Bologna mystery of the ages

[ringodad]

Hello all,

I joined this site six years ago, and due to work and moving just haven't made it back. I've made a lot of progress in those years, but still have a major mystery on my hands and I'd appreciate your input - especially the old timers!

I received a recipe from my late Father that he in turn got from my Grandpa in 1948 - It's for his "All Beef" Bologna that he sold in his store/butcher market. Everyone I've spoken with agrees it was of true commercial quality and Grandpa liked to say it made his retirement comfortable. The thing is, he modified Heller's recipe from their old meat curing books and the recipe he gave Dad mentioned no fat at all! Grandpa would butcher local bulls, then added what I thought was way too much Heller's Bull Brand Flour and LOTS of water. Does anyone have any old time experience substituting fat with this concoction? I've never wanted to try it, thinking he must have just forgotten to write down pork or beef fat. The recipe also had a TON of salt, like 3.7%. The first time I tried his recipe I used his percentage of binder flour which I had a buddy mill based on a loose interpretation of what was in Heller's flour binder. I added fat, like 25% and it was mealy, way too salty and didn't bloom well. Can a great lean and juicy bologna actually be made with just lean meat and flour and water for juiciness? Also, if I'd follow the recipe exactly but scaled down from the 55Lb meat load of cured beef he used would the salt be just right with all that flour and water?

 

[SmokinAl]

When I make bologna I use 3 # of ground chuck & 2# of ground pork butt.

I think I would try this ratio with your recipe & see how it turns out.

I use the cure calculator for the sugar/salt/cure ratios.

Hope this will help a little.

Al

 

[tallbm]

Well I can't answer directly when it comes to bologna because I have never made it.  HOWEVER, I have made plenty of sausage with game meat and it basically has zero fat.  I buy trimmed pork back fat and follow the 80% meat to 20% fat ratio guideline for sausage making and I come out with PERFECT sausage every time.

It is really quite easy to hit proper and accurate meat vs fat content for sausages buy simply buying certain cuts of leaner meat and then trimming the fat from the meat to separate the meat and the fat.  Then it is simply 8 pounds of meat and 2 pounds of fat for every 10 pounds of sausage.  Also asking the butcher or butcher department to hold some fat for you is a request the store can accommodate... if they are are a competent enough to come through for you :)

Now I understand if a fatty cut of meat goes on sale (brisket, pork shoulder, etc.) and you buy it for sausage making but even a little care carving up those cuts can eliminate much of the 80/20 meat to fat guess work.

So if I can do it with meat that has no fat by adding store bought pork fat and using a store bought seasoning mix or making my seasoning mix. I'm pretty sure you can make a nice juicy bologna following the same approach.  I would highly recommend you take baby steps like buy yourself 4 pounds of lean or fat trimmed beef, add 1 pound of beef fat (80/20 is 4pounds meat 1 pound fat) and give it a shot on a small scale so you can figure out your seasoning, binder, water ratio.

For an example LEM's Backwoods Cured Trail Bologna seasoning is 3 oz of seasoning for 5 pounds of meat and their instructions have you mixing 3 1/2 teaspoons of seasoning, 1/4 teaspoon of cure, and 1 fluid ounce of water per 1 pound of meat.

They too also mention to mix 20% pork fat. 

LEM try's to make their instructions as fool proof as possible but I've found their oven cooking instructions for sausages are not always the best.  By looking at their seasoning pack ratios, instructions, and using well known alternative smoking/cooking instructions (alternative to their cooking instructions) I think you can create a bologna winner that you can tweak and perfect until you get what you are looking for, see the image below:

lemsTrailBologna.png

• tallbm
• Mar 1, 2017

Now again, I mention the LEM stuff to use a reference to get you in the ballpark but realize your seasoning ratio will take some tweaking to get what you are looking for.  With only 5 pounds for testing you can always salvage a sub par bologna into meat for making beans, soups, or just mince it up for a sloppy joe sandwiches or something.

In any case I hope this info helps give you some ideas and I wish you the best of luck :)

 

[donr]

I found this gem.  Not going to help you, but related.

https://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/sliker/msuspcsbs_bhel_bhellerand12/msuspcsbs_bhel_bhellerand12.pdf

Don

 

[tropics]

Ringo I made a 100% Beef Bologna

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/244068/100-all-beef-bologna

Richie

 

[DanMcG]

I'd like to see the recipe that was pasted down to you, but I understand if its a family secret.
Is it possible that when your Grandpa wrote it down that he just wrote beef think that your father would know it was lean and fat? I do it all the time, I'll write done pork for a recipe but I know it's a mix of meat and fat. In the era we're talking I cant imagine it was fat free.
Cereal binders would act the same as modern day SPC or NFDM but not as well, and would change the flavor for good or bad. They all bind water to keep in moisture, but wouldn't be a good fat substitute.
The salt amount you mentioned is off the scale, that's saltier then sea water.

Is it possible that to protect his recipe he halfed the amount of meat so if anyone made it it would be a soft salty tube of uneatable meat?
Interesting project ya got going Ringo. I'm following!

 

[ringodad]

Thank you all for your replies. I have made a lot of sausage and always use back fat in 20-25% range when I can get it, and if I cannot I use trim from pork butt, fatty bacon, even firm salt pork with adjustments for salt content. A guy has to do what a guy has to do! Thank you for those who focused on my question - can cereal binder and water substitute fat, and could that enormous amount of salt actually be right if cereal binder is used? I'm thinking no, somehow either my Pa missed a vital ingredient or worse, Grandpa was unwilling to share! I'd be happy to share his recipe - From what I can see he basically used Heller's recipe, pre-curing the meat as mentioned by Heller's since he would have it in the cooler for weeks. His 3.7% salt was used in the curing phase, with no more salt added during the grind and mix. From what I can see he altered Heller's recipe by using his own spice mix - equal percentages by weight of pepper, coriander and allspice. Heller's says use their flour according to local regulations - Ha Ha. Grandpa exceeded regulations by a wide margin :)

A close examination of available materials, which admittedly aren't that great shows that Heller's Bull Brand Flour was a mix of wheat, corn and other grains. I found a very good binder mix that I think works well - 1:.75:75:.75 ratio of wheat:corn:oats:rye. You can certainly spend all of the $$ you want on soy products but I was trying to recreate something that meant a lot to my Father and to me.

Freeze-'Em Pickle is another mystery. I've never found THE definitive data on exact proportions but have seen enough people say it's basically the same as Morton's Tender Quick so I can live with that. I just use a standard curing mix of proper #1 cure per meat weight and 2.5% salt and 1% sugar and it works like a gem every time.

 

[tallbm]

Well I'm glad to see that you are making some progress. Please keep us posted on how your tweaks and the bologna turns out :)