Mettwurst

j.t.delaney

j.t.delaney

Hey there,
My brother and I are just getting into DIY sausage making, and we're trying to do Mettwurst -- a sausage popular in Germany and the Benelux (ma's family is Luxembourgisch.) So, we made our first batch here in the US of A, smoking it for 24 hours @ 100 F with a little black walnut. The flavor of the stuffing was perfect beforehand, and the texture was perfect afterwards, but the smoke was waaaaaaay not night. I think back in the old country, my cousins use beechwood -- does anybody have suggestions for a reasonable substitute in the Upper Midwest?
 
prolly apple,alder,sassafras,or aspen
apple in this case would be my choice, not too hard to find
you can get it at home depot if you dont mind the expense

thanks your friend Joe
 
white oak would give a deep sutle smoke flavor, apple, pear, peach will a lighter more sweet flavor. black walnut tends to be bitter. also make sure your casings are completely dry before smoking. moisture can cause soot to attach to the sausage, hang them in a fridge for an hour or so to dry out.
 
i recommended the woods that i did because i and friends who i grew up with on farms are PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH ,and those woods seem to be the ones that get used the most oh and i also forgot CHERRY occasionally gets used too
my close personal friend JIM WEAVER uses APPLE almost exclusively for everything especially his signature Chilepotle peppers. APPLE is a light wood and i think that's why its so useful for so many applications, sausage is defiantly no exception as my friends would smoke many different types of meat including sausage made with Venison and pork, they used SASSAFRAS , I love both Apple and Sassafras, Delicious i say!!

also i agree with brownb4, if you cant get other woods oak is about the easiest and works well also

thanks your friend Joe
 
Thanks for the advice. I called a relative back in the Old Country with a few extra decades of experience, and I told him step-by-step what I did to make Mettwurst. There was no mercy in the criticism. and there was nothing left without comment -- not the choice of temperature, not the duration, not the amount of smoke, and especially not the choice of wood. He was pitiless. I was told under no uncertain terms that beech wood sawdust was the only socially acceptable choice for smoking Mettwurst. He had never heard of this so-called "black walnut", but wouldn't work. No. ;) Apple and other fruit hardwoods would "impart a funny taste" to this sausage, and should be reserved for other cuts. Birch was also out. I forgot to ask about maple, but at that point, I wasn't too hopeful. I put in an order to a company in the Austria for a bag of beech wood sawdust (by my calculations, the most friggin' expensive bag of sawdust on God's Green Earth), but it is the only way to make Mettwurst that will not betray honor. ;)

To the smoker! Excellsior!!!
 
Beech wood can be found at some lumber yards, yes. But in my neck of the woods, the local lumber yard only sells beech wood as a surface laminate on different composite products. Beech wood pergo tiles would prolly not be the best material for smoking meats.;)

I did search around a few town over, and there they do sell untreated beech wood boards. I already placed an order with a European mushroom supply company for five liters of sawdust, but once that runs out, I'll buy me 1x2 and saw it into little blocks. Thanks for the suggestion.

Mettwurst is a cold cured pork sausage from Germany and the Benelux countries. It's damn tasty, is what it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettwurst
 
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