May 29, 2021)

Nice job, they both look great. Hoping to do the same thing with some hog casings also for my first non umai salami.


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## SCBBQ (Jul 8, 2021)

Just sliced one of the finished ones up this weekend - this one was the ‘hank’ recipe - wow is it good ..  my wife says the best we’ve done so far ..  lots of fennel taste but not overpowering.  weight loss right at 40%.. 3 months.   Also tried one of the Calabrian ones .. it’s not that spicy but has some heat in the finish..  overall I’m proud that these are turning out to be incredibly edible :) 
Salt content appears correct in both of these and l really like the lever diameters if I continue to chunk up some of the fat in lieu of grinding it all.


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## Mmmm Meat (Jul 9, 2021)

Very nice.  They have the appearance of commercially made salami.  What percentages of fat and salt did you use?


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## SCBBQ (Jul 9, 2021)

Thanks MMMM! Hope you are well.. 

This was the recipe I used..  I have found myself cubing up a bunch of iberico fatback, around 20-25% range, and then depending on the fat in the balance of the chosen meats to make up the rest of the fat content requirement, which gets ground up. 

Hope to get better with the round shape and smoothness but otherwise it's hard to imagine how the taste will get better in future attempts.


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## SCBBQ (Jul 9, 2021)

Cheers everyone


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## Mmmm Meat (Jul 9, 2021)

Mmmm - stinky cheese.  Love it, but it needs a glass of wine (I'm pretty sure that is just out of the picture).

Sp I calculated .225 % salt but from your recipe, there's no way that I can see to calculate fat content.  Did you keep track of how much fat you chunked up and added to the mix (above and beyond the fat in the shoulder)?


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## SCBBQ (Jul 13, 2021)

Yeah I put around 10% fresh(frozen) iberico fatback  - which is basically 100% fat.  And cubed it.. And then used both tenderloin cuts and shoulder cuts..  grinding with fat.. So I'd guess I'm in the 35% range in total. 

Here's a few recent pics.


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## SCBBQ (Jul 13, 2021)




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## Mmmm Meat (Jul 13, 2021)

I'll reiterate my approval of your final results.  Absolutely beautiful!  The last pics I'd guess were possibly over 30% fat.  The earlier pics looks like 25% =/- based on what I've made up till now. I've hand diced fatback in the past to the 6 - 7 mm cubes (=/-) and added them at the end of meat mixing. I'm not sure if I love this method of producing larger chunks of fat in the chub.   What do you do to get the results we see here?

 I'd do another run of that product to determine if you can reproduce the excellent results.  Keep copious notes and share them only with me! 
Cheers!


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## SCBBQ (Jul 13, 2021)

Thanks very much!

I do keep a notebook so once I find this session in it - I’ll confirm what I actually did ..  whatever it was I hope I can duplicate it ..

 Here’s some pics from my photo library ..


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## Mmmm Meat (Jul 13, 2021)

Amazing - that shoulder looks like belly.  Tons of fat in that!


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## SCBBQ (Jul 13, 2021)

I think there was pork belly in it too—  you are right .. 

I’ll check my notes soon.


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## SCBBQ (Aug 22, 2021)

Pulled the final chubs out from the April 4th batch.. These are the smaller 3.5" size.. the balance still is curing and doesn't appear done - by the squeeze test at least.  Having to use my old vacuum sealer - my new chamber one's pump went bad and no one has a replacement - waiting on china supposedly.


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## GonnaSmoke (Aug 22, 2021)

The salami looks great, I can almost taste it. By the way, Quintin makes some really nice knives...


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## Mmmm Meat (Aug 23, 2021)

They look great.


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## forktender (Aug 23, 2021)

Holy cow, I bet those taste awesome, nice work.


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## indaswamp (Aug 23, 2021)

I am out of Finocchiona. It is one of my favorites...need to make some more soon.


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## forktender (Aug 24, 2021)

I wish I knew how to make stuff like this, my brain doesn't do well with following directions to a tee.
Now if I saw it made one time I'd have it forever, funny how people learn to do the same thing different ways. I'm more of a visual learner, my reading comprehension absolutely bites!!!


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