Dry Sausage and Cappocola Making

My father and his friend Vito have been making dried sausage and cappocola for years; now as they are aging and slowing down it is time to pass the torch. Phil has been helping them for the past few days taking it all in.
They purchased 4 30 pound cases of “collar cut” pork; it is a special cut of pork from the neck. The dried sausage starts with 60 pounds of pork. It is ground in a meat grinder with coarse cut blade and plate. The meat is then blended 1 cup of salt, ¼ cup of pepper and ¼ of fennel. It is allowed to sit for one day in a cool room kept at 60f. They then stuffed the meat into natural hog casings that had been soaked lemon water for 24 hours, turned inside out and rinsed. The sausage is then hung and allowed to dry for one week and then cryo-vac sealed.
The cappocola starts off by salting one side of the meat and placing on a plastic covered table placed on a slight incline for 24 hours. A plastic tub is placed on the floor to catch the blood that drips from the meat. The meat is then turned over and salted on that side and again left alone for 24 hours. The meat is rinsed with water to remove the salt, soaked in white wine for flavor. We then coat the meat with a coarse ground black pepper and tie the meat. It is hung in a room that is kept at 60F for one month. After the meat is cured it is cut in half and cryo-vac sealed.
Both the sausage and the cappocola are best served sliced very thin and at room temperature.

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Dry Sausage and Cappocola Making