Venison Bresaola


 

j biesinger

TVWBB Platinum Member
This fall, a friend of mine shot a doe, and was kind enough to let me help him break some of it down and turn a bit into sausages. I took home a couple of small, tubular, whole muscles. I cleaned up the muscles and cured them by following this recipe.

I wrapped the cured meat in some collagen casing and hung them in my basement until they reached 30% weight loss. I then tossed them in a ziploc in my fridge. My conditions aren't idea (55*, 55% RH) and result in uneven drying. The time in the bag allows the moisture to even out. I hung them again for another 10% weight loss, and sent them back to the fridge. You can see in the final picture that there was still a soft spot in the middle. I'm thinking I should have cycled them three times (at 10% intervals) instead of the two.

The results were fantastic and recommend this to anyone who has access to deer. Keep your pieces small and cycle it between a cool basement and a fridge and you don't even need a fancy chamber.

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They were fairly small muscles so I only cured them about a week. And the I hung them off and on for about a month. My conditions are too dry so I alternate hanging with time in a bag in the fridge which helps equalize the moisture
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dave from Denver:
looks pretty good Jeff, did you innoculate that beautiful white mold colony or is that naturally present in your conditions? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes and no, I'm not sure. I bought a culture from Butcher Packer and I've been using it religiously and it doesn't seem like it does much. I do get great mold growth on the side facing my basement wall which makes me think its coming off my wall and not the culture.
 
Well you're probably not seeing uniform growth due to the low humidity conditions. If you bumped it up to 80% I bet it would take off. Sounds like the side facing the wall is exposed to more humidity.

Good move inoculating, though. At least when the conditions are favorable for mold growth at all you know that the mold will be beneficial.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Sounds like the side facing the wall is exposed to more humidity. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought that too, but I heard the mold works in a wide range of conditions though. And the stuff takes so long to bloom, I just assume its coming from some where other than what I've sprayed on
 

 

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