Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

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Scogar
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Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Scogar » Wed Oct 16, 2019 18:40

I plan to make a liver sausage. I haven’t worked out the formula yet but likely will use Marianski’s ratios, i.e., liver 25-30%, fat 20-40%, and meat 30-40%. The liver will be venison liver and the meat/fat will probably be Wright Brand Bacon. I will assess the meat/fat ratio of the bacon and adjust the categories as needed to with additional lean meat and/or pork fat. Some of the product I will case in Hog Middles and smoke, some I will jar in a hot water bath and keep refrigerated. So I am adding Cure #1 due to the smoked portion.

My question, and keeping the numbers simple, assuming I weigh out 5 lbs of meat/fat per above and use 1 tsp of Cure #1, am I using too much cure since let's say 50% of the meat will have already been cured. So in this simple scenario should I only use 0.5 tsp of Cure #1? Or can I ignore the previous nitriting of the bacon component?

[Again I’m trying to keep the numbers simple for the question but I do weigh in grams and use 2.0-2.5% salt with 2.5 grams of the total salt being Instacure #1]

thanks
Scott
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DanMcG
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by DanMcG » Thu Oct 17, 2019 09:18

I guess you could cure the liver beforehand, they mix in with the bacon, but to be honest I don't know a liver sausage that uses cure. The ones I see are pre cooked liver that are heat processed, then cold smoked.
I'm sure someone will be along with more knowledge and give ya good advise
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Bob K » Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:20

You can just go ahead and use the whole amount of cure, the bacon has very little nitrite remaining, it will also contain a cure excelerator like sodium erythorbate (required in the U.S.) . You may want to cut back on the salt as that will remain in the bacon.
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Scogar » Thu Oct 17, 2019 14:45

Thanks Bob K I suspected that there would be a reduction in the cure but it was just a thought. And Dan as for no cure in liverwurst...that may be the norm, but I tend to land on the opposite side of the fence with nitrite in the quantities that we use...i.e., I lean towards it at the very least because I like the "healthy" pink color over grey meat. But I looked, and here's a recipe from Butcher Packer as an example:
http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php ... cts_id=664
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Butterbean » Fri Oct 18, 2019 22:35

How are you going to adjust for the salt since the bacon will have already been salted? I ran into a problem some time back where a recipe called for bacon and in my mind bacon means cured meat but in some countries bacon is what we know as pork belly. I followed the recipe using bacon and ended up with a salt lick? You've probably already know this but I just thought I'd throw this out there just in case.
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by redzed » Sat Oct 19, 2019 01:25

Traditional liver sausages that are smoked are poached first and then smoked. Adding nitrite is optional. I add it most of the time for the colour and the anti oxidative properties which help to preserve it and keep it fresher tasting for a few days longer. For colour you doesn't need much 40-50ppm is enough. Here is the recipe I the last time I made liver sausage. I used a deer liver but the same could be done with pork.

Deer liver, 1kg
Deer meat trimmings (with connective tissue, no fat) 1kg
Side pork, 1g
Pork trimmings, about 40% fat, 500g
Back fat, 500g

Ingredients (per 1kg of meat block)
Salt, 20g
Cure# 1, .5g (added for colour only)
White pepper, finely ground, 3g
Marjoram, 1.5g
All spice, 1g
Nutmeg, 1g
Ginger, .5g
Onion, 100g
Meat stock, 30-60ml

Instructions
1. Soak liver overnight in cold water. Wash all meats prior to cooking.
2. Cook the deer meat and pork trimmings at a temp of 95C, just under boiling point. Save the broth.
3. Cook the side pork for and back fat at 95C until soft, about 10 minutes
4. Trim the cartilage off the liver and remove any coagulated blood. Cut into two inch strips and poach for a two minutes in 95C water, drain and rinse with cold water.
5. Chop onion and saute in lard until translucent.
6. Allow the meats to cool, cut into 1-2 inch pieces, add the fried onion and grind through the 2 or 3mm plate.
7. Emulsify adding the spices and broth until you reach the desired consistency.
8. Stuff into 45-50mm beef middles.
9. Cook in water at 80° C (176° F) for 45 minutes. (General rule is 10 minutes cooking time for each 10mm of casing diameter.) Cool with water for 10 minutes.
10. Allow to cool to 18C
11. Cold smoke with alder at 18° until the sausages develop a golden yellow colour.

Pictures are in this thread. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8356&hilit=liver+sausage&start=15
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by DanMcG » Sat Oct 19, 2019 09:44

Thanks for the recipe Redzed, I been thinking about ordering some pork liver for sausage. At what point in your process do you add your cure?
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by jens49 » Sat Oct 19, 2019 11:05

Redzed. You poach the liver for a couple of minutes. Marianski writes the following; "Liver must not be cooked as it will loose its emulsifying properties. In many recipes liver is cooked briefly (blanched) in hot water for up to 5 min to remove any leftover blood but there is no real need for that as soaking liver in water will accomplish the same." on this site.
Is there any special effect you are seeking by poaching?
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Scogar » Sun Oct 20, 2019 01:23

...and now for the rest of the story!

Thank you Redzed for the recipe. I had seen it in the archives and was planning on loosely following it. It made it a lot easier when you appended it to this post. And Butterbean I saw your comment just in time. Appreciate the "belief" that I had accounted for the salt in the bacon. I had not! But saw your post just in time because I was looking for the spice lineup of the above recipe. So my recipe was based upon 5000 grams broken down as follows:
  • Bacon 960g [19.2%]
    Fat 728g [14.56%]
    Liver 1063g [21.26%]
    Venison 1007g [20.14%]
    Pork 1242g [24.84%]
After cooking everything and poaching the liver briefly and cooling overnight I weighed again. For some reason I had lost about 700 grams either through faulty measuring which I do not believe or the boiling process cooked some of the juices out...I don't know but I know I weighed things more than once. In any event I sized my spices to 4500 grams since I was adding liquid both from the bowls in which the meat sat overnight and the broth. That should put me at 90 grams of salt but seeing Butterbean's comment I decided to drop it to 75 grams.

I chucked everything into the bowl chopper as is. First the venison, then the pork, the bacon/fat combo, the onions, and finally the liver. I let each chop up pretty well before adding the next. By the time I added the liver things were pretty smooth looking and I don't know that I need the entire amount of stock but I didn't see anything bad happening by the additions so ultimately I added all 60mg/kilo.

After much emulsification I decided it was good. I cased some in hog middles and jarred the rest. Cooked everything in 80°C water for 10min/mm. And the sausage was drowned in an ice bath until cold. I plan to smoke it tomorrow assuming I don't have a bunch of other things to do.

I bought some 100% Lithuanian Rye (aka the rock type bread that if dropped from a building would kill someone) added some sharp mustard, pickled onion, and cornichons to a plate. Needless to say everyone thought it was great. My takeaway is it still is a little grainy...not bad but it is not the smoothness of bologna (and maybe it shouldn't be but that is my recollection of braunschweiger). There definitely is no overabundance of liver flavor but then again at 21% I'm not sure that it should be expected. I lost a lot of the liver by cutting away freezer burn and veins, etc. I don't dislike liver so I would probably kick it up to 30% but 25% is certainly not going to be overkill.

Another takeaway is that I might follow Eckkehard the Butcher's path, i.e., raw meats, raw fats, and raw liver. My emulsification spreads well but it is a little too loose coming out of the casing. Kind of like natural peanut butter which chunks out vs Skippy which is perfectly smooth...each can be spread but the former crumbles a bit until you spread it with the knife. I can't imagine I don't have enough fat and I really made sure not to overcook the liver although I did cook the venison and pork thoroughly.

Overall I am happy with my first attempt on this and hopefully the next will be even better. I have a picture but am not sure how to post it yet. I assume I'll figure that out and will follow with a pic
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Scogar » Sun Oct 20, 2019 01:47

Image

Figured it out it seems
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Re: Smoked Liver Sausage and Cure #1

Post by Butterbean » Sun Oct 20, 2019 17:52

Here is a link to a thread where I made some. This turned out fairly creamy so you might glean a few things from this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5706&p=8837&hilit= ... iger#p8837
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