I think something went wrong

[Calabrese83]

My first post here. I made an 8’x8’ curing room about 5 years ago in my basement. Has a window a/c for the summer months but this time of year it stays a steady 57*f so I leave it unplugged. Ive made traditional salamis without culture at that temp and around 75%rh since day one and it always came out great with very little if any case hardening. Oddly enough for the last year and a half I’ve been having trouble getting those same results and as far as I know all my conditions have been the same as they were before. I started using tspx as a culture and fermenting at 70*f and 95%rh for the first couple of days and slowly dropping down to 80-85% over the course of 10 days as I’ve read in the art of... I had a couple batches come out pretty good with this method but then had some case hardening,I have a fan that comes on with my humidifier otherwise the rh doesn’t stay stable it seems. So this last batch, I pointed the fan straight up at ceiling,so the airflow would not directly hit the salami but rather hover over the ceiling and drape down around them trying to avoid case hardening.. it’s been 10 days total now and they don’t feel as firm as usual so I suspected maybe do to not enough airflow the casings maybe got a slime on them preventing moisture loss. I forgot to add I inoculated with mold 600 on day one so they were solid white a couldn’t tell if this was the case or not. Also had a strong ammonia smell in the room which I haven’t noticed before even when using 600. I understand mold produces ammonia while consuming lactic acid. I decided to wash off a couple to see,and after I washed off the mold the casing was yellow. This concerns me as I’ve never even heard of this problem. It seem to me the more complicated we try to make this process the more problems that can arrive. Anyone ever see this yellowing,somewhat sticky/slimey issue?

[Calabrese83]

To answer my own question in case someone encounters this issue, the yellow stuff is yeast, and will go away once you wipe them down and lower humidity.

[wheels]

Sorry, i missed this. The ammonia smell is really off putting when you first come across it, isn't it. I'm glad that you sorted the problem out.

Phil