Coppa Finished

So here are the pictures of the finished two coppe from my chamber.  First I'll talk about the Fennel and black pepper Coppa.

I took this out of the chamber 2/3/13.  After about three weeks of this coppa being in the chamber I started checking it's weight loss weekly.  What I discovered was that it was losing anywhere from 20-30g a week, around 2% of it's weight.  It's weight on Sunday 1/27/13 was 832g, I checked again the following Sunday and the weight had remained exactly the same.  I figured this was a pretty good indication that it had lost all it was going to lose, about 24% total.  Also I checked with my contact and expert in all things salumi,  Chef Joe Cicala at Le Virtú in south Philly and he confirmed my assessment.  So I cut into it and the results are the pictures above. 

Taste wise, it was still very salty but had a really good nutty, woody porkness to it kind of a prosciutto taste but less intense.  I've learned that the saltiness in a cured meat should lessen the longer it hangs so I wrapped the exposed, cut area with cheesecloth and put it back in my cure chamber. I'm going to keep tasting for saltiness once about every two weeks but overall I'm very happy with the results.

Next is the black and red pepper Coppa.

This was the first Coppa I ever did and I had a few issues with it.  First of all I cut it from the pork butt before I had a casing for it and wrapped it in cheesecloth instead.  Once I got the casing, about a week later, I transferred it to the beef bung.  I think this had a reaction with the outer meat and fat of the Coppa because it looked smelled and felt a lot different than the fennel one as it aged.  First of all it felt like I had some minor case hardening (check out Rhulman's book for more information on case hardening) and the smell was slightly acidic and sour, almost cheese like. This one went in a week before the fennel.  Also I must have thrown away my notes with the original weight so judging accurately it's loss was impossible. Long story short I felt I had ruined this one so I decided to just cut into it anyway the same day as the fennel.  The meat was much more moist in the center, depite having aged longer and the flavor was much less salty the texture was closer to rare roast beef than ham.  Actually I thought this tasted awesome and I've been eating it along with the fennel, so far. no botulism or any other health issues. 

All around I feel like both of these were successful and I can't wait to do another one and try another recipe.