Lebanon bologna
Also known as Lebanon Bologna
Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, United States
Overview
Lebanon Bologna is a dark smoked beef sausage with a fine red-brown slice, strong tang, sugar, clove, cinnamon and smoke. it should be cohesive and aromatic rather than harsh or crumbly.
Where it's from
The cut
How to recognise it
A dark smoked beef sausage with a fine red-brown slice, strong tang, sugar, clove, cinnamon and smoke. It should be cohesive and aromatic rather than harsh or crumbly. A raw or grey centre, split filling, greasy purge, sourness or broken refrigeration is unacceptable.
Origins and history
Lebanon Bologna developed in Pennsylvania Dutch country from the smoked beef-sausage traditions of German-speaking settlers. Lebanon County's farm smokehouses and butcher shops produced a dark, tangy all-beef sausage by the early nineteenth century, using prolonged fermentation and hardwood smoke rather than the fine cooked emulsion associated with ordinary American bologna. The name bologna became established locally even though the product behaves more like a semi-dry fermented sausage. Commercial makers concentrated around Lebanon and neighbouring counties, and a sweeter version later joined the original sharp style. The sausage became a regional cold cut served in sandwiches, school lunches and snack plates. It remains a Pennsylvania cultural speciality rather than a protected geographical indication.
Serving and cultural significance
Serve thin slices in sandwiches, rolled around cream cheese or on a snack plate with crackers and pickles. The sweeter version suits mild cheese, while the original tangy style benefits from mustard. Keep it refrigerated after slicing.
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 →The cure below is the traditional reference. “Make this” opens the measured Curesmith home recipe, scaled to your batch.
Traditional or protected production
Lebanon Bologna is an all-beef Pennsylvania Dutch sausage with a pronounced sweet-sour flavour, heavy smoke and a dark surface. Traditional commercial processes may rely on extended low-temperature fermentation and smoke without a final cook; the Curesmith home version uses a conservative cooked endpoint.
- Meat
- beef
- Cut
- minced
- Salt (%)
- 2.2 to 2.5%
- Curing salt
- Cure #1
- Other agents
- dextrose; black pepper, clove, ginger
- Fermented
- Yes
- Target pH
- ~4.9
- Starter or mould
- lactic acid bacteria starter
- Smoked
- heavily cold-smoked
- Target aW or weight loss
- semi-dry; modest loss
- Temperature (°C)
- ferment then dry 12 to 14
- Humidity (%)
- 72 to 75
- Maturation
- weeks
- Basis
- percentage of meat weight
- Style
- minced, cured, fermented and dried
Ingredients
- beef
- salt
- dextrose
- black pepper
- clove
- ginger
- Cure #1
Notes
- Nitrite at 156 ppm ingoing.
- Target roughly pH 4.9 through a prompt, clean ferment.
- Convert any volume spice measures to weight as a percentage of the meat.
- All-beef and strongly fermented for a marked tang; a sweeter version adds more sugar.
- Named for Lebanon, Pennsylvania, not the country.
Safety. A fermented sausage: the acid drop and drying carry the safety. Ferment promptly to close the early Staphylococcus aureus window.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, pH