German Mettwurst

looks great....just might have to make this....thx

Looks Great, thanks for the recipe...

Great instructions for a newbie, I have been looking for something to mix my hobbies and I still have some venison I want to use, this will be perfect.

Those look excellent! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I'm gonna have to give this a try. Enjoy them!!

lcruzen

This is going to be my first attempt at smoked sausage.  Thanks for sharing the recipe and pictures.  I have a family reunion/Christmas party with all the German relatives in Frankenmuth on the 26th.  I think this will be perfect sliced up in some sauerkraut.

Any additional tips since you posted this over a year ago?

I'M trying to find something close to what my mother remembers from childhood when her uncles from germany made mettwurst & hung in attic upstairs..where she'd go sneek it with the one uncle ..hoe authentic would you say this is

Am wrestling with the process of making Mettwurst sausage, the coarse cured version.  Have the ingredients recipe but am anxious about proper processing beyond grinding and seasoning.  What I'd like to create is smoked, medium hard and is eaten without cooking.  I have seen recipes that call for curing, smoking cold (with temps held below below 90 degrees), but question what in the recipe/process prevents the risk associated with not cooking the meat to 150 degrees (botulism and trichinosis).  More detailed information on forming the "pellicle", letting the sausage "dry" and "bloom" and adding liquid prior to stuffing will be helpful.  Thinking the final cured smoked product can be either eaten within several days or vacumn  sealed and frozen for later use.  Also wonder how important keeping the curing or smoking links/rings from contacting adjacent links might be.  Can the links/rings be smoked on horizontal grill racks or must they be hung to get a consistent/safe end product?  If the product "must be" cooked to insure it's safe for consumption is the cooking step best done before or after the smoke?  Finally, I have 4 - 10 lb bags of frozen coarse ground mix of seasoned venison/pork mettwurst waiting for further processing instruction.  This gives me some opportunity to try alternate approaches but also suspect dealing with consistency of the thawing ground mix may present it own set of challenges.

Krik

If you want to do a cured, uncooked sausage you need to use cure #2. If you aren't familiar with dry curing, I'd recommend reading up on it before attempting. Otherwise, if you've already added cure #1, you can hot smoke it, keeping the temps under 170F until the sausage is ~155 IT and eat as is from there.

You can still cold smoke it if it has cure #1, then freeze for later, but then you will have to cook it before eating.

Forming the pellicle is letting the casing dry somewhat before applying smoke. You can either leave them in the fridge overnight, hang them in front of a fan for an hour or so, or let them hang in the smoker with some heat, but no smoke for an hour, then start smoking.

Blooming is just letting the sausage rest after smoking, I generally hang mine in the basement or fridge overnight, then vacpack and freeze or eat. They get a nice dark color and allows the flavors to develop.

Adding liquid prior to stuffing is ok prior to stuffing if doing cooked sausge. You can do it with a dry cured sausge, but in limited quantities. Follow a trusted recipe if you aren't confident.

There isn't any risk is sausage links are touching each other as long as the internal temp is good, you will just not have any smoke coloring where they touch. No problem smoking on grill racks, i do it often, you will just have grill lines on the links.

hope that helps

I'm not sure about forming a pellicle.... It may seal the outside of the sausage where moisture can't escape..(case hardening).. Smoking below 70 would be what I'd suggest as higher temps can cook some meats and melt some fats... cure #2 and drying the sausage will make it safe to eat... The water must be reduced to a "water activity" ( Aw ) level where bacteria can't survive....

Find a recipe and follow it exactly as written in a respected book...