CellarCure
Decorative illustration of the four start-here steps as icons: 1, an open book; 2, a kitchen scale; 3, salami links hanging from a rod; 4, a jar of salami slices. Step 3 is highlighted.

Step 3 of 4

Track the drying

By the site editors. Last updated November 2, 2026.

Once your salami is stuffed and fermented, it hangs to dry. This is the long, quiet part, and the scale is your best friend.

Drying tracker. Log your weigh-ins and see how much weight your salami has lost since its starting weight. It does the math; it doesn't tell you when a salami is done or safe to eat.

Here's how we'd use it:

  1. Weigh each link right after stuffing. That's the "green weight," and it goes in as your first entry.
  2. Weigh again on a regular schedule, on the same scale, and log each reading with its date.
  3. Watch the percent go up. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) says "Dried sausages range from 60% to 80% of their original weight before drying" (FSIS: Sausages and Food Safety, archived), which works out to 20% to 40% loss. BC Centre for Disease Control's worked example dries "until 35% weight loss from green weight" (BCCDC 3.13, Appendix 2).

This part's serious. Hitting your number doesn't make a salami safe. FSIS says "Fermentation and drying alone are not particularly effective as lethality treatments" (FSIS-GD-2023-0002, archived). Skinny sticks are a trap, too: "smaller diameter products tend to dry faster than large diameter products, and the shorter drying time is often not enough time to achieve the same reductions in bacteria" (FSIS-GD-2023-0002, archived). So the tracker is a log, not a finish line. Chamber settings and what can go wrong are in Drying salami.