Bayerische Bierwurst
Also known as Bavarian Bierwurst, Bierwurst
Bavaria, Germany
Overview
Bayerische Bierwurst is a Bavarian cured, smoked and cooked sausage traditionally eaten with beer. Despite its name, beer is not normally an ingredient.
Where it's from
The cut
Identity and terminology
Bierwurst means beer sausage in the sense of a sausage served with beer. Beer is not an ingredient unless a specific variation calls for it.
Composition and characteristics
Beef, pork and diced back fat are seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, caraway, garlic and sometimes mustard seed. The cut face is medium-coarse, with visible fat cubes in a cured red matrix.
Production and process
The meats are cured and minced at different sizes, stuffed into a large casing, smoked and cooked. The short thick chub or bladder-like form supports slicing.
History and regional forms
Bavarian beer halls and Brotzeit culture created a strong market for robust cooked sausages served cold with bread, mustard and beer. Bierwurst became a standard southern German cold cut and later a nationally recognised trade name.
Use, storage and related products
It is sliced for Brotzeit, sandwiches and cold platters. It differs from Polish kiełbasa piwna and from beer-flavoured fresh sausages.
Recipe and cure
This is not a finished recipe. It is a window into how this meat is traditionally cured. Before you follow any process, run it through one of our curing calculators so the salt, cure and timings are right and safe for your own batch.
Make this — the measured Curesmith version →“Make this” opens the same cure as a measured recipe, scaled to your batch.
- Meat
- Beef chuck
- Cut
- Beef chuck
- Salt (%)
- 1.8
- Curing salt
- Cure #1 as specified in the recipe
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- Yes
- Maturation
- Cooked sausage 0–4°C for up to 7 days; freeze for longer storage
- Basis
- per 1,000 g beef chuck
- Style
- Cured, smoked and cooked Bavarian beef-pork sausage
Ingredients
- Beef chuck100% · 1000 g
- Pork shoulder85% · 850 g
- Pork back fat, 5 mm cubes100% · 1000 g
- Fine salt1.8% · 51.5 g
- Cure #1, 6.25% nitrite0.2% · 5.5 g
- Ground black pepper0.2% · 5.5 g
- Ground nutmeg0.05% · 1.5 g
- Ground caraway0.05% · 1.5 g
- Whole mustard seed0.1% · 3 g
- Fresh garlic, crushed0.3% · 8.5 g
- Ice-cold water4% · 114.5 g
Method
- Mix beef, pork and fat with salt and Cure #1 proportionally; refrigerate 24–48 hours.
- Grind pork through 5 mm, grind beef through 3 mm and cube fat to 5 mm.
- Process beef with water and spices until tacky.
- Combine pork and beef matrix, then fold in fat cubes and mustard seed.
- Stuff firmly into 50–60 mm casings.
- Dry at 45–50°C, then smoke at 55–60°C for about 60 minutes.
Safety. Cooked and smoked, but normally refrigerated. The name does not imply alcohol or preservation by beer.