Salame Toscano - First Attempt - From pile 'o pork to cured goodness

Welcome back meat fans..

Well, here it is.. PCP's first attempt at salume.. for my first time, I'm making Salame Toscano ( hopefully not Salume Salmonella ), with the recipe based on one I got from the god of cured meat Scott at The Sausage Debauchery.  I've modified it a bit, but here's the recipe:

4,155Grams Pork and Fat ( about 70-30 meat to fat ratio)

72 grams Salt

9 grams cure #2

29 grams bacto ferm F-RM-52

1/3 cup water

44 grams dextrose

15 grams black pepper ( ground)

7 grams crushed fresh garlic

6 oz dry red wine ( dago red )

10 grams cayenne powder

15 grams red pepper flakes

After mixing together ( using frozen bowls ), i got my grinder cleaned up, put the meat in the freezer to solidify a bit, as well as the stuffer, and started putting my mis en place together.

Here are the first links I've ever stuffed.. obviously rookie style, as they're all varying lengths.

All of the stuffing and tying took me about 2 hours, which seems like a lot, but I was a bit overzealous in sqeezing the meat and split many links.. good thing I bought 30 feet of hog middles.

After cleaning up, the fresh salume went into my ghetto fermenter.  A simple tupperware container in my oven, leaving the light on, and covered with a towel ( this kept the temp at about 89-91 degrees the entire time.

Here's a shot of my oven (aka "ghetto fermenter" ) My wife is a trooper to keep it like that for 2 days wasn't she?

Here is the fresh salume hanging next to my proscuitti and lonzino.. 3 or 4 weeks and i'll be very happy ( or dead ).

Here they are after hanging for a week.. luckily we escaped to mexico

 or I would have been out there molesting and squeezing them everyday.

Oh.. here's the finished Tails and Trotters Lardo I started this summer.  It's absolutely delicious and I'll be giving this one to my new friend Rick from the food cart Lardo which is in Portland at SE43rd and Belmont.  Check it out!!

Stay tuned for tasting notes in about 2-3 weeks.  I'm hoping to have my friends Morgan Brownlow of Tails and Trotters, Vincent Fritzche of Vincent Wine Company, and my good friend and neighbors JDUB ( no website.. he's an overpaid and underworked teacher ) and John Pence Caprial and John's Kitchen come over to try the Salume, Lonzino, and do a blind tasting of an Oregon Pinot Noir I've committed to writing tasting notes for.

Have a great day.. headed to Mt. Hood for a long weekend snowboarding and relaxing with good friends and no kids :)