The Texas BBQ Forum

Using a Croatian method of cold smoking, I'm making an Italian old world salami called Mocetta and a spicy version. It will take about 8 weeks total. Consistency of prosciutto buttery smooth but with a Smokey hint. I went savory and spicy.

I always enjoy watching you take on these "Dry Aging Projects" - - - from the beginning to the end. Our old departed friend, Bondo Bill (aka Wild Bill) really enjoyed trying them also. Good Luck with this one and keep us updated, as you can.

Thanks Parts. The thickness is making me think it's going to take 18 days or so you cure them. At that point I'll take pics. It will be easier to show them then to explain the process. Rinse, smoke and add liquid, flavor, wrap with collagen sheets and netting. Hang for weight loss, poke the sheets and spray with a mold starter.

You’re way over my head

Curing is nothing more than throwing ingredients into a ziplock and placing meat in there too. It's like placing a rub on your ribs you are doing.

In order for the cure to completely cure the meat. It has to get absorbed. It does that by salt. Salt opened up these cellular doors within meat and allows the flavor to enter. Cure works over time or in other words 1/4" per day of the thickness of the meat and In order to completely cure bacon for instead, it requires you to flip flop them to the top side every morning. A 2" thick piece of bacon in theory takes 8 days to cure at the minimum. Most take the 2" thick slab of bacon and cure until 12 days. So my three inch piece of pork loin should have twelve days but to be safe, I'm going to 18 days.

Once the cure is done, it is ready to be cold smoked. I prefer cold over hot smoked. Cold smoked or anything really under 100*. So I will be using a pellet smoking tube for 7 days smoking it for a couple of smoking periods per day. On the second week it is only 1/day for cold smoking. After which, I was all the second layer of flavor and rub it down with a liquid. Once that it done I use these sheets call Ed collage and wrap up the meat with it. Once it is secured with the collagen sheet (think of Saran Wrap), I will place the netting around the meat and use a needle to get all the air out and spray down the meat with a bactoferm mold 600 which is a type of penicillin which protects the meat from any bad mold. It's what you see when dried meat has a white cast to it. Once the weight loss is where you want it then it is ready to eat. You have to remove the collagen sheet off the meat. Most will vacuum seal the meat so it will equalize other wise it will be hard on the ends and soft in the middle. You want a equal feel throughout the meat. Most will go 4 to 6 months in the vacuum bag before eating.

End of cure of the mocettas and of a jerk flavored cottage bacon

Mocetta is an ancient way of making salami using whole muscle without the grind of stuffing.

Pellicle forming for 24 hrs then smoke 2x per day for a week followed by 1x day then wrap net and hang until the mocettas lose 45% weight loss. More pics tomorrow.

Day 1

6th smoke and trying to figure out how they would smoke for another week. Looking at it, it have the right cast to it and I don't think it needs more. What do you think?

Looks great to this ol Boy but you'd better call it

I changed up the pellets to a "cherry". I'll do 2 a days until Sunday then 1/ day. The weight loss was a lot. 300 grams in a 5 day period which has created case hardening which is correctable during the wrap and hanging.

Done with the smoke. It's dark but I would have expected it. Wrapping Monday.

20-23% weight loss after the smoking. I will wrap net and hang them tomorrow. I'm going to guess that 4-5 weeks and it will be done.

See ya in 6 weeks or so.

But first, let me describe what occurred. After the smoking, It was rinsed with wine not dried off but second layer of spices placed on a large collagen sheet and then rolled up. The wine acts as a sticky liquid to bind the meat and collagen sheet so it will adhere to each other. It was poked to get rid of air bubbles that might've been there and then sprayed with 600 penicillin spray and hung up to finishing drying.