Sauerkraut Sausage
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Ingredients
10 lbs. pork butt
3 Tbsp. canning salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2-3 Tbsp chopped garlic, (bottled works fine)
2 Tbsp dried marjoram
2-3 Tbsp course ground black pepper
2 2 lb packages saurkraut rinsed once and pressed dry
1 pint ice water (important to be ice water)
Instructions
Ingredients for 10 pounds. Chill pork butt, grinder, and stuffer. Grind chilled pork butt through a 1/4" or 3/8" plate. Mix all ingredients thouroughly, maintaining approx 34-38 degrees to prevent sme aring. Smearing occurs when the fat in the pork gets too warm and turns mushy. Makes for sloppy looking sausage. Stuff into hog casings, twist into 1/4 lb links, and return to cooler (refriger ator) maintaining approx 34 degrees overnight…hang on sticks if possible (to d ry casings), hanging not absolutely necessary, but overnight cooling is. Cook fresh Krautwurst by simmering links in a pan of beer or by grilling. Freeze up to 6 months.I have NOT tried this, yet! KRAUTWURST
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NDKoze You will definitely want to adjust salt…I made that mistake before. I would suggest draining and sautéing the kraut or roasting it in the oven to remove as much moisture as possible. This will also help concentrate flavor. I don’t have a recommendation on how much to add per pound as I usually go by taste. For test batches I generally start with 500 grams of meat and 10 grams of salt and measure all spice additions. When I go to scale up I simply multiply by 10. You might start with half that amount of salt if using kraut and adjust to personal taste.
Thanks Joe Hell! The idea of sautéing (or baking in the oven) the kraut really makes sense to reduce the moisture and concentrate the flavor. I think we’ll do this the night before so that it can cool completely before mixing with the sausage the next morning.
We usually make 35 pound batches and use 9.8 Ounces of Tender Quick per 35 Pound batch. We usually make a test patty, but the test patties usually taste a little saltier than they do after we stuff/smoke the sausages. So, if our test patties are a “little” too salty we normally don’t worry about it. But, this sauerkraut adds a whole new complexity to the situation.
I am kind of wondering if I don’t just reduce the Tender Quick by an ounce and see how that goes? Thoughts on whether that would still be too much salt?
The idea of rinsing from @s-a-m is a good idea too. But, I am wondering if that would wash away too much of the flavor?
I am leaning toward using 6 pounds of kraut for this first test batch. That should be just under a pound of kraut per 5 lbs of meat block, which is a similar ratio that I use for high temp cheese when I add that.
Gregg - Fargo, ND
Smokin-It #3 Electric Smoker that replaced a Masterbuilt XL, Big Chief (still used for fish), and few others over the years, along with a variety of Weber Gas/Charcoal Grills, Anova Sous Vide, etc. devices. -
Thanks Joe Hell! The idea of sautéing (or baking in the oven) the kraut really makes sense to reduce the moisture and concentrate the flavor. I think we’ll do this the night before so that it can cool completely before mixing with the sausage the next morning.
We usually make 35 pound batches and use 9.8 Ounces of Tender Quick per 35 Pound batch. We usually make a test patty, but the test patties usually taste a little saltier than they do after we stuff/smoke the sausages. So, if our test patties are a “little” too salty we normally don’t worry about it. But, this sauerkraut adds a whole new complexity to the situation.
I am kind of wondering if I don’t just reduce the Tender Quick by an ounce and see how that goes? Thoughts on whether that would still be too much salt?
The idea of rinsing from @s-a-m is a good idea too. But, I am wondering if that would wash away too much of the flavor?
I am leaning toward using 6 pounds of kraut for this first test batch. That should be just under a pound of kraut per 5 lbs of meat block, which is a similar ratio that I use for high temp cheese when I add that.
NDKoze
Have not tried this before but very curious how this works out. Love kraut and the Rueben seasoning is great but seems like it needs a boost. Hope you get some good results. This could really be a winner. -
Ingredients
10 lbs. pork butt
3 Tbsp. canning salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2-3 Tbsp chopped garlic, (bottled works fine)
2 Tbsp dried marjoram
2-3 Tbsp course ground black pepper
2 2 lb packages saurkraut rinsed once and pressed dry
1 pint ice water (important to be ice water)
Instructions
Ingredients for 10 pounds. Chill pork butt, grinder, and stuffer. Grind chilled pork butt through a 1/4" or 3/8" plate. Mix all ingredients thouroughly, maintaining approx 34-38 degrees to prevent sme aring. Smearing occurs when the fat in the pork gets too warm and turns mushy. Makes for sloppy looking sausage. Stuff into hog casings, twist into 1/4 lb links, and return to cooler (refriger ator) maintaining approx 34 degrees overnight…hang on sticks if possible (to d ry casings), hanging not absolutely necessary, but overnight cooling is. Cook fresh Krautwurst by simmering links in a pan of beer or by grilling. Freeze up to 6 months.I have NOT tried this, yet! KRAUTWURST
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NDKoze I’d listen to everyone here but pay special attention to Joe Hell when it comes to things like this. He makes good points about the salt, you’ll need to factor that in and sorry but there really isn’t any number we could give you per lb as differnt krauts have different salt content. You will have to do small batch testing until you are happy! The reuben with kraut is AMAZING!
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NDKoze I’d listen to everyone here but pay special attention to Joe Hell when it comes to things like this. He makes good points about the salt, you’ll need to factor that in and sorry but there really isn’t any number we could give you per lb as differnt krauts have different salt content. You will have to do small batch testing until you are happy! The reuben with kraut is AMAZING!
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Just a quick follow-up here. We had a very successful sausage weekend and the Krautwurse turned out excellent!
We ended up using 6lbs of kraut to a 35lb meat block. We did saute the kraut as suggested in this thread and that seemed to be effective. I did also reduce the Tender Quick amount from 9.8 ounces to 8.8 and it turned out really well. We will definitely be making this again with a few small changes:
- I will use more kraut. There was good kraut flavor, but it could have had more. I will use at leave 1 pound per every 5 pounds if not slightly more.
- I might reduce the salt just a little bit more. This wasn’t bad, but I might cut it down another .5-1.0 ounce.
The one thing that I will caution anyone who tries this is that you should expect the smoking time to be a little longer (or at least it was in my experience). I had some regular sausage in the smoker with the Krautwurst batch (same recipe except no kraut) and the Krautwurst took quite a bit longer to get the temp and color that we like to get because of the inherent extra moisture that these rings had versus our traditional sausage.
But, in general, it turned out AWESOME!
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blackjac Yes, Rueben is even designed to be done either cured or fresh so you are good to go! Honestly, you would be fine using any seasoning, you might just need to adjust the amount of meat you user per bag of seasoning for salt content a little.
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I would definitely like to try this but not smoke them, this would work for brats also , right ?
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Look up on Google Belgium tripp sausage. Cabbage and onions in the mix.
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The addition of Kraut to sausage is benefited by the addition of 1g Ground Caraway per kg. IMHO
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omega50 I made a Sauerkraut and Country Style Rib meal in my Instant Pot one day that had Caraway in it and I did not like the Caraway taste in the meal. I know it is a traditional spice that goes with kraut, but it was not for me.
NDKoze Seems to be common. Many folks are sensitive to Caraway. I dose it low and often have people try to put their finger on the taste. Most are surprised because they hate Caraway, but find it oddly pleasing in low doses.
As with any/all of what you put in your mouth, Your Taste is King.
Avoid what you do not like.
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