Dry Cured Salami
Indulge in the distinct flavors of our Denver-made salami, meticulously crafted with American-raised pork and beef raised without antibiotics ever and certified by the Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.) to ensure industry-leading animal welfare standards. Our time-honored techniques include slow and low temperature fermentation and slow drying, resulting in superior taste and texture. Encased in natural casings and seasoned with the finest herbs and spices, each bite delivers old-world quality for the modern palate. Our salami is handcrafted in small batches at our USDA-inspected, SQF-certified production plant in Denver.
Here’s how the magic is made…
01.
Ground meat (farce) with spices, carefully weighed for a 75%/25% fat-to-lean ratio and inoculated with starter cultures.
02.
Farce piped into natural casings ready for fermentation.
03.
Salami post fermentation ready for the drying room.
04.
Salami post drying ready to be brushed and wrapped for sale.
We start with the best-in-class ingredients.
We source pork from Pederson Farms in Hamilton, TX and Black Angus beef from Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City, KS. Our freshly ground spices are sourced locally in Denver from a leading spice purveyor, The Spice Guy.
Our fabrication technique:
We hand trim and dice the meat and weigh each batch to achieve a 75%-25% lean-to-fat ratio. We then inoculate the ground meat, with bioprotective starter cultures which promote rich, complex flavor and color development, and suppress pathogenic bacteria by lowering the pH of the farce. The starter cultures develop slowly which results in complex, robust flavor compared to fast-acting cultures used to make mass-produced salami which has a highly tangy, acidic flavor. We pipe our salami by hand into natural casings, which should be peeled away and discarded. Once the meat is diced, ground, mixed, inoculated and piped, it enters the fermentation chamber in a batch of 500 pounds on its journey to become salami.
Fermentation
During 72 hours in the fermentation chamber the salami is subjected to warm temperature and high humidity. These conditions allow the proteins, sugars and starter cultures to work together to lower the pH creating an environment that is inhospitable for pathogenic bacteria. Also, during this fermentation phase, a mold culture, which is considered a finishing culture, is sprayed into the fermentation chamber. This mold culture contributes to the flavor of the salami, acts as a humidity regulator for the salami and when inoculated at high rates, it protects the surface of the salami by out competing pathogenic bacteria. It should be noted that there is no known relationship between an allergy to the mold Penicillin and an allergy to the antibiotic penicillin, but we recommend consulting your physician if there is concern.
Dry curing
After fermentation, we test the pH level and then transfer the salami into our aging rooms which are designed to mimic old-world aging caves. The drying room is where the salami expels its water content in a slow, controlled manner, with regulated humidity and temperature. This process slowly dries the salami to ensure homogenous texture and moisture content to prevent a condition called “case hardening” whereby the exterior of the salami dries faster than the interior resulting in inconsistent textures which are considered unpleasant.
Food Safety Verification
After the drying process is complete (typically 2-3 months), the salami will be tested for its water activity (aw) level to ensure that it meets the criteria for food safety. Once salami passes the two critical control points (pH level after fermentation and water activity level after dry curing) the salami is then sent off to a lab to verify that no pathogenic bacteria is present in the finished product. Once the salami has passed this final control point, the salami is brushed to remove excess mold, and the salami is wrapped and released for sale.
And there you have it, a salami with perfect texture, and bursting with innovative new-world flavors - a salami which has been made using traditional, old-world techniques and governed by modern food safety standards to ensure that the salami is as safe as it is delicious. And as an added nutritional benefit, our salami is high in protein, rich in minerals and is both paleo- and keto-friendly.
