It's the moment you've all been waiting for. As discussed in this thread I wanted to make beef braunschweiger for the first time. I've made my share of sausages, including a couple batches of emulsified sausages many years ago, but never this recipe. I spent a few weeks learning how to spell braunschweiger, then a few hours researching the recipes and techniques. This might be long - it's my auxiliary memory bank to help me do it again at some point, and you all can read along if you want.
Classic brauschweiger is 50% liver and 50% fatty meat, but mine is only 33% liver. I modified the recipe a little into a "what's in the freezer" special and to lower the liver ratio. (I like liver but I don't mainline it, and for sharing, I know too much liver taste is off-putting for some people.) So I ended up with (back to front in the pic): trim from ribeye roast, fat & some meat (1.8 lb); pork belly scraps, fat & some meat (2.25 lb); beef cheek (.62 lb); beef heart (1.93 lb); beef liver (3.32 lb). Which (math in my head) is 10 lbs, give or take a quarter lb.
Before I started I got all the dry seasonings ready and together in a bowl. I mixed what I thought I needed plus a little extra. I used about 80% of this and taste-tested, and it was just what I wanted, so didn't add more. All spices were freshly ground to very fine, and exact amounts guesstimated, but these were the targets...
Pic after the first grind.
Pic after the third grind.
Based on the extreme stickiness (the third grind was very difficult, but still better than using the mixer), I was almost certain that things were fully emulsified after the third grind. So I mixed all the seasonings in really well and then tested it. The way to test an emulsified mix is to put a few ounces in a couple layers of saran wrap and drop it in boiling water for a few minutes, then cool and taste. You're checking the seasoning level and also whether the mix is emulsified. If I'd had some fat separation, I would have gone ahead and used the mixer, hassle or not, to get fully emulsified. If all of the fat had separated and the meat was like saw dust, that's a broken forcemeat and you ditch it. For me, the flavor was just what I hoped, the seasoning level was perfect, and there was no fat separation. So that was it for Saturday afternoon - into the fridge overnight.
This afternoon I got out the sausage press. It holds a full 10 lbs, and yep, I almost maxed it out. Traditional brauschweiger is a wide sausage (like bologna) but I want links so that's what I made with natural pork casing.
I used the wide-as-my-hand-with-relaxed-fingers measurement method for the links, and they're not all consistent but close enough for me.
The next step is to precook them to a target temp of 152 F. In the past this was a hassle - put them in hot water and keep checking internal temp. Now I have a sous vide circulator. I set it to 152 and ran errands for 90 minutes. Since the food is not vacuum sealed like normal sous vide, it looks ugly, but it seems to have worked great.
Right now I have them chilling in an ice bath. Last step for today will be putting them on wire racks in the spare fridge. They'll dry out and then the surface will get a little sticky and ready to hold smoke. I'll update on the smoking.
Classic brauschweiger is 50% liver and 50% fatty meat, but mine is only 33% liver. I modified the recipe a little into a "what's in the freezer" special and to lower the liver ratio. (I like liver but I don't mainline it, and for sharing, I know too much liver taste is off-putting for some people.) So I ended up with (back to front in the pic): trim from ribeye roast, fat & some meat (1.8 lb); pork belly scraps, fat & some meat (2.25 lb); beef cheek (.62 lb); beef heart (1.93 lb); beef liver (3.32 lb). Which (math in my head) is 10 lbs, give or take a quarter lb.
Before I started I got all the dry seasonings ready and together in a bowl. I mixed what I thought I needed plus a little extra. I used about 80% of this and taste-tested, and it was just what I wanted, so didn't add more. All spices were freshly ground to very fine, and exact amounts guesstimated, but these were the targets...
- 2 cups powdered milk
- 5 Tb coarse kosher salt
- 2 Tb onion powder
- 2 Tb sugar
- 2 Tb Instacure #1
- 1 Tb white pepper
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp dried sage
- 1/2 tsp marjoram
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ginger
Pic after the first grind.
Pic after the third grind.
Based on the extreme stickiness (the third grind was very difficult, but still better than using the mixer), I was almost certain that things were fully emulsified after the third grind. So I mixed all the seasonings in really well and then tested it. The way to test an emulsified mix is to put a few ounces in a couple layers of saran wrap and drop it in boiling water for a few minutes, then cool and taste. You're checking the seasoning level and also whether the mix is emulsified. If I'd had some fat separation, I would have gone ahead and used the mixer, hassle or not, to get fully emulsified. If all of the fat had separated and the meat was like saw dust, that's a broken forcemeat and you ditch it. For me, the flavor was just what I hoped, the seasoning level was perfect, and there was no fat separation. So that was it for Saturday afternoon - into the fridge overnight.
This afternoon I got out the sausage press. It holds a full 10 lbs, and yep, I almost maxed it out. Traditional brauschweiger is a wide sausage (like bologna) but I want links so that's what I made with natural pork casing.
I used the wide-as-my-hand-with-relaxed-fingers measurement method for the links, and they're not all consistent but close enough for me.
The next step is to precook them to a target temp of 152 F. In the past this was a hassle - put them in hot water and keep checking internal temp. Now I have a sous vide circulator. I set it to 152 and ran errands for 90 minutes. Since the food is not vacuum sealed like normal sous vide, it looks ugly, but it seems to have worked great.
Right now I have them chilling in an ice bath. Last step for today will be putting them on wire racks in the spare fridge. They'll dry out and then the surface will get a little sticky and ready to hold smoke. I'll update on the smoking.
Attached Files
Comment