Moved halfway during cure. New basement cellar has higher humidity than last house. Humidity in the low 80s and temp around 50-55F. Last house had similar temp but humidity rarely went past 65. Gonna eat it anyway but have others seen this kind? I wiped off with white vinegar and will give cold smoke for 15 hours or so before hanging again. Figure that'll clean it. I typically smoke before hanging but didn't this time around. I never get mold growth of any kind. Assuming cos of the smoke. I also don't use starter cultures or any of that white mold people spray on. What does "bad mold" do to you assuming you don't go to a hospital once you feel sick? Just a lot of shitting?

Hi, first attempt at curing anything, so be nice. Salt box for 24hrs and hung for 3 weeks, lost about 26% of its weight from after salt cure. im not sure if its too early to eat or not.

I see quite a few meat curing chambers on the market designed for the purpose of dry aging or salumi curing, that controls both the temp and humidity which is nice but out of my price range...

• Temp control: (not part of this discussion) as I have temp control all working OK.

• Humidity control:

These commercially designed dry aging / meat & salumi curing chambers only seem to control humidity by turning on a FAN, which then assists the water container located at the bottom of the chamber to increase the humidity. They don't have a ultrasonic humidifier or a dehumidifier to control humidity, which means when the unit compressor turns on to cool it sucks all the humidity out of the unit and %RH drops below 45% which will result in case hardening for salumi.

For a commercial product to me it doesn't make sense why they've designed it so and if it's acceptable... as long as its for a short periods of time???

So... For those of you that have done a DIY conversion of a Fridge or Wine Cooler into a meat curing chamber I am after your opinion and curious what you have done in regards to this issue.

• When the compressor turns on to cool the inside and %RH drops below the acceptable level ie minimum of 65%. Do you:

a) Ignore this drop and let it go all the way down on it's own OR,

b) Add humidity via a ultrasonic humidifier if the % reaches below the minimum 65% RH?

• The Situation:

Currently I have an INKBird IHC-200-WIFI humidity controller where i've got both a ultrasonic humidifier and a peltier dehumidifier hooked up to it. When the compressor turns on to drop temps down and maintain that temp it also drops humidity right down to 40~45 %RH level.

When the compressor turns off (inside temp reached) the %RH starts to recover back on it's own and settles around 66~70% (this is with no products in the fridge right now).

To counter that drastic drop I've enabled the ultrasonic humidifier at 65% RH and it can happily maintain this level.

• The issue:

When the compressor turns off (inside temp reached) the %RH starts to recover back on it's own along with the additional humidity that was added to maintain that minimum 65% RH. Now humidity reaches close to 85%~ which I don't like and this is with no product inside the unit...

Humidifier is enabled at 75% ish but i'm playing with this number since there is a delay if dropping any actual humidity, these peltier units are power efficient but seem to be almost useless at extracting humidity quickly.

• The dilemma...

Do I not maintain the minimum 65% RH when the compressor turns on and struggle to maintain the upper RH% OR, don't worry about trying to maintain the lower RH when the compressor is on and leave it as is... As it only cycles ON and OFF every so often and stays on for approx a min anyway... I will need to time the exact cycle duration to get a base line but keep this in mind the fridge is empty with no product other than the humidifier containing 1 L of water and a dehumidifier.

• This build was inspired by what I read on tasteofartisan / meat-curing-chamber/

So this is probably a wild, maybe even a stupid idea (one actually cooked up by ChatGPT) that might just be crazy enough to work.

I live in an area (Cambodia to be specific) where you can't find things like collagen dry aging sheets. So I was asking ChatGPT for suggestions of alternatives I can use. One surprising and novel suggestion it had was to use rice paper sheets, which cost only pennies here and can be found everywhere. It's easy to work with too, as it gets soft quickly in water and sticks like plastic wrap to meat.

The AI was even nice enough to explain how the paper will help regulate the moisture release and eventually harden to form a dry protective crust.

The idea seems viable, but I can't find a single reference on the internet of anyone doing this before. Even ChatGPT admitted it'd be pioneering a new approach after I asked it for some references.

So my question for y'all is, has anyone ever tried this?

My biggest concern would be the rice harboring rapid mold growth, but I suspect that could be addressed by just giving it some mold-600 to control it.

Had some mould on the outside but cut it off and the inside looks great…. Taste is delicious too melts in your mouth

Thank you so much to this awesome community for being such a supportive corner of the internet! I come seeking advice.

I’ve got a capicola and a culatello vac packed and in the fridge doing an EQ cure. Both been in there a week. 2.75% salt, 0.25% PP#2. Pasture raised pork from a local Mennonite farm, if that makes a difference.

I noticed that my temperatures have been really volatile- as low as 34 F and as high as 48F.

I suspect the inconsistent temp is due to this being an old wine fridge rather than a proper fridge. My food fridge is tiny and can’t accommodate massive curing cuts so decided to roll the dice - this is my first cure of this size. Lesson learned for next time I guess.

They’ve been in there a week and I’m concerned that even with the cure in there it’s going to be crawling with bacteria. Am I screwed or can I save my meat?

Anybody have any idea how I can set my Auber aw-th3300 so I can maintain a 750% humidity . I currently have it set to 70 but it will go as high as 90

Silly me didn't trim my pancetta before curing, so now I've got half a kilo of offcuts that are too small to cure individually. Has anyone used these for something before? I've used cure #2 so no good for fresh bacon unfortunately. Suggestions appreciated!

I've done Bacon cured and smoked at 225F/110C until internal temp reaches 155F/68C quite a few times now.
Product comes out fine but I find it a bit overdone and a bit dry, takes very little time to fry off when doing final cooking. e.g. bacon and eggs.
Question is can I smoke it to a lesser temperature, say 140F/60C to try and maintain better miosture content? Will obviously be cooked again and not eaten before further cooking.

Can anyone share a recipe and method for equalibrium cured ham.

Do you still inject?
Can find plenty of wet cured but not equalibrium cured.

Can I steam chicken farce in a silicone mold ? I cannot think of a reason why not but I am still unsure

Was surpised of the texture and salt levels of some mini hams I wet cured. First time curing something so small 8x4" cylinders. Soaked for 8 days. I wanted to error on the side of leaving it a little long and was using the generic 7-10 days most say.

I want to make a cooked ham sulfite free, anyone know how many porcentage of salt and sugar I need in the brine ?

I have been recently getting into the curing game, forgive me if I’m missing anything here.

I’m an avid hunter - have a number of great pieces of frozen block deer meat. It is all quite lean, though most deer fat is pretty waxy and inedible.

Can I treat a trimmed piece of venison like any other cured meat? Starting weight, appropriate ratio of salt/#2, and go through the process?

The few pieces that look most similar to a copa are the back strap (or strip loin).

Any help is appreciated. Very cool sub happening here.

🦌

I am currently curing wild hog ham, in the fridge. Not ideal. So I was wondering if our old forgotten cellar would do. Temperature and hygrometry seems good. There is a slight damp/moldy basement smell however, and I was wondering how problematic that would be. Any advice is very welcome!

Chorizo drying at 13 degrees and at 80% humidity, is this considered bad mould? And would anyone recommend wiping off and dropping the humidity? Thanks

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