On occasion I get the chance to work with wild game meats. For this project a friend of mine called me and told me that he had some venison (which he had marinated in some Worcestershire sauce) in his freezer. He wanted to know if I could make a salami out of it.
“Of course”, I said. In this charcuterie you’ll get to see the steps come to life. I chose to cold smoke it for about 4 hours with a new cold smoke generator I have that I have fallen in love with. It’s called Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator and if you are into smoking meats you might want to consider checking this baby out!!
The process for making any salami is relatively straight forward. Keep your equipment cold, keep your meat cold, work in a clean environment, and be patient. You will be fermenting you meat with the starter culture in this recipe and what we are looking for is a target pH of 4.9-5.3 (4.9 is better). I test my pH with an Apera Instruments pH meter and I absolutely recommend it to any one looking to get into salami making. It takes all the guess work out of the process and offers incredible peace of mind!!
Enjoy the video and if you have any questions let me know..
Here are a few items I found helpful in this project
- Casings
- Flavor of Italy Starter Culture
- Apera pH Meter with Bluetooth
- Dextrose
- Cure #2
- Calabrian Pepper powder
- Sausage Stuffers
- Meat Grinder
- Spice Grinder
- PH Meter for Meat/Cheese
- InkBird Controllers Temp & Humidity
- Dehumidifier Eva Dry 2200
- TaoTronics Humidifier
- Cold Smoke Generator
- Kitchen Chef Torch
- Sausage Pricker
If you want to see the different things that we use in operation our be sure to check out our new Amazon Store.
2 Guys & A Cooler Amazon Storefront
Smoked Venison Salami
Ingredients
- 1272 g Venison
- 544 g pork back fat
- 45 g kosher salt
- 5 g Insta cure #2
- 3.5 g black pepper
- 2 g garlic powder
- 6.5 g Calabrian pepper powder
- 3.5 g turbinado sugar
- 3.5 g rosemary dried and ground up
- 3 g dextrose
- red wine 1 Tablespoon per 2 pounds of meat mix
- Flavor of Italy starter culture 1/2 tsp dissolved in 1/4 cup of distilled water for every 5 pounds
Instructions
- Grind chilled venison through a 6mm plate and back fat through the 10mm plate. Let chill again before mixing. You want the temp of the meat to be around 35F (or below).
- Prepare all the seasonings and prepare the starter culture and set to the side. You starter culture needs about 30 minutes to "wake-up" before use. Also soak your casing in luke warm water.
- Mix the meat, seasonings, and re-hydrated culture together. You mince meat will be very sticky when finished
- Stuff your mince into a 61mm natural hog casing making sure there are no air pockets. Tie the end with some butchers twine. Prick with a sausage pricker and weigh your salami. Record the weight
- Ferment your salami between 75f- 90F with 90% humidity for 12-24 hours (these parameters are for this culture, other culture require different parameters). If you plan on cold smoking then do it while you are fermenting the salami.
- While this sausage is fermenting we will be cold smoking it as well. Cold smoke for 3-6 hours with an applewood, pecan, or cherry wood.
- Test the pH at 12 hours to see where you are at. You are aiming for a ph between 4.9 and 5.2.
- Once you have reached your target pH place your salami in your drying chamber at 55F with 80% Humidity. Let it dry in this chamber until you have reached a 38%-40% weight loss.
We are Amazon Affiliates which means if you happen to buy something from Amazon after clicking one of our links we get a tiny percentage. This happens at no cost to you and really helps us offset the costs of running this site. Thank you in advance.