Jagdwurst (German Hunter Sausage) - QVIEW!

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ragnar

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Jan 2, 2016
94
160
Wisconsin
Figured it was time to try something a little more... interesting. This time around, it was time for a batch of Jagdwurst, which is German Hunter Sausage. It should be a moderate summer sausage surrounding chunks of ham. I'm not using a particular recipe, but using Rytek's for the sausage, but Len Poli's concept for preparing the ham chunks.

In order to pull this batch off, I had to start a couple of days ago by preparing some pork sirloin into small chunks (1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes) and brining them.

Here's a shot of the 6.5 pounds of ham chunks after a couple of days in the brine:


My butcher is running a crazy sale right now, with fresh-ground pork butt at $1.29/lb. Great meat, minimally processed (which means none of that "up to 10% solution added" crap. Ground up less than an hour before I picked it up. You bet, I'll be running a sausage-making marathon this next couple of weeks. Battle plans have been drawn, and this is the first skirmish.

These were thoroughly rinsed off, dried with paper towels, and put on cookie sheets to dry in the fridge for an hour or so while the rest of the meat was prepared for mixing.

Since the goal is 15 lbs, and I wanted to run 3 batches of 5 lbs (easy to mix and ensure pretty even distribution of ingredients), I used 3 pounds of ground pork butts, mixed the seasonings and cure, then added 2 pounds of cured fresh ham cubes (cured, but not cooked/smoked). What I can say for absolute certain is that the smell of the seasonings when they "popped" while being mixed in was unbelievable. I think this stuff is going to be PHENOMENAL. 

Here's a shot of the mixed up sausage (15 lbs on the right, the other 15 lbs on the left is Goteborg summer sausage, also done today):


Here's a close-up of the mixed up sausage. Note the chunks of ham in there...


Now, the meat is resting in the fridge overnight, where the magic of curing and a melding of flavors will happen. We'll stuff both batches when I get back home, and then get to smoking! This will be stuffed into 2 1/2" x 20" fibrous casings, and smoked with either hickory, whiskey barrel oak, or a mixture.
 
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Al
 
Thanks for the support and encouragement, guys! Awesome.

 Got the Jagdwurst (left) and the Goteborg SS (right) stuffed.


Since there is always a little left in the stuffer, we usually fry up a test patty. It doesn't taste quite like the finished product, but it gives an impression, and the impression is good! Hella good. In the photo below, I cut the patty in half, and turned the side up. The darker pink block is a cross-section of one of the ham chunks.


Put the Goteborg into the fridge to smoke up tomorrow, but the Jagdwurst is in the smoker now.

Should be a really mild smoke. Here's the plan...

Preheat smoker to 130F. Leave sausage out to dry and normalize. About 30-45 minutes.

Hang in smoker at 130F, until IT is 100F.

Raise temp to 165F. Apply smoke for 40 minutes, damper 50%. Whiskey barrel oak is going to be the poison of the day.

Cut smoke. Continue at smoker temp of 165F until IT 150F. 

Pull sausage, and immediately immerse in cold water to bring temp below 100F.

Hang 2 hours at room temp ~65F to bloom.

Refrigerate until I drag my butt out of bed and get around to checking it out. Since this batch will run into the early morning, I'll probably leave it in the fridge until mid afternoon or later.
 
The Jagdwurst is done!


The flavor is excellent, starting mild, but has a bit of a lingering kick. The aroma of the spices and the light whiskey oak smoke is also great. None of it is overpowering. Instead, it's a neat concert of flavors.

Texture-wise, it's a little different. Because of the whole-meat chunks of ham floating around in there, the texture is more, well, like eating ham than a slice of summer sausage. In the photo below, you can make out the ham "floating" in the sausage. I was wondering how well the ground meat would adhere to the ham, or whether it would just kind of fall apart. I had considered putting in a little bit of soy protein powder or gelatin as a binder for piece of mind, but didn't. Glad, too... it doesn't need it.


This batch turned out a little salty. I'm going to blame Rytek('s editor) for this. The amount of salt and cure in the recipe is enough for the whole 15 lbs of ground meat, but 5 lbs of it was already cured as ham chunks. I caught/corrected the cure amount, but missed reducing the free salt. It's not BAD salty, but "better with a beer, cheese, and crackers" than eaten alone salty. I will be making this again, and will adjust accordingly. Maybe I'll have to ponder this over a plate of this, some good Swiss, and a Guinness. It'll be tough to suffer so, but I'll manage.

This was a different end product than what is typical. It is worthwhile, and I recommend it for anyone looking for a little something different.

I would correct for the salt and the cure, as I mentioned above.

For the ham, next time, I would cure up a tenderloin using Bearcarver's Canadian Bacon method, which is awesome. After curing, I'd cube it up and add it to the mixture. This would add a hint of sweetness from the brown sugar used in that cure, separate the flavors of the two meats, and be a heck of a lot easier. Additionally, it would help ensure keeping the salt measurable.

Thanks for checking this out!
 
That's looks great! I am working my way up to more involved sausages. This is something I'd definitely like to try! Points!!!
Thanks! Appreciate the feedback and the points!

I can tell you, this isn't any more involved than that Jerk Chicken sausage you did... which looks friggin' awesome, by the way (and now on my list of to-do's)! You have a good sense of flavor, and your methods are excellent. Just remember to correct the salt and cure values in Rytek's recipe, or use Poli's. Also, as I mentioned above, plan ahead and cure up a chunk of tenderloin using Bearcarver's Canadian Bacon method, and cut into about 1/2" cubes when done (don't smoke it first). That'll yield a fantastic result for the fresh ham/bacon called for in these recipes.

Give this one a shot. I think you'll be happy.
 
Looks great! I like sausage that has "floating" meat in it. When I make linguica I hand dice all but a 1/4 of the meat and hand dice all the back fat. The remaining 1/4 gets coarse ground and serves as a binder.

POINTS!
 
Looks great! I like sausage that has "floating" meat in it. When I make linguica I hand dice all but a 1/4 of the meat and hand dice all the back fat. The remaining 1/4 gets coarse ground and serves as a binder.

POINTS!
Thanks! Appreciate the points!

Somehow, I'd missed the Linguica recipe when pouring through Len's site-o'-goodness for my list of what to make during this marathon smoke. It looks really interesting, and will be a future project. Thanks for that, too. Bonus - I'll have left over Port wine after one of my next couple of smokes - Loukanika. That should be this week sometime, I think, using Poli's recipe fairly closely.
:sausage:Looks great!
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Thanks!
 
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