Genoa Gone Bad - It's not a sin to bin.

Posted by Big Dog at 3/2/2009 1:23 PM
Categories: Bloopers

The internet has got to be one of the most interesting places there is to find information and to entertain yourself. We all have our little places to go on the web, just as you are now reading this, I too have my favorite places to go. One of my sources of inspiration is the sausagemaking form in the UK. I have been haunting this site for quite a while and have become a regular contributor. One of the moderators / site administrator is Saucisson, who I think has his head screwed on particularly straight. One of his tag lines, a message at the end of his post,  is "It's not a sin to bin".

This is rather profound as home curing enthusiast, we are dabbling in some very dangerous chemistry and the potential for something to go wrong is always evident. The last thing any of us want to do is poison our family or friends with botulism. Well there might be one or two people where I wouldn't mind...

Well Dave this post is dedicated to you.


Genoa gone bad...

After such success last year with our Genoa Salami, I decided to expand on this with three versions. One regular, the second laced with paprika and the last filled with pieces of a pork loin we cured very similar to a prosciutto. We made just over 24 chubs averaging about 2.5 lbs for a total of 95 pounds. They looked and smelt wonderful, I hung them in the curing cabinet allowed the time to ferment then dropped the temperature to 54 (f) for them to cure for a few weeks. 

 


Three weeks in I pulled one to see how things were going, they were losing weight nicely and there was no case hardening, colour was great and no mould, but the taste. That is where things started to go wrong. The texture was that of ground beef, there was no shine or tang in the flavour, the spice and salt was correct but I was not eating a typical salami.  I'm not sure what went wrong, the best I can guess is that the starter culture FRM-52 culture was stale dated, thus the missing tang as a byproduct of the fermentation of the bacteria

What was I to do... I could not depend on the curing process, into the garbage they went, horrifying. It was like losing 24 children, I had to say goodbye to each and every one. The only thing I could hear is Dave’s voice, "It's not a sin to bin"... stupid Dave...

 

Well here at Lesnoirachchon, it's quality first, I need some of that pig booze top get me through this...



Cheers from the Big Dog  (in mourning)
 

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  • 3/4/2009 11:04 AM Larbo wrote:
    I feel for your loss!

    Since the FRM-52 culture is supposed to produce a lot of lactic acid quickly and a pronounced sour tang, if you couldn't taste any tang, then it does look like the culture was a culprit.

    I keep mine in the freezer, but I'll have to check whether, even then, it has a limited shelf life.
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  • 3/4/2009 7:31 PM Dan wrote:
    Thats some tough luck! Gotta take the good with the bad I guess and drive on.
    Wow! 95lbs.. Man, thats tough.. I'm sure I'm not helping here.
    Reply to this
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