Kaminwurzen di Cervo

Venison Kaminwurzen. Yes, I'm going to bore you with yet another salume from the Dolomites. If any of this starts to bore you, please let me know. Otherwise, too bad. Everything I had while there I've been trying to recreate. I think I've done a pretty good job, this one included. Kaminwurzen(or Kaminwurz) is typical of the Val Badia and Val Gardena in Sudtirol. It is most often made with pork. However, I read in a couple books while I was there that can also be made with venison or comoscio(which is a native mountain deer). So, when I got a bunch of venison from my cousin again, I earmarked half for Kaminwurzen and the other half that looked like good, solid cylindrical roasts were to be used to make Bresaola di Cervo(venison bresaola), which, by chance, I also happened to eat there as well. Upon opening the venison, I realized that those pieces I intended to make into Bresaola were a little busted up, so, it all got turned into Kaminwurz. On to production. Sticking to my recent pledge of austerity, I researched my ass off. Finally, I decided on a real simple one. This has 70% lean venison, 30% pork backfat, salt and black pepper, cure#2, f-lc starter with some garlic, red wine and caraway seeds.............that's it. Cold smoked using the pro-q cold smoke generator for about 50 hours. Again, I used the ground up juniper berries as an addition to the hardwood saw dust. I'm still tinkering with how much cold smoke to lay on these things. I thought 50 hours was quite a bit. But, the several I ate in the Dolomites were noticeably smoky. But, 50 hours was not enough. While the smoke is definitely present, it isn't quite as noticeable as the native salame. Next time I'll give it 70 hours. I really think the juniper WOOD makes the difference. Some day, perhaps. I stuffed these in hog casings, fermented for about 72 hours, then hit them with the smoke. I read that in the case of cold smoking salame that you should ferment at the same time as you are cold smoking. That would be great if it was May in New York. So, I had to improvise a bit just to make sure it was fermented. This dried out for 5-6 weeks. I'm pretty happy with the results. With so few ingredients, it's nice to be able to taste each of them. Great garlic, caraway smoky flavors. Very, very pleasant. Looks pretty good, too..no smearing or case hardening. Try it.