Pics: 1 – drying after salt cure until tacky
2 – with strutto applied 3 – 9mos later 4 – found orange mold around end of bone after cleaning off strutto.
Hi all – this was my first attempt at caring anything large. This is a hindquarter of venison, with continuous monitoring, average temperature was 54°F, usually fluctuating plus or -4 over the course of a day. Average humidity was 69%, with plus -10.
Followed these instructions exactly: https://elevatedwild.com/elevatedwildblog/venison-prosciutto-recipe
I had pulled it ~3mos ago, and it definitely wasn’t like this then. Also, strangely, it’s only down 15% weight after this long. What am I doing wrong?
Any advice is appreciated!
Thank you.
by eruptionsequence
9 Comments
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Better picture
https://preview.redd.it/nsra1ppl18sb1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=98203986a50d8637e4bde19cbdc8b15900547afb
If it only dropped 15% I would take a look at case hardening
So it’s slimy = spoilage.
Personally- I EQ cure for 40 days at 3.5% salt on a refrigerator. I pack around the bone and leg end heavily with salt.
After 30 days I wash with wine and then hang. I usually keep my humidity above 95% and slowly drop it over a month or so. Temperature is usually around 45 degrees to fight the mold. I’ll increase slowly as well up to 50. I am Wiping daily with wine to prevent mold. Finally it hangs around 85% for a few months, then strutto. Then it hangs for 1-2 years. I make about 3 a year and I’ve never lost one. I think you have too low humidity and I am not a fan of the salt box method. You also butchered it poorly. Each cut introduces bacteria into the meat.
https://preview.redd.it/29t5zps4e8sb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1944ed491524a6d3d2c1b37d008280e8245d5eac
just for fun, I cut all the outside off a chunk and sliced it. This is what the cross-section looks like of a 1 by 2 inch piece.
Man, that’s a bummer. I made a version of this that I refer to as “venison country ham” that I cobbled together from a variety of recipes and sources. Long story short, I salted a full hind quarter of venison in my garage for about a month (rock salt and pink salt) and then hung the hid quarter from the rafters from December to late July. I did not use a strutto and did not monitor humidity. In retrospect I let it hang a little too long- it got dry and hard and was a bitch to slice, but when I sliced it thin enough, it was delicious. Thanks for sharing your experience with this- it’s pretty rare to find someone else trying this and I am eager to learn from others experiences.
I don’t know a lot about charcuterie making and want to try it someday, you look like you know what you are doing and failed anyway. I hope someone here is able to help you. I will stick with smaller pieces for my first attempts.
Friend, get a small computer fan to move air continuously in your chamber. It is key once you’re curing. Great advice from others.
You’re welcome and happy to help. Look some degree of air movement is critical to maintaining constant migration of moisture through the protein, outward and to stop the growth of mold. With long term curing and aging just the slightest air movement is needed. Not much but a little.
Also…. butchery is really important and packing salt into nooks and crannies as well.
Try making a lonzino to get the feel, a procuittino…a duck breast… then a good leg of pork..know your butcher and make sure they prepare it right.
Then on to game. Game is tough..it pulls in external, wild rooted molds. A totally different ballpark when you have fresh, healthy wild game entering the chamber.
Get that chamber right and enjoy!