I’m making Bresaola (for the first time) and up until this point, I’ve felt pretty confident everything is going well. So I suppose these are some newb questions I’d like to get answers for, to alleviate stress. I did try googling all of these things and web results are not yielding great.
I cured with Morton’s Tender quick, and additional salt, herbs, sugar via this [recipe](https://honest-food.net/bresaola-recipe/), cured for about 12 days, drained any liquid (there was really only a bit the first two days) and rotated. After the second day there wasn’t any left over cure to re-distribute. It seemed as though there was no weight loss on the meat during the cure.
I set it up for drying in a wine cooler with a humidifier, and did test runs for a few days beforehand without the meat. Numbers were steady. Following the recipe, I aimed for 50-55F, and 70-90% humidity for the first week, the humidity will be ratcheted down to 65-70 for the following weeks.
After a two or three days it seemed like the temp was holding too low, 45-48F, so I raised it slightly, and now it sits at 55-57F. Once I did this the white mold growth was so fast. It’s powdery and looks good, except it is growing so fast! It’s almost covered the entire 4# round in about two days. So I became worried this wasn’t a good thing, started googling and sent myself down a stress rabbit hole.
Mostly, I’m just curious and would love some insight-
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Can the white mold grow too fast? (also, this is natural, did not use an outside source for the mold)
Is Morton’s Tender Quick (0.5% Sodium Nitrite) appropriate for longer cures, like charcuterie?
There are a few temp and humidity fluctuations, I’m not super worried about them, just dips in humidity when I need to refill the water, nothing below 68%, no temps above 59 or below 45f.
Lastly, do I need to rotate the piece? I have it resting on a cooling rack for air flow, instead of hanging. No bag or netting. Will rotating it help?
And finally, the door to the wine cooler is glass, will light in the kitchen or from outside do anything to this process, negative or positive?
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Thank you for any insight you have!
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\-excited and quite nervous
by SavannahRamaDingDong
3 Comments
For cures that don’t involve any smoking, or where you don’t cook the meat before consuming you need to use #2 cure salt, which is a mix of both nitrite and nitrate, cure that doesn’t have nitrate is meant for things like bacon or kielbasa.
As for the mold, there’s nothing wrong with a rapid bloom from what I understand, as long as the chamber conditions remain the same.
1) UV light is bad for aging meat.
2) There is likely no need to rotate.
3) Morton’s Tender Quick contains salt, sugar, 0.5% sodium nitrite, 0.5% sodium nitrate. The sugar percentage is rumored to be 20% but I can’t confirm that. I even contacted Morton Salt directly and they wouldn’t tell me, alas.
Cure #2 is commonly about 6.25% nitrite and 4% nitrate, though exact percentages can vary (quite a lot) by region.
TQ is not a *terrible* product, but it’s not going to be doing exactly what you’d want from a “normal” cure #2, and it is not a suitable substitute for cure #1. Also the sugar might be out of place depending on what you’re doing.
I’m sure you’re fine for your bresaola, which is often done without any curing salt at all, and which has a long age to allow for the nitrate. However, if you’re going to do more curing, pick up some more standard curing salts #1 and #2, with clearly labeled percentages and directions (curing salts are not standard around the world).
Also, make sure to use sodium erythorbate (or vitamin C powder, it works the same way) at 550 ppm whenever you are curing anything. It is a cure accelerator, but most importantly, it drastically reduces the risk of cancer from cured products. It’s very cheap, one small bag lasts years. There is no down side.
The only problem I’ve had with too much mold occurred when I also had too much humidity. I had pieces that were really beautifully covered in snow white mold, but over time the mold turned from powdery to sticky. The chamber developed a distinct ammonia aroma (that’s kind of fun to say!). The pieces dried weird, stayed kind of mushy/tacky even after they’d lost a lot of weight, and smelled strongly like blue cheese when they were washed off and sliced. I ate a little of it and never got sick or anything, but ultimately I couldn’t get past the smell. It was just too pungent. I tossed it all.
It was Mold 600, and I’ve used it countless times since then with no problems. It was just a chamber overfilled with product and not enough airflow, and it was pretty obvious by the ammonia smell that there was a problem. But I was still new to the hobby and tried to ignore it or hope it would go away. Trust your nose, leave space between your pieces for good airflow, rotate your stuff, and make sure there is some turnover in the air in your chamber, and you ought to be fine.