Never rely on time to determine when your cured meat is ready. Each person has different curing conditions which can greatly alter the curing times. To be much more precise, you should always evaluate the weight and the target is usually between 30%-40% weight loss.
Anything that is aged more than 30 days can have a bit of Cure #2 (Sodium Nitrate). Not really necessary for whole muscle but encouraged for minced meat. If you are selling or giving it away, you need to make sure you inform the recipients that the product contains Nitrates although they will have metabolized into Nitrites by the time the meat is consumed. Nitrates can have serious effects mainly on people with allergies so make sure you whoever consumes it is aware.
Never, under any circumstances test-cook meat which has nitrates or nitrites and has not been cured. This is an extremely dangerous thing which can have serious health consequences. You can test fresh sausage for flavor before packing it in casing but you should never do that for salami or anything else that has nitrates/nitrites.
Anything that is minced meat and cured, should ferment in a fermentation box at 28C and 85-90% humidity. If a fermentation box is not available, you can wrap the meat in casing in cling film and put it in the over with the light on which should produce a similar effect of the ripening box. The most important parameter to check and verify if you can start curing is pH which which should be below 5.2.
Anything that is cured less than 30 days, can have a bit of Cure #1 (Sodium Nitrite) but as with everything else, you need to let anyone that consumes it know that there are curing salts.
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