Very first salami curing attempt, might I die?

[Fingers]

Having watched many youtube vids from the uk and abroad I thought ok I will have a go at salami as per this method.

3% salt (table) to 1kg meat, plus half a cup red wine and spice to taste. Easy eh!

So here I am with my 1.5kg of sausage made into 6 nice lengths currently hanging in my currently 3degC nicely ventilated garage (day 3) looking rather fine, I just need to wait till they have lost 30% weight.

BUT after more reading and talking to people who sell the curing salts I am now going the nitrate way and have ordered Prague Powder Number Two.

The lack of nitrate is now worrying me and not wishing to kill us all with botulism I am loosing my nerve about this first batch. Is it worth keeping them going and use them for cooking with only which will kill and botulism?

Cheers for any advice.

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. Since you have a relatively small investment in 1.5 Kg of meat, I'd toss them. Cooking them in a normal fashion will kill the botulism bacteria (usually) but won't destroy the toxin it may have produced. Using your health to test for safety is not a great idea. I think of salami making in terms of safety hurdles and in what you have done, there is really only two. In addition to the Cure # 2, I would suggest that you also get a starter culture as well.

[Fingers]

Thanks for the advice, I will keep them going as an experiment then bin them.

My Prague Powder Number 1 and 2 will not be here for a few days so it will interesting to see how my garage fairs for curing.

[johngaltsmotor]

This will be a good learning experience. The grinding and mixing and stuffing is the easy part. Maintaining the conditions to dry age the salami without growing undesirable molds can try your patience. So at this point you know you're not going to eat these, you might as well use them as a science experiment to learn what it takes to properly age salami. The nice thing about having made 6 of them is that if one goes bad you can cut into it to see how it was drying (surface case hardening vs uniform drying) and determine if you need more or less air movement and monitor the weight loss to determine if you need more or less humidity.
Good luck and welcome to the forum. It's a great group and they're eager to answer questions and help people learn.

[Dibbs]

Welcome to the forum. Since you have a relatively small investment in 1.5 Kg of meat, I'd toss them. Cooking them in a normal fashion will kill the botulism bacteria (usually) but won't destroy the toxin it may have produced. Using your health to test for safety is not a great idea. I think of salami making in terms of safety hurdles and in what you have done, there is really only two. In addition to the Cure # 2, I would suggest that you also get a starter culture as well.

The bacteria is killed by pasteurisation @ 70C. The toxin is destroyed above 80C. Killing the she spores requires heating above 120C.

[wheels]

I'd use these to test the drying arrangements that you detail in your other thread. You'll be able to check for case-hardening etc with these 'sacrificial' salamis.

Phil