Being busy developing the ultimate Leberwurst (Liver sausage) a true Bavarian/ German classic. Usually filled in pork guts I opted for jars, as a jar gives a shell live of max. 6 months compared to the rather short preservation period of the gut version and provided me with a better control of the full process. But I will look forward for the gut and cold smoked version.
It’s the third batch with 11 glasses of 190 gram each. I left out the instacure salt and just used regular sea salt as the durability was reached for one by coking the filled jars and then vacuumed them. Cooking of filled jars 1 hr. at 100° C is the traditional way of food preserving in jars, not only to eliminate possible thermophilic bacterium but crate a lower pressure in the glass during the cooling down phase to tighten up the lids. But since I aimed at a max core temperature of 85° C and a denser final product, the whole batch was vacuumed at 0.9 bar negative pressure for 15 minutes to reach the goal of a more enhanced, finer spreading on bread of rolls. 100° C I only used for pre-sterilization of the jars.
The extraction of oxygen added to a nice and smooth spread, usual only reached by food additives.
This Liver sausage is a real full organic umami bomb!
All in all, I have made now over 50 jars during the last three months and handed it out to friends and family, and what can I say, they all appear to be “addicted” to it now. Even if I open a 400 g jar, the chances it survives more than 3 days in the fridge are very slim.
The consistence is dense, but the spread is smooth and voluminous, the taste is way above the grade of you can buy.
A high-quality product, only possible by high quality meat and ingredients. I tend more and more not only to consider on what are pigs feed but have keen eye on the way they raised and handled during their farm live. Lucky enough I found a pig farmer in Franconia who let his pigs a free roaming and keeps up good standards in the stable. All further ingredients I purchased for organic growth and the taste of the end result tells it all.
The meat packed and ready for SV
Sea salt, Pepper (tellichrerry) nutmeg, coriander, marjoram, beef stock
Traditionally the meat and speck are simmered in plain water before grinded with the liver and onions. The water or better “light fond” is partially added to get the right consistency of the mass. But since it I SV’d the meat and speck at 68° C for 1,5 hr. I added a beef stock instead of the “water”, what really adds to the overall quality and pushed up the taste considerably.
It goes without saying top kitchen hygiene is paramount.
The Jars simmered at 85° C for 90 min, after vacuuming the whole batch at once at 0.9 bar negative pressure.
Ready to be vacuumed
Done, ready to rest 3-4 Days in the fridge to give the spices time to create a equilibrium with the meat/ liver and speck.
The sausage station is installed and up, there I nothing what could surprise me now on the subject about sausage. I love the meat grinder, all parts stainless steel, and very quiet, the main reason why I opted for a semiprofessional grinder next to the clean and perfect grind. Slightly overpowered for a regular household, it performs 80kg/hr. The 2 kg for the liver sausage went through in a blink.
On a linguistic sideline, a Meatgrinder is named and sold in Germany as Meat-wolf, fits perfectly for this tool.
Hope you all had good passing into the new year.
Cheers.
