Salame Toscano - Tasting Notes

So here we are:  A watershed moment for the Portland Charcuterie Project.

Our first Salame.   It's a thing of beauty, and tastes great.

As you may recall from our last post, these puppies fermented for 2 days in my ghetto fermenter ( aka "tupperware container in my oven"), then hung in the Mancave for 18 days.

Check them out:  I didn't actually weigh them, but it feels like they've lost about 30-35% of their weight and are very solid.   Beautiful fiore mold on the outside ( I cultured my own mold from a salami purchased at Trader Joe's ).   The first ones are what I'm calling "chubbers" as they were the results of splits in the middles which was caused when I was squeezing the air out of them.  I just shortened them and tied them off ).

Look at the beautiful color, great binding, and gorgeous fat distribution ( no smearing here ).

I couldn't be happier with my first attempt, and am looking forward to cutting down one of the full size salume this weekend.

Chalk this  up as a win for the PCP.   Next up, Fennel Salume.

I also want to thank my friends for a great bday weekend up at Mt. Hood.

Who said 41 was old?

ps.. no bacon chocolate cake this year.. but Stephen and I were able to celebrate our bdays ( me 41, him 40 ) in style with a monster chocolate donut from Sesame Donuts.  We ate that thing for three days!.

Stay tuned for our next posts.. I'm just about ready to bottle my Nocino.