Pasty Blumenau Mettwurst Sausage

Blumenau type sausage is a nomenclature commonly used in Brazil for a type of German sausage called Mettwurst. Mettwurst sausage or Blumenau sausage is a raw, cured, smoked, fermented and dried sausage. The freshness of the meat is maintained through the processes of curing, fermentation, drying, maturation and smoking. In Europe, especially in Germany, it is also known as Teawurst and is a specialty served in sandwiches or appetizers. Because it is soft, it can be spread on bread or toast like a pâté. It can have a thick texture (small pieces of meat and fat) or thin texture (like a paste). They are great on appetizers or cold cuts served with bread and beer.

You can get a doughier texture by grinding the meat more finely or a firmer texture by grinding the meat and fat with the coarser disc (or slicing the meat finely with a knife). In this recipe I double-grinded on a fine disc to obtain a finer/pastier blumenau mettwurst sausage. In this other blumenau mettwurst sausage recipe I made it with coarse grinding. Regardless of the grinding, the mettwurst meat will always be very soft and soft, but grinding makes the sausage more uniform or more brittle.

Blumenau Mettwurst sausage ingredients

• 700g clean pork shank;
• 300g rigid pork fat;
• 2.4g curing salt 1 (6.25% of nitrite and 93.75% of salt);
• 2.4g antioxidant (with sodium erythorbate);
• 12 g salt;
• 5 g sugar;
• 2.5 g of garlic powder;
• 2.5 g ground white pepper;
• 1 g allspice pepper;
• 200 ml of liquid smoke;
• 0.2g starter culture (lactic acid bacteria) diluted in filtered water.

Preparation of Blumenau Mettwurst Fina sausage

• Clean the shank, remove the bones, as much of the hard connective tissue and leather as possible;
• If the fat present in the ham is not enough for the 30% proportion of the weight of the dough (700g meat + 300g fat), add more fat from bacon or another piece of ham.
• Cool the meat and fat well and cut into cubes;
• Grind everything twice on a fine disc and add all the ingredients. Note: grind once on a coarse disc if you want a firmer texture like this one blumenau mettwurst recipe;
• Mix until there is a uniform distribution of the ingredients, use your hands or the flat paddle of an orbital mixer at slow speed;
• Embed in edible collagen casing, natural pork or crooked bovine casing. In this recipe I used 26 gauge edible collagen casing;
• Tie in a horseshoe shape every 15 to 20 cm in length;
• Hang for 2 days to ferment in an environment with an ideal temperature between 20ºC and 26ºC;
• Immerse in powdered smoke diluted in water or liquid smoke for 5 minutes. Change the time according to the desired color and flavor intensity;
• Hang for 3 days in a cold and ventilated environment (ideal temperature between 10ºC and 14ºC);
• Refrigerate and consume within a week.