Dry Cured Soppressata Starter Kit

Soppressata is southern Italy's great dry cured sausage — coarse-ground, generous with crushed red pepper and chili, pressed flat in the old style and hung until it slices like velvet. It is also the kind of project that stalls at the shopping list, because nothing about curing is obvious until you've done it once. Which cure, which culture, where the white bloom comes from. This kit settles all of it in one box.

Add pork and a place to hang it. Eight to ten weeks later you cut into something you made.

What You'll Need Besides the Kit

Dry curing is the one kind of sausage making you can't do on a countertop, and we'd rather say so now than have you discover it in week four. You need a space you can hold at roughly 55°F and 70–80% humidity for the whole aging period — a curing chamber, or a spare refrigerator fitted with a temperature controller and a humidifier. A kitchen fridge is far too dry. A basement works only if it happens to stay in that range year round.

You'll also want a scale accurate to a tenth of a gram for the cure, and a way to record each chub's starting weight. Soppressata is finished when it has lost about 30% of that weight, and weight is the only reliable way to know. Browse our curing ingredients and supplies if you're setting up.

What's in the Kit

Soppressata Seasoning, 3 lbs. — crushed red pepper, Italian chili, fennel and aromatic herbs over a salt and dextrose base, built for the robust southern Italian profile rather than a mild deli salami. Blended in Buffalo without silicon dioxide, so if it cakes in the bag it hasn't spoiled — crush it loose and carry on. Seasons approximately 50 lbs. at 9 1/2 oz. per 10 lbs., so there's plenty left for the batches after this one.

Insta Cure #2, 1 lb. — the cure for anything that air-dries rather than cooks. Unlike Insta Cure #1, it carries sodium nitrate alongside the nitrite, converting slowly across weeks so the meat stays protected through a long hang. Using #1 here would leave the soppressata unprotected partway through drying. It is the single most important item in the box.

Bactoferm T-SPX — the fermentation culture, and the reason this tastes like soppressata rather than summer sausage. Pediococcus pentosaceus and Staphylococcus xylosus drive a deliberately mild, slow acidification between 64 and 75°F. That restraint is the point: it builds colour and a classic cured aroma without the sharp tang a faster culture produces. It's the culture used for traditional Mediterranean sausage — French saucisson, Italian salami, and this.

Bactoferm Mold-600 — Penicillium nalgiovense, the white bloom on the outside of a properly aged chub. It isn't decoration: the mold layer regulates how fast moisture leaves the casing, contributes a mushroomy aroma, and crowds out the wild molds and yeasts that would otherwise take hold. Grows dense, short and even.

Deer Head Print Collagen Casings, 65mm — 10 per pack — 2 1/2" across and 18" long, holding about 2.5 lbs. each, so the pack covers roughly 25 lbs. Non-edible collagen middles made from processed beef hide; peel before eating. 65mm is the size we'd put a first-timer on: wide enough to behave like real soppressata, narrow enough that a batch that goes wrong costs a few pounds rather than fifteen. Three printed lines on each casing let you label the batch and the date.

1/2" Hog Rings and Manual Pliers — the reason these are in the kit instead of a length of twine. A chub hangs for two months under its own weight, and a hand-tied knot that slips puts the whole thing on the floor. Rings clip the ends shut and stay shut.

Features

• Everything but the meat for dry cured soppressata
• Insta Cure #2 — the correct cure for long air-drying, not the #1 used in smoked sausage
• Both cultures included: fermentation and surface mold
• T-SPX gives the mild, traditional southern Italian profile rather than a tangy one
• Casings for approximately 25 lbs.; seasoning for approximately 50 lbs.
• 65mm chubs — a forgiving size for a first batch
• Hog rings and pliers to secure the ends for a two-month hang
• Printable casings for labelling batch and date
• Seasoning blended and packed by The Sausage Maker in Buffalo, New York

10 lb. Soppressata Recipe

• 8 lbs. lean pork and 2 lbs. pork back fat
• 9 1/2 oz. Soppressata Seasoning
• 2 level tsp. Insta Cure #2
• Bactoferm T-SPX, measured per the rate on the packet
• Distilled or non-chlorinated water for the cultures

Method

1. Chill the lean pork and back fat to 32–34°F. Cold fat cuts cleanly; warm fat smears and ruins the texture.
2. Grind all the meat and fat through a 3/8" plate.
3. Mix in the seasoning and the cure, weighed on a gram scale, along with the T-SPX. Mix until evenly distributed.
4. Pack the mixture tightly into a tub no more than 6 to 7 inches deep and refrigerate 48 hours so the cure penetrates.
5. Grind a second time through a 1/4" plate.
6. Soak the casings in warm water 3 to 5 minutes. Clip one end with a hog ring, stuff firmly leaving no air pockets and about 2 inches unfilled, then clip the second end.
7. Prick the casings all over with a sausage pricker to release trapped air. Air pockets are where spoilage starts.
8. Weigh each chub and write the weight on the casing. This number is how you'll know when it's done.
9. Hold at about 55°F for 48 hours to ferment.
10. Optional, traditional: apply cold smoke for up to 48 hours until the colour develops. Plenty of soppressata is made unsmoked — skip this and go straight to aging if you prefer.
11. Prepare the Mold-600: one pouch into 1–2 litres of non-chlorinated water at about 68°F, left to equilibrate two hours, then diluted to working strength. Dip or spray the chubs, stirring the suspension as you go so the spores stay in solution. Use it the same day you mix it.
12. Age at 50–60°F and 70–80% humidity for 8 to 10 weeks. White mold should appear within the first week or so.
13. Weigh weekly. It's ready when it has lost about 30% of its starting weight. Slice and keep refrigerated.

Prefer a milder salami?

Our Dry Cured Salami Starter Kit is the same setup with our salami seasoning and the F-LC culture — less heat, a slightly tangier finish, and ready in four to eight weeks rather than eight to ten.

Storage

• Put both Bactoferm cultures in the freezer the day they arrive. Below 1°F. Their shelf life outside a freezer is short.
• To check a culture is still alive, shake the packet. Loose, like sand, means the bacteria are viable. Clumped and silent means it has died and shouldn't be used.
• Store the seasoning and cure in a cool, dry place.
• Collagen casings are shelf stable and need no refrigeration.

Shipping

This kit contains Bactoferm cultures, which cannot be shipped outside of North America.

Allergens

[CONFIRM against the label — the seasoning page declares MSG, but MSG does not appear in its ingredient panel.]

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