So I had been checking on my coppa in process more or less daily, and it seemed to be doing all right, no foul odors, just a nice pork-and-seasonings smell. The one potential problem seemed to be that the moisture it was losing was keeping the inside humidity of the wine fridge turned charcuterie chamber way too high, but cracking the door regularly seemed to be helping.

Then last night I examined it, maybe more closely than before, and… mold. Not just white mold, which is normal and even healthy, but… green spots. Oh hell, that’s the end of that, I thought. Yet nothing smelled bad, in fact, it smelled great.

So I read up and found that green mold could still be washed away— it’s black mold, with roots going into the meat, that really means death for your meat and sickness for you. So I hurriedly unwrapped the cheesecloth and discarded it and most of the mold with it, and then washed the outside with vinegar, scrubbing the mold away. I even made some unobtrusive cuts to see the inside, fully expecting to see death and destruction, but… it looked beautiful. It smelled right.

I wrapped it in fresh cheesecloth, retied it, and rehung it. I think it’s going to be okay. We’ll see. That’s part of the point.