Chris and I love spicy Chorizo, both fresh and dried. This is my first attempt at dried Spanish Chorizo. Once its finished I will see if the recipe needs to be tweaked. I am still tweaking my fresh chorizo recipe so this one may also need a couple of versions to perfect. The recipe below is the current latest and greatest. UPDATE: I've tasted the results and have tweaked the recipe below to add a little more heat. The chorizo is good but I like a little more spice.
Ingredients:
5 lbs pork shoulder or but 75/25 split meat/fat
30 g sea salt
7 g curing salt #2
8 g cayenne pepper
6 garlic cloves crushed thru garlic press
6 g oregano
10 g chili powder
15 g Spanish paprika
15 g Smoked paprika
2 tbsp corn syrup
Bactoferm as per the package for 5 lbs of meat
3 tbsp distilled water for the bactoferm
Mold 600 for spraying the links when in your drying chamber
Beef Middles as needed for stuffing soaked in water for 20 minutes. I needed about 6 feet.
Steps:
1. Make sure your pork is well chilled and grind it thru your coarse grinding plate. Put it back into the fridge to rechill it.
2. Create your Bactoferm culture with the distilled water and let it cure for the recommended time on the package.
3. Add all herbs, curing salt and spices except for the garlic and corn syrup in a small container and mix them thoroughly.
4. Add the garlic, corn syrup, and bactoferm culture mixture to the ground pork and mix it with your hands until evenly mixed.
5. Stuff your sausage into the beef middles
6. Allow the sausages to rest in a warm moist place for 24 hours. This allows the bactoferm to ferment and flavor the sausage. (80 degrees, 80% humidity)
7. Weigh each sausage and mark down the its initial weight.
8. Hang the sausage in your drying/curing chamber. Spray the sausages with the Mold 600 culture at this point (use the package instructions to dilute and cultivate it)
9. Dry at 58 degrees and 70% humidity until each sausage loses at least 35% of its weight.
