Novemberfest: Weißwurst with a Weston Meat Grinder and Sausage Stuffer
Directions
It was Novemberfest tonight as the Weston Sales Team made sausage! And the feature of our sausage-making event... Weißwurst. Weisswurst (ß or an "eszett" is the German letter that replaces double s) is a Bavarian favorite that I had in Munich. It is literally a white sausage. "What makes it white?" many asked. It is half veal and half pork, so the meat is white once cooked. In addition, it is seasoned with lightly colored seasonings, and so it stays white.
Before arriving at Novemberfest, I prepared some of my Bavarian Pretzels. I followed my recipe, but when it came time to bake them, I baked them for just three minutes, then let them cool and froze them. Once the Weisswurst was ready, we put them back in the oven for another five minutes to finish them off and we had warm pretzels to go with our Weisswurst!
The first step to making sausage is to grind your meat. We cut the meat off the bones - never put bone through a meat grinder - and using a #32 Weston Electric Meat Grinder, we grinded the veal and pork together, first through a course grinding plate.
You can use any meat grinder to make Weisswurst. Manual grinders as well as smaller electric grinders will do the job - it all depends on how much meat you are grinding. We had a large job, so we used a large grinder. Watch Weston's video below on meat grinding:
We hand mixed the seasonings into the ground meat, then we grinded 2/3 of the meat again through a medium grinding plate, and half of that (1/3 of the total amount of meat) through the fine grinding plate. When grinding meat for sausage, it's best to have about a third of each grind. Also, the meat must stay as cold as possible to go through the grinder properly, so it's best to mix about a cup of ice water into the ground meat after your first grind through - being careful not to let ice cubes go through the grinder. The video below shows you how to use a meat grinder.
We hand mixed the meat together in a Weston Meat Lug, but for large portions of meat, I recommend using the Weston Meat Mixer.
We used Weston 33 milimeter Collagen Casings for our Weisswurst. Casings should be cleaned out before being used by pouring water through them. We loaded a Weston 11 lb. Vertical Stuffer with the meat mixture, then loaded a casing onto the medium-sized funnel. The end of the casing gets tied off, and a little room gets left at the end, then we started stuffing the sausage by turning the crank and holding the casing. Once we filled the casing to the desired sausage length (5-6" for Weisswurst), we twisted the casing, then continued these steps until we came to the end of the casing. The casing gets tied off at the other end.
Once you have your link, you must twist them by threading the link through itself to ensure that the casings stayed tied at their ends. To do this, hold the ends in each hand parallel to eachother. Lay the link on the table keeping the ends parallel. Twist the two end links together, then twist them through the loop. Do this for the entire link.
To cook the sausage, drop them into just under boiling water and leave in until they reach an internal temperature of 175 degrees farenheit. At this point you can bake (375 degrees farenheit), grill, or sautee them just until they start to brown. Serve with Bavarian pretzels and sweet mustard.
Novemberfest: Weißwurst with a Weston Meat Grinder and Sausage Stuffer
It was Novemberfest tonight as the Weston Sales Team made sausage! And the feature of our sausage-making event... Weißwurst. Weisswurst (ß or an "eszett" is the German letter that replaces double s) is a Bavarian favorite that I had in Munich. It is literally a white sausage. "What makes it white?" many asked. It is half veal and half pork, so the meat is white once cooked. In addition, it is seasoned with lightly colored seasonings, and so it stays white.
Before arriving at Novemberfest, I prepared some of my Bavarian Pretzels. I followed my recipe, but when it came time to bake them, I baked them for just three minutes, then let them cool and froze them. Once the Weisswurst was ready, we put them back in the oven for another five minutes to finish them off and we had warm pretzels to go with our Weisswurst!
The first step to making sausage is to grind your meat. We cut the meat off the bones - never put bone through a meat grinder - and using a #32 Weston Electric Meat Grinder, we grinded the veal and pork together, first through a course grinding plate.
You can use any meat grinder to make Weisswurst. Manual grinders as well as smaller electric grinders will do the job - it all depends on how much meat you are grinding. We had a large job, so we used a large grinder. Watch Weston's video below on meat grinding:
We hand mixed the seasonings into the ground meat, then we grinded 2/3 of the meat again through a medium grinding plate, and half of that (1/3 of the total amount of meat) through the fine grinding plate. When grinding meat for sausage, it's best to have about a third of each grind. Also, the meat must stay as cold as possible to go through the grinder properly, so it's best to mix about a cup of ice water into the ground meat after your first grind through - being careful not to let ice cubes go through the grinder. The video below shows you how to use a meat grinder.
We hand mixed the meat together in a Weston Meat Lug, but for large portions of meat, I recommend using the Weston Meat Mixer.
We used Weston 33 milimeter Collagen Casings for our Weisswurst. Casings should be cleaned out before being used by pouring water through them. We loaded a Weston 11 lb. Vertical Stuffer with the meat mixture, then loaded a casing onto the medium-sized funnel. The end of the casing gets tied off, and a little room gets left at the end, then we started stuffing the sausage by turning the crank and holding the casing. Once we filled the casing to the desired sausage length (5-6" for Weisswurst), we twisted the casing, then continued these steps until we came to the end of the casing. The casing gets tied off at the other end.
Once you have your link, you must twist them by threading the link through itself to ensure that the casings stayed tied at their ends. To do this, hold the ends in each hand parallel to eachother. Lay the link on the table keeping the ends parallel. Twist the two end links together, then twist them through the loop. Do this for the entire link.
To cook the sausage, drop them into just under boiling water and leave in until they reach an internal temperature of 175 degrees farenheit. At this point you can bake (375 degrees farenheit), grill, or sautee them just until they start to brown. Serve with Bavarian pretzels and sweet mustard.
Before arriving at Novemberfest, I prepared some of my Bavarian Pretzels. I followed my recipe, but when it came time to bake them, I baked them for just three minutes, then let them cool and froze them. Once the Weisswurst was ready, we put them back in the oven for another five minutes to finish them off and we had warm pretzels to go with our Weisswurst!
