madbaker | Salmon Chanted Evening

The apprentice came over yesterday for our monthly work day. We had good chattage, beer, and stuffed and cold-smoked about nine pounds of Fish sausage of Bologna. This recipe, done properly as a cured sausage, is one of the finest things I've ever made. This time 'round I bought fresh salmon rather than using (relatively) cheap Trader Joe's frozen. Also, for the smoked salmon I hacked off several pieces and hot-smoked them overnight (no additives). So I have high hopes that this will improve it further.

We did cut the salt down a bit, and the pepper and cinnamon in approximately half. Last time we used just-freshly-ground pepper, and it was ground pretty finely - and the sausage was assertively peppery. I liked it, but pepper was the dominant front note. So besides cutting the quantity, we used half white pepper and half white peppercorns, coarsely cracked.

I should probably get the Bactoferm surface mould culture going. I hadn't needed to use it in a while; the oubliette was nicely inoculated and keeping things going on its own. But the last few batches didn't mold up much, so I did a heavy dip on the batch and they are covered in a heavy coat. I'll cut it back this time and see how they mold.