Liver Sausage - Braunschweiger?

Dean

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
793
I've been thinking of ordering some braunschweiger and/or liverwurst from U.S. Wellness Meats. It's from grass-fed cows. There are spices, however, including white pepper. No flavorings or preservatives though.

The liverwurst also has some heart and kidney in it, while the braunschweiger has a higher percentage of liver.
 

charlie

Admin
The Law & Order Admin
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
14,363
Location
USA
5magicbeans, welcome to the forum. :welcome
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
I'd like to eat some.
Trouble is--not specifically with Braunschweiger, but any sausage I look at, at like Whole Foods--
they always seem to have lactic acid.
I don't know if there is that much lactic acid too worry about...
but because it is I guess a live bacteria, I figure maybe it grows and increases
(otherwise, why add it?).
 

Jenn

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
Messages
1,035
Lactic acid being used as a preservative, it's not necessarily a live culture. I used to think it was too small an amount to care, but I actually do better not eating those products that have it in it. Your mileage may vary.

It's traditionally a pork product, with bacon....is wellness meats making it with beef?
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
I would think it works as a preservative by being alive
and displacing any other bacteria...? :roll:
 

Dean

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
793
Yes, they have both a braunshweiger and liverwurst made with beef, instead of pork. It comes frozen and is trim meat, organs, spices, and sea salt. I think the braunschweiger also has honey in it. They also sell something they call a "head cheese" but is not traditional.
 

BingDing

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
976
Location
Tennessee, USA
The problem with U. S. Wellness Meats is they have a $75 minimum order, and I don't want to buy a bunch of other stuff just to get their liverwurst or braunschweiger. I would love to get some good liverwurst, the soft texture of liver creeps me out way too much to actually eat it.

For me, a little white pepper isn't problematic. But I get the impression lactic acid is right up there with PUFAs as something to avoid, not because of live cultures, just because. Something to do with anaerobic respiration.

There is a recipe for making it yourself here, adjust ingredients for Peat friendly style. Googling will turn up a few other recipes. The problem is getting it into a tubular form. But I've been thinking I could just boil it in water then strain it with cheesecloth, like ricotta, and call it pate. Why not?
 

Dean

Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
793
I don't think they have a minimum order...just a flat shipping charge regardless of order size. So, obviously you would want to order more than one tube at a time.

Where is the lactic acid coming from on the Wellness braunschweiger and liverwurst?
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
narouz said:
I would think it works as a preservative by being alive
and displacing any other bacteria...? :roll:

Maybe it preserves because it is acidic--makes the pH unfriendly to bacteria...?

Or maybe it is for taste--not a preservative...?
 

BingDing

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
976
Location
Tennessee, USA
Hey Dean

Add something to a cart and click through to the shopping cart page, it's 7 lbs or $75. Sucks donkey dicks, IMHO.

The ingredients list is
beef, beef liver, water, sea salt, onion powder, honey, white pepper, coriander, marjoram, allspice
not sure where the lactic acid question came from.

Lactic acid is a product of anaerobic respiration, whether in yogurt or glycolysis in mitochondria, as far as I can figure it out. It's an inorganic molecule, not the same as the bacteria that perform the respiration in yogurt or the cell's glucose -> pyruvate reaction.

From the Wiki page on glycolysis

For simple fermentations, the metabolism of one molecule of glucose to two molecules of pyruvate has a net yield of two molecules of ATP. Most cells will then carry out further reactions to 'repay' the used NAD+ and produce a final product of ethanol or lactic acid.

FWIW, the aerobic or oxidative respiration that we're trying to promote is pyruvate + oxygen -> carbon dioxide + ~29 ATP molecules. There is a lot of misuse of the language, I think, in that glycolysis always occurs in the mitochondria, it's a necessary first step to produce the pyruvate before the oxidative step. It's only when the oxidative step fails to occur that the lactic acid is produced and the mitochondria are in the less efficient primitive state.

Even RP uses "glycolysis" as a pejorative. It's very misleading and not an accurate description of the chemistry.

Whew, off my soapbox now!
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
As I said, I didn't check any Braunschweiger.
But at Whole Foods and another healthfood store here,
and at a regular grocery store
I was checking the contents of different sausages recently.
They all had "lactic acid" as an ingredient.
I'm probably wrong,
but I figured they put "lactic acid" because they didn't want to say "live bacteria" or "l. bacilli" or whatever
the "healthy" bacteria names are.

I started noticing this lactic acid in sausage thing
when a friend served me some Hebrew National beef sausage at a get-together.
It was kinda good, but after a while I started becoming aware of this sour-y taste.
I wondered: why would beef taste sour?

Then I started checking the sausages as I described
and I thought: oh, they put that in there as a live culture
so that it displaces bad bacteria--just like I guess happens in a lot of our stomachs.
And maybe people like that sour-y taste.
Actually, I didn't.

BingDing: that's interesting on the glycolysis info.
Do you mean Peat uses it as a pejorative
in the sense that he thinks it is an inferior way of producing energy,
or that he thinks when people use the term they are mis-applying it or mis-using it...?
 

kiran

Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
1,054
narouz said:
As I said, I didn't check any Braunschweiger.
But at Whole Foods and another healthfood store here,
and at a regular grocery store
I was checking the contents of different sausages recently.
They all had "lactic acid" as an ingredient.
I'm probably wrong,
but I figured they put "lactic acid" because they didn't want to say "live bacteria" or "l. bacilli" or whatever
the "healthy" bacteria names are.
I seriously doubt they put bacterial cultures into meat products. :roll:
They mostly only do that with dairy.
 

seventhchord

New Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
3
kiran said:
narouz said:
As I said, I didn't check any Braunschweiger.
But at Whole Foods and another healthfood store here,
and at a regular grocery store
I was checking the contents of different sausages recently.
They all had "lactic acid" as an ingredient.
I'm probably wrong,
but I figured they put "lactic acid" because they didn't want to say "live bacteria" or "l. bacilli" or whatever
the "healthy" bacteria names are.
I seriously doubt they put bacterial cultures into meat products. :roll:
They mostly only do that with dairy.


Actually, one of the ingrediants in geneo salami(Di Lusso) is “Lactic Acid Starter Culture”.This is why geneo salami is said to be one of the vitamin K-2(MK-7) containing food products. It's also the reason why I've recently curtailed my own consumption of geneo salami. As Jenn has previously stated, “your millage may vary”.
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
That Hebrew National salami my friend served...
as I said, after I wolfed down a few bites because I was really hungry,
I started becoming aware of this odd sour taste.
Why would a beef product have that taste?
It wasn't good, to me.
It didn't taste like beef.
If you think of the taste of sauerkraut...it had that kind of sourness.
It would be weird to me if they put some inactive lactic acid in there for that wonderful flavor.

I'm trying to remember if I saw nitrates/nitrites in those sausages as well.
I don't think I did.
 

narouz

Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2012
Messages
4,429
Because we've been talking about it,
I checked beef sausages and Whole Foods and other stores
and found that quite a few do indeed list "lactic acid starter."
Which would have to be live bacteria.

Maybe it is an old technique and people like the taste?
Maybe it is a new technique to get around using nitrates/nitrites?
 

kiran

Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
1,054
narouz, are these dry preserved type sausages or the wet sausages from the butcher?
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom