Beef braunschweiger sausage links - tips/experience?

[radshop]

From the whole cow I bought a while back, I have the liver, heart, cheeks, and tongue in about the right ratio of half liver and half the other stuff, and I have pork trimmings of belly fat and back fat with some meat still on it, so I want to make smoked beef braunschweiger sausage links (NOT a braunschweiger spread, for clarity) with 30% pork, 35% beef, and 35% beef liver. At that ratio, I have enough for 20 lbs, but I'll start with a 10 lb batch, which is a good amount for me - enough to be worth the effort but not so much I start getting overwhelmed by volume.

My go-to reference for sausage making is the book, Great Sausage Recipes by Rytek Kutas. He has an all-pork braunschweiger recipe, which I'm sure is fine to just switch for beef. But I also want to get any tips & insight from anyone who has made braunschweiger or similar emulsified beef organ sausages.

Specifically, my thoughts/questions:

• Does the 30/35/35 ratio seem about right? The pork is mostly fat with some meat on it, so it will be kinda like 15-20% pork fat and 10-ish% pork meat. I'm thinking that should add enough fat and also mellow the flavor a little. I like liver but grass fed beef liver can be a little strong, so I want to mellow it out.
• I've never made sausage from beef heart, cheeks and tongue. Seems like it should be fine. But then again, my biggest mistakes all started out seeming fine to me.
• I see a few online recipes that say to boil the liver first, while others say to leave it raw. In Kutas's all-pork recipe, he doesn't mention boiling.
• When I've made emulsified sausage in the past (only once and a long time ago) I used my stand mixer for the emulsifying stage. It was great but a lot of extra work as I had to do several smaller batches. I've seen references online that 3 passes through the meat grinder is enough to emulsify the mix. Sounds easier, but I don't want to shortcut the process and have an inferior result.

[radshop]

I just want to say thanks, you've all been incredibly helpful...

It's a JOKE - I kid because I love. I know I'm off the beaten path on this (as usual). So it's my job to forge ahead and report back. Stand by. Hopefully next Saturday I'll have time.

[Mosca]

You know, I like it but I don’t pick it, let alone make it. I’ll be interested to read what you came up with!

[yakima]

I am no help. And I grew up on a Nebraska farm/ranch where we had at least one critter butchered per year, for personal use. 1950's- 1960's. Mom would rent a locker in town to store what she could not keep at home, I recall nothing re oddball parts/offal. My mother, bless her soul, overcooked more beef than most of us will ever see,

Went to college, 1969, University of Nebraska. After a few weeks in college dorm, asked colleagues at lunch in cafeteria, where are the steaks? I was used to steaks on farm at lunch, quick to cook. Roast at night. City kids were stunned. They thought they had good food. Overcooked beef still better than dorm food.

Who knows what butcher did with rest of critter.

[mrteddyprincess]

Your plan matches the few things I know about sausage making. This might be a situation where we just need to encourage you to go for it, take and post pics, and tell us how it went! Then we can tag you to answer questions about sausage making! :-)

Brian

[Murdy]

I worked in a couple commercial sausage kitchens 30-ish years ago. I was just a laborer and they didn't share the recipes with me. As I recall, we did not cook the liver before processing into braunschweiger (and I am confident I would have recalled that step if we did cook it). I don't really recall the mixing process, liver is pretty soft, but heart is firm and I imagine tongue is as well, so they might take a finer grind separately before mixing (I'm speculating here). I've seen some braunschweigers that are more on the course side (I prefer them actually).