Overview
Berliner Dampfwurst is a Berlin cooked sausage made from beef, pork, fat and permitted offal components. Despite Dampfwurst, meaning steam sausage, the customary process is scalding or poaching rather than literal steam cooking.
Where it's from
The cut
Identity and terminology
The German Food Book lists Berliner Dampfwurst among fine cooked sausages and permits part of the connective-tissue component to be replaced by liver, heart or tongue. The Curesmith branch uses precooked beef heart.
Composition and characteristics
The filling is fine, pale to lightly cured and rich in connective-tissue proteins. Beef, pork, fat and heart are seasoned with pepper and mustard seed and filled into hog casing.
Production and process
Heart is precooked and chilled, then processed with the meats and fat into a fine batter. The links are stuffed and poached to a safe centre.
History and regional forms
Berlin's urban butcher tradition generated many named cooked sausages designed for inexpensive hot service. Dampfwurst belongs to this practical category and historically used a wider range of edible tissues than premium Brühwurst.
Use, storage and related products
It is served hot with mustard, bread or potatoes. It differs from Bockwurst through its offal allowance, pale identity and shorter keeping quality.
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 (%)
- 2.1
- Curing salt
- None
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- Cooked sausage 0–4°C for up to 5 days; freeze for longer storage
- Basis
- per 1,000 g beef chuck
- Style
- Uncured cooked beef-pork and heart sausage
Ingredients
- Beef chuck100% · 1000 g
- Pork shank meat50% · 500 g
- Pork back fat100% · 1000 g
- Beef heart35% · 350 g
- Ice-cold water17.5% · 500 g
- Fine salt2.1% · 60 g
- Ground black pepper0.24% · 6.5 g
- Ground mustard seed0.06% · 1.5 g
- Ground coriander seed0.06% · 1.5 g
- Ground mace0.06% · 1.5 g
- Ground ginger0.04% · 1 g
Method
- Poach trimmed beef heart until it reaches 74°C and is tender; cool rapidly to 4°C or below.
- Chill remaining meats and fat, then grind all components through 3 mm.
- Process beef, pork, heart, salt, spices and water; add fat last.
- Stuff into 32–36 mm casings and form links.
- Poach at 75–80°C until the cold point reaches 74°C.
- Cool to 6°C or below promptly.
Safety. The sausage is cooked but has limited keeping quality. Heart must be handled hygienically and the links rapidly chilled if not served hot.