Monday 30 April 2012

One week on the drying rack and my saucisson is looking pretty good!
Sausages taking refuge from hurricane conditions
My bangers were taking a bit of a battering from the hurricane-like conditions in London on Saturday so I had to nurture them indoors for a while (which Rach didn't really enjoy....jealousy?), but other than that signs are positive. They’re dropping weight at a decent rate (a little under 20% so far), have turned a nice deep red colour and are smelling lovely and porky. Best of all, they’ve got a tiny touch of that powdery white mould I was after, so I’m hopeful it will spread over the next week and that the final product will be nice and authentic!
A bad picture of good mould
On the downside, the unseasonably bad weather has revealed unsuspected flaws in my previously effective hi-tech wash basket/pillowcase/bike rack drying frame solution. It sits on a covered balcony, so rain has never been a problem. That is until the rain started being blown horizontally into the balcony by 40mph winds! My strategic tinfoiling (below) will hopefully work in the short term, but I doubt Environmental Health would approve. Might have to shell out on something made of wood (that isn't a coathanger)...
"Is that the International Space Station? Oh, it's just a hi-tech sausage-drying vessel..."
 T-minus 1 week till sausage o’clock........hopefully the saucisson will be ready by then, too (weheeey!).

7 comments:

  1. Suggest you let Rachel try it first... to thank her for having put up with your experiment... no other reason of course...
    And take a picture of her first bite... and of your first bite... After I see the pictures I will let you know if I want the recipe...
    The Godfather.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A bit late for this batch but I'd love to create a bacterium destroying liquer to accompany your fine sausages, something not only to compliment the flavours but that has a potentially life saving alcohol content.....

    Prof. Richard D. Stilenstiener

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't worry Godfather - I intend to supply proof that they're not fatal.....or die trying (literally :)!).

    Prof, I'm hoping they'll go nicely with a bottle of Beaujolais!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looking good. So far with my own (whole muscle) cured meat experiments I have found the bactoferm to produce patches of mould, rather than total coverage. I'm keen to see how it works out with sausages

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Max! Which bactoferm product do you use, out of interest?

    Only very patchy mould at the moment. I've been told that a lot of the saucisson you can get commercially is rolled in flour as opposed to actually being covered fully in benign mould....this could explain my mould envy?

    What whole muscle cures have you had a go at? I looked into bresaola, but to be honest I'm not a massive fan of bought bresaola so didn't think it was worth it. Have you had good results?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mixed results I'd say, but getting better!

    I've been using the T-SPX from sausagemaking.org. So far (since starting about 3 months ago) I've tried bresaola (River Cottage Meat Book; was way too salty, actually inedible), duck prosciutto (one went mouldy, in a bad way; they were wrapped in cheescloth and i didn't check them often enough), pancetta (dead easy) and lonzino. Just put another lonzino on yesterday, the first one turned out really well. I stuffed the loin into a beef bung before hanging it to dry, worked a treat; my experiences with the duck made me check it every day. I'd like to make some cured sausage next i think.

    ReplyDelete