653291 Fri Sep 18 12:32:23 -0700 2009 13 41 Cookware 0 5040231 I'm interested in building a small meat curing box to make salumis, bacon, etc. I've done some research and there are some pretty elaborate contraptions that people have concoted using old freezerless fridges. It appears that the most viable option for me (I live in an apartment) is to use a small wine fridge. Has anyone had any luck with this. What about using one of those small beverage fridges that we all had in college? Any ideas or website links would be very much appreciated. Thanks! Fri Sep 18 12:32:23 -0700 2009 98975 sheriff 1 5040259 remember you need good airflow so need a fan inside. Also, need to control humidity and temperature. Fri Sep 18 12:40:38 -0700 2009 5040231 171209 celeryroot 1 5040267 http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/502952 Fri Sep 18 12:42:59 -0700 2009 5040231 11369 Robert Lauriston 1 5040281 I've seen some dry aging mini frig set-up using the tiny dorm frigs. I think it was linked to a thread on CH. Basically the person took a small frig and put a PC power supply with fan on it for circulation. Not sure what you'd need for curing but here's something: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make_a_dehydrator_from_a_dorm_fridge/ Fri Sep 18 12:47:12 -0700 2009 5040231 27275 ML8000 1 5040582 A wine fridge will maintain the temperature you want, but humidity control might be difficult. I made a curing box from a mini-fridge and a temperature controller bought from a brewing supply store, and none of the cheap humidity control tricks worked very well (salt, silica gel, antifreeze). But you live in the Bay Area, right? Mid fall through early summer is perfect salumi weather. In fact, even with the recent hot spell I had no trouble making a couple of slabs of pancetta (although I wouldn't try making something that required a long drying time, like salami, under those conditions). You can hang salumi in the kitchen (or any other room for that matter), away from direct sunlight or heat sources. Fri Sep 18 14:36:56 -0700 2009 5040231 53530 Zeldog 2 5040592 Some wine coolers have humidity control. Fri Sep 18 14:38:38 -0700 2009 5040582 11369 Robert Lauriston 1 5043798 I'm just about to start my first experiment using a wine cooler to hang soppressata. I've got two containers, one with an Oasis sponge, the other with the same type of water absorbing bead used to keep humidors at 70% humidity. Each has been soaked in a solution of 50% distilled water, 50% propylene glycol. The propylene glycol is supposed to keep the humidity at 70%, the sponges and crystals just help by absorbing copious amounts of the solution. The soppressata is ready to be stuffed, I'm going to stuff it tonight, hang at 85F for 12 hours, then into the cooler it goes. Running dry, the cooler does stay at about 70% humidity (it sometimes peaks at 74% before the compressor kicks in), but it slowly drops down to 50% when the compressor is running, then recovers over about 20 minutes. We shall see, apparently it takes 2 to 3 weeks, so I'll post my results then (or sooner!). Thanks, Brian Sun Sep 20 10:17:52 -0700 2009 5040231 1084227 brianl999 2 5045508 Great, I'm excited to hear how it turns out. Did you get your ideas from a website or a book? Mon Sep 21 06:48:41 -0700 2009 5043798 98975 sheriff 3 5048459 Mostly websites, and cigar ones at that (I don't smoke cigars...). It seems the conditions desired for cigar storage are similar to the ones for hanging cured sausages. Many of them also utilize wine coolers. If the sponge/bead combo doesn't work out, I'll try one of the small humidifiers used for the cigar humidors. Humidity does seem to be topping out at 70%, but I'm concerned that the drop to 50% when the compressor turns on may still cause case hardening. Time will tell. I'll keep everyone posted, Thanks Brian Tue Sep 22 06:14:15 -0700 2009 5045508 1084227 brianl999 4 5083595 Update I was home on the weekend and had a look at the soppressata. A few issues. There were some mould spots on one of the sausages. Tiny white ones, but they were somewhat fuzzy. Just to be safe, I wiped them down with some vinegar. The second issue seemed a bit more serious, and I had noticed it earlier. Two of the sausages (there were a total of six) had some spots on them that were kind of grey and soft (looked and felt raw - very distinctly different from the rest). It was the meat under the casing, my best guess is that I didn't mix it enough, and the cure didn't make it to all of the meat. I don't believe this had anything to do with the wine cooler, I'm pretty sure I didn't mix it enough. When I was grinding the pork, I ground it into the bowl from our 6qt Kitchenaid mixer. I then put the bowl into the freezer, cleaned up the grinder, changed the die and then ground the fat on top of the pork. I initially tried adding the seasoning (and cure) while the mixer was running, but this turned out to be a bit difficult, so after adding about half, I shut off the mixer and dumped the rest in. I turned the mixer back on, but I'm thinking I didn't let it run long enough. I was afraid of smearing the fat into the meat, so I think I turned it off a bit prematurely. Next time I will grind into a separate bowl, then transfer the meat to the mixer bowl about a pound at a time, adding some seasoning/cure as I add each pound of meat. I ended up cutting off the questionable parts and tossing them. When looking at the centers of the sausages I had to cut, it appears that they are progressing OK, it was a pretty uniform colour through to the centre, but not quite firm enough yet (they had been in the cooler for 12 days when I looked at them). Also, the fan was at the side of the cooler, and the sausage with the mould was furthest away from the fan, so I moved the fan to the center of the cooler. It's a PC case fan, and it's spinning very slowly, so I may add another fan for the next batch to ensure adequate airflow. So, so far, not a total loss, I'm guessing I threw out about 1/4 of the meat, I was pretty aggressive about trimming them. I'll do things a little differently next time, but, for the most part, I think the cooler is doing it's job well enough. This coming weekend will be three weeks that they've been in there, so they should be done. Unfortunately, now that I've chopped a bunch off, I can't really measure by weight anymore (although I can make a reasonable guess). Again, I'll keep everyone posted, Thanks, Brian Tue Oct 06 14:18:44 -0700 2009 5048459 1084227 brianl999 2 5050959 Brian, Based on my not too extensive experience, if you can keep the humidity between roughly 50 to 70% you should be ok. When you put the sausage in the humidity range will likely go up a bit compared to your empty cooler test, so case hardening may not be an issue. But don't go by time. Weigh the sausage before you put it in the cooler. Most of the recipes I've seen say the sausage is cured when it has lost about 30% of it's original weight. Tue Sep 22 20:06:21 -0700 2009 5043798 53530 Zeldog 3 5067374 Thanks Zeldog I weighed them on Sunday (after being in the cooler for a week), and they had lost about a pound of weight. I'm away until the weekend, so I'll weigh them again on Sunday to see how they are coming. So far so good (seemingly, anyways), no mould, anyways. I'll let everyone know of the progress on Sunday. Ruhlman's book says two to three weeks, it's stuffed into hog casings, so perhaps it will be ready this weekend. Thanks, Brian Tue Sep 29 12:21:31 -0700 2009 5050959 1084227 brianl999 1 5045753 Just FWIW, but you'd only really need it for dried cured stuff like soppressata and salami. For bacon, you're only curing briefly (a week or so if dry cured), and you could do that in a standard fridge (even bagged). Mostly out of haste, but I've done bacon brined and like that approach b/c it only takes about 3 days to cure. Jibes well with my lack of planning skills. Mon Sep 21 08:16:24 -0700 2009 5040231 12626 ted 2 5050972 Indeed. Bacon is so easy, even if you don't smoke it (the only hard part is finding pork belly). A good place to start for all you wannabe charcutieres out there. Tue Sep 22 20:15:01 -0700 2009 5045753 53530 Zeldog