Braunschweiger – Liverwurst for 2020

So it was time for the annual making of the Braunschweiger or Liverwurst. I grew up with the first and other people call it the latter. Some say Braunschweiger has to be smoked, but the stuff in the stores is not smoked. I make it boiled and later on plan to retry it in the smokehouse. This time I wanted to do half and half and things started going wrong and cooking two different ways was just asking for more trouble. I went with what I knew would work.

The spices and recipe.

	Braunschweiger
15#	7.5#			Ingredients
2	1			Venison liver
6.8#	3.4#			Ground deer
4#	2#			Pig Fat
2 Tbsp	1 Tbsp			Olive oil
6 Tbsp	3 Tbsp			Kosher salt
1 Tbsp	1 1/2 tsp			Pink curing salt
4 Tbsp	2 Tbsp			Sugar
1 Tbsp	1 1/2 tsp			Cardamon
2 Tbsp	1 Tbsp			Ground Ginger
1 Tbsp	1 1/2 tsp			Mace
8 Tbsp	4 Tbsp			Marjoram
4 Tbsp	2 Tbsp			Ground Black Pepper
1 ½ tsp	3/4 tsp			Ground cloves
2 Tbsp	1 Tbsp			Coriander
1 ½ tsp	3/4 tsp			Ground Nutmeg

• Directions:
• Chill to light par freezing of the liver, meat and fat
• Coarse grind all, chill if needed and find grind meat
• Mix spices an oil in meat and emulsify and chill for 24 hours
• Stuff casings and boil
• Slowly warm water to neat 160° on 45 minute or longer
• Never exceed 170° with water temp. 160° os plenty alone.
• Get chubs to 145° for 5 minute or more
• Remove from heat, water cool and/or ice bath and refrigerate for 24 hours. The eat, seal and freeze as needed.

Above is two venison livers cut into squares to be chilled.

This is the most expensive thing aside from spices and casings. The liver and deer meat is free. The butcher near me sells locally raise fresh pork and I get pork fat for adding to venison for $.50 a pound.

Above I am slicing the pork fat into strips and them into cubes to be chilled or par frozen.

All mixed together to be chilled.

Here is my bite Bite grinder #12 I got this year. I have the head was chilled in the freezer for over an hour to help keep fat from sticking inside it. It makes light work of just about anything I have tossed at it. The only trouble I have had it it, was when butchering deer I told my daughter you could cut things bigger. She tried stuffing entier leg shanks down the throat and I had to get her to stop leaning and shoving on it. The strips just need to be long and thin. I have stuffed 1.5″ squares of meat 8″ to 10″ long in it and it gobbles them right through.

Out of the freezer and ready for coarse grinding

Coarse ground under the medium ground deer meat on top of it and par frozen again. Maybe just should be chilled. I over froze the meat.

I got cocky with the new grinder. I bought the LEM big Bite #12 grinder over Christmas to upgrade my meat making tools. I knew I had enough horsepower that I can grind anything, and it did. I froze the meat 1 1/2 hours while doing other things and the mix got HARD! As you can see below it didn’t fully grind all the fat. Just keep the meat cold, don’t freeze it.

The grinder was pushing fat chunks solids through the 1/8″ plate faster than the knife could cut them. So I had to regrind the sticky mess through the grinder again making for a difficult experience. They say mistakes are where you learn the best lessons. Texture is everything for this product. It is not summer sausage it is a type of Pâté. Pushing sticky sausage through a grinder is an experience you will not enjoy and remember the next time you make something. This was emulsified using my meat mixer paddle and big drill.

So the mixture was stuffed into 12″ casings. I actually bought 24″ casings and cut them in half and clipped each end with hog rings. A wire rack you cannot see is under all the chubs to make a gap between the bottom of the pot and the bottom chubs. If they sit directly on the bottom of the pot they will fat out there. The bottom of those chubs will get too hot and render out the fat at those spots.

The ET-733 temperature probes are added to monitor the cooking of it all. One down the center of a middle chub and one laying in the middle of the pot in the water. The plate is used to keep the chubs from floating.

Part way into it. The water is hot enough to fully pasteurize the chubs now, they just need time. At over 130° parturizing is beginning slowly and bacteria is starting to die.

I didn’t take a picture of the finished cooking temperature, but it is on the YouTube video. Pictures for the blog and video for youtube and one seems to get lost at other times. This is the pot in the sink and being cooled by the running water alone. The chubs are cooked at over 150° and its cooking them down to stop cooking.

Ice is not added to drop them faster and then you go into the meat lug to rest 24 hours in the fridge.

Here they are cut in half and ready to be sealed and tastes tested. This give 6″ pieces for gifts or my personal consumption.

The Texture was close, but not perfect like the first one I did. Next time I am not freezing the meat but just chilling it good in the freezer.

The chubs all sealed up and ready for the freezer.

Enjoy!