Lonza Results are In – Stay Tuned for Taste Testing

It's been almost 3 weeks since I've started my first cure in this wine fridge setup, and I'm happy to report that the meat has already lost 30% of its water weight with no presence of mold whatsoever! Check out the temperature and weight loss curves over the last 18 days. Not too bad. I am waiting to borrow a foodsaver before I cut into the first lonza. I want to make sure that I vacuum seal it right away since there is no way I can eat nearly 2lbs of cured meat by myself before it starts deteriorating in quality. The plan is to cut them into 3 or so pieces and seal them so that they can be enjoyed over a much longer period without drying out further. I will update shortly with pictures of the meat sliced into and comment on my flavor observations and any insights on what to do better next time.

The final weighing

Temperature and humidity in the wine fridge over the aging period.

Notice how the humidity in the chamber is higher at the beginning? Well, this is for two reasons. 1) On day 1 of the cure I brought 1 cup of water to about 150°F in my water kettle and poured it in a tray at the bottom of the fridge. 2) The meat itself has a lot of moisture that contributes to self humidifying the chamber. The addition of extra humidity at the very beginning of the process is pretty important. Ideally, around 80%RH should be maintained for the first couple of days. If the surfaces of the meat are allowed to dehydrate quickly then the moisture internal to the meat can't diffuse out as quickly. In some extreme cases a crust can form preventing moisture from escaping at all, this is called case hardening. It could cause the meat to rot from the inside, but again, it's only a problem if the humidity is really low, like on the order of 30%RH or lower at the beginning.

Weight loss over time

One thing I noticed is that the pepper lonza dried out much quicker than the bay leaf lonza. This I'm fairly certain is due to it's placement in the fridge. The pepper lonza was towards the back near the fans of the thermoelectric cooler, while the bay lonza was in the front near the door.