Curing & Fermentation Chamber

As I got started making different types of charcuterie I quickly saw my needs grow as the variety of types of things I wanted to make also grew. When I was just making smaller batches of air-dried items I was able to get by sufficiently with a place to hang items in my kitchen or pantry. That required some creativity to help maintain air-circulation and proper humidity. While most of my projects turned out well, they were never as good as I wanted them to be. Most of the trouble I ran into was maintaining a relative-humidity that allowed the meats to dry at a slow and steady rate. Case-hardening is an issue. If the items dry too quickly the outside can lose moisture while the inside doesn't. When the weight loss is too quick it doesn't allow proper changes throughout the meat to take place that lead to taste development through enzymatic changes that require a longer timeframe. So after having made several items that suffered in one way or another, mostly from these issues, I was ready for a better, yet affordable way to fix these problems and maintain success with other important aspects like temperature and air circulation.

Chamber ready to go to work.

The over-all chamber is what I would refer to as medium sized. It takes up a footprint of 18" X 48". The size is that of the InterMetro Rack that houses everything. It is 74.5" tall. I bought the black Metro rack for about $150 at The Container Store. It comes with four shelves, a top, the two middle shelves and a bottom. I arranged it so that the top is flush, the bottom is a notch or two off the bottom and the two middle shelved are equally spaced between top and bottom.

Atlanta Underground Market - September 2012

As you may have read a couple months back, the Atlanta Nosh market has been cancelled. The organizer suddenly announced it "closure" and left many of the vendors wondering "what's next?" Luckily a former vendor has stepped up and had continued to operate a market with many of the same vendors. As a matter of fact, it is being operated as The Atlanta Underground Market, the original namesake of the original market we first started our Atlanta venture under. For more info on that check out the last post.

Our Signature Smoked Sausage

For the return to the AUM format we have switched up our approach a bit. We are doing housemade sausages and a Cured Plate. All the sausages will be served on H&F Bread Co. buns. For every market we plan to offer up our Signature Smoked Sausage. It is an all pork sausage with several spices that is smoked with an Apple and Pecan wood-blend. For the market we offer it in a simple and classic way, topped with yellow mustard and diced onion (Vidalia when in season). We will also offer these in take-away packages so you can enjoy them at home!