Curious if anyone has ever used their wine cellar space for aging food products?
I’d really love to experiment with curing and aging a ham or producing prosciutto (duck and pork both!) and am curious if anyone has used their cellar for this kind of project and how it worked out?
Any other projects in this vein people have been successful with?
Very interested as I had the exact same though occur to me the other day.
I’ve aged homemade bressola with great results. Also use it as a place to ripen cheese.
I was curious about the prosciutto part.
The Prosciutto di Parma consorzio requires three to four weeks at low refrigerator temperature (under 38F) and high humidity (80%):
But this article makes it sound like wine cellar conditions could be ideal (55F, 65% RH):
Also, having visited a prosciutto plant south of Parma a few years ago, at least in big quantities, the aging hams stink to high heaven. It was nauseating.
Seems like a wine cellar could be ideal for aging cheese. I store olive oil and beer in my cellar, but that’s a very prosaic use.
if I had a walk in wine fridge, I’d be all over:
I’m guessing most of us are like me in that I have the polar opposite issue from “what to do with unused surplus wine cellar space.”
But it is an interesting question, carry on.
I grow lots of onions and, for most of them, I leave them in ground into the fall and then “cure” them for long-term storage. They’re down in the wine cellar.
If you are interested to do so, can you say a bit about how long you do that and how that affects the onions? Is it mostly just to store them, or does it actually change their character in some desirable way?
What type of onions, and is the higher humidity level OK with the curing process?
yes, I’ve cured meat in my wine cellar, conditions are great for it. Much better than the fridge conversion I used before the cellar was finished.
I had this exact Jamon in my wine cellar for 2 months before before breaking it out for New Years!
FYI, the provided knife is near useless.
Chris / Brad, I do it almost solely for long-term storage. I know onions are cheap and plentiful at the grocery store, but I just love growing some of my own stuff and, when onions are ready, having a TON of them at once isn’t ideal. As such, I cure them and store them to use until the following summer. The cellar is very cool and dark, obviously.
While I don’t remember the exact variety off-hand, they’re not “sweet” onions but, rather, some variety of standard “yellow” onion. From what I’ve read, really high sugar sweet onions don’t store as well. To cure them properly, leave them in the ground until the green tops flop over and start to brown. Once they’re pretty thoroughly shriveled around the neck, pull them out of the ground and lay them out in a cool area with all of the leaves / tops still intact. Over a couple of weeks, those tops will shrivel even more but, most importantly, the onion skin will dehydrate and tighten considerably. Once they’re done, cut off those tops and store in the wine cellar. I just had another this past weekend and it was like new.
I’ve now done Guanciale in the wine cellar (my cellar is typically 53-55F and 80-90% humidity) a few times. Last batch was finishing in the height of this winter, when the humidity was 95%+ (due to unit not running much - my natural humidity is 100%) and did get a bunch of mold on it, but after taking the (harmless looking) mold off the Guanciale came out great, and I’ve lived to tell the tale.
Trying a coppa in the cellar now that we’re heading into Spring and my humidity is back in the 80s%.
I’ve occasionally used a Eurocave to ripen whole, store-bought washed-rind cheeses that feel too firm when purchased. Works very well… if you remember they’re there.
I have cured Saucisson in my cellar. My cellar is passive and conditions are only right for a few months. It is really easy and not terribly expensive to turn and old refrigerator into a curing chamber so did that and do most of my curing there now.
curious if y’all have a recipe or method you follow/followed for this?
Thanks!
have done the same, and honestly, I loved that smell! not as much as the parmesan aging room, but still enjoyed it.
when we visited Willett in Kentucky, Sean Brock had hams hanging in their aging warehouses. have wanted to do something similar since!
I modified a recipe from The New Charcuterie Cookbook — Jamie Bissonnette. I bought it used for $2.
Lots of info on the web that can get you started.
Interesting!
don’t know how much a “TON” is, but if you like French Onion Soup, that’ll rid you of a good amount. But maybe you get enough to make that soup 20 times over.(?)
