First cuts into the curing chamber!

The lonzini bothers - trussed, oiled and peppered

The time finally came to pull my lonzini from the ziplocs in the fridge, clean 'em up, tie 'em up, and hang 'em!  After enough time in the salt, the meat firms up - the curing process removes a lot of liquid from the proteins, taking away the pliancy of raw meat.  Since I had not gone to the trouble of draining the extracted liquids they were still retaining some, so hadn't lost any weight yet (actually, each had gained a few grams).  That is the purpose of the drying fridge.

Here they hang for two or three weeks

After pulling the first cut from the ziploc, I rinsed it with water and set it on the baking rack to dry a little bit.  Rinse and repeat with the second piece of meat, and then truss them both up like a roast.  There are lots of videos on YouTube that show how to do this; it's really simple.  First, tie the string around the meat lengthwise, binding the loin on four sides; next, start at one end and cinch up loops around the meat every inch or so.  You put the loose end of the string under the loop so it tightens under itself, then cinch it tight before starting the next loop.  Finally, tie the string the the other end, leaving a loose, long loop to hang it by.

Once the meat was tied, I liberally rubbed each cut down with olive oil, then dusted with black pepper.  The oil serves to keep the outside from drying too quickly, while the pepper fights off pests and (I think) bacteria.

I also put my recipe/weight cards in little ziploc snack bags and stapled the bags to the string.  This gives me a way to identify each piece of meat and ready access to the target weight.  After a week or so, I'll pull them out every couple of days and weigh them until they hit their target of 30% weight loss.  Then they're ready to eat!