Making droewors

[deerstalker.308]

I’ve had a play over the last couple of months at making various sausage and biltong alternatives with the venison I’ve got in plentiful supply...
Part of my experimentation was making droewors, which is delicious and really simple to do.
However, being venison, and naturally lean, all the recipes I’ve found say you must add 10% beef fat to the mix, now, finding beef fat proved more tricky than I’d expected, although I found some online at a fairly punchy price, but as a one off I thought I’d try it anyway. It worked really well, and I am happy with it, but, what would people say about substituting the beef with pork fat? Bearing in mind this is salt cured and dried over about 3-4 days at room temp, should that steer me away from pork? What’s the difference between that and say chorizo or salami etc?
Anyone care to enlighten me either way? Would it be safe/taste ok?

 

[takbok]

I've not had any trouble getting beef fat or fat trimmings from my local butcher, but sometimes have to come back the following day or week for them to get it for me. (Maybe £12 or so for 3kg and 3 rolls of sausage casings).

I use 30% beef fat.

I've got a really nice, simple boerewors recipe. I also use this for droewors, just leaving out the water.

 

[deerstalker.308]

It may have been lockdown related I guess, perhaps a second go at finding it locally wouldn’t hurt...
Do you use a premix or make up your own? I bought the crown droewors mix but it didn’t give any mix rates so it was guess work based on what I could find online: first batch was too salty and the second possibly a little under, need to find the happy medium...!

 

[takbok]

I translated this from the original Afrikaans recipe. Makes very nice boerewors. Maybe a bit cheaper than using premixed spices etc. I like how simple it is! We (the boss) prefers the ground clove and nutmeg option. I just ask for plain beef fat at the butcher to keep it simple.

For the droewors I just use synthetic chipolata size casings and leave out the cold/iced water.

I lightly roast the coriander seeds and grind them up with a pestle and mortar together with other spices etc.


Vleisland Boerewors recipe (10kg)(Namibian)

7kg lean beef or venison
3kg fat (Soft beef fat, Beef brisket fat, or sheep tails)

180g salt
60g coriander seeds
20g black pepper
10g fine cloves
20g fine nutmeg
about 150ml Worcester sauce

OR

180g salt
60g coriander seeds
20g black pepper
30g Pimento / Allspice
about 150ml Worcester sauce

Mix everything together then mince (4.5mm plate) only once.

Add 750ml cold/iced water and mix thoroughly by hand. put into 24/26 natural sheep sausage casings (make sure the mixture isn't minced twice)

 

[Mike L]

All I can add is listen to Rory (takbok), his droeworst is absolutely delicious............

 

[deerstalker.308]

I translated this from the original Afrikaans recipe. Makes very nice boerewors. Maybe a bit cheaper than using premixed spices etc. I like how simple it is! We (the boss) prefers the ground clove and nutmeg option. I just ask for plain beef fat at the butcher to keep it simple.

For the droewors I just use synthetic chipolata size casings and leave out the cold/iced water.


Vleisland Boerewors recipe (10kg)(Namibian)

7kg lean beef or venison
3kg fat (Soft beef fat, Beef brisket fat, or sheep tails)

180g salt
60g coriander
20g black pepper
10g fine cloves
20g fine nutmeg
about 150ml Worcester sauce

OR

180g salt
60g coriander
20g black pepper
30g Pimento / Allspice
about 150ml Worcester sauce

Mix everything together then mince (4.5mm plate) only once.

Add 750ml cold/iced water and mix thoroughly by hand. put into 24/26 natural sheep sausage casings (make sure the mixture isn't minced twice)

Cheers Rory!

 

[takbok]

Here's the biltong recipe too - also simple because I don't do complex! Only tried this with roe haunch and maybe shoulder, can't remember. I think it's lovely but my wife thinks it's too gamey (win for me!) It's good to make it in quite thin strips (about 1/2" thick) and let it get nice and dry then slice thinly and enjoy with a beer etc. I'll be trying it with Sika very soon!

Biltong (per kilogram of meat)
20g salt
4g coriander seeds (grind with pestle and mortar)
2g black pepper
1g brown sugar
Sprinkle with worcester sauce when you mix the spices in, leave to marinate for 12h before hanging

 

[VIGILAIRE]

This thread should be pinned! Seem to remember that back in the day South African droewors used a lot of lamb fat but maybe this was a local thing. Thanks for all this information.

 

[Olaf]

I’ve had a play over the last couple of months at making various sausage and biltong alternatives with the venison I’ve got in plentiful supply...
Part of my experimentation was making droewors, which is delicious and really simple to do.
However, being venison, and naturally lean, all the recipes I’ve found say you must add 10% beef fat to the mix, now, finding beef fat proved more tricky than I’d expected, although I found some online at a fairly punchy price, but as a one off I thought I’d try it anyway. It worked really well, and I am happy with it, but, what would people say about substituting the beef with pork fat? Bearing in mind this is salt cured and dried over about 3-4 days at room temp, should that steer me away from pork? What’s the difference between that and say chorizo or salami etc?
Anyone care to enlighten me either way? Would it be safe/taste ok?

The main difference between Chorizo and salami is that Chorizo is ,broadly speaking ,made in two Main ways . one Is an un fermented short cured Sausage , with a high moisture content Which requires cooking.
The other is Is a fermented , and quite low moisture content sausage that is fully cured and is eaten Uncooked , much in the same way as salami Is. Both types of chorizo are seasoned with lots of paprika hence their orange colour.
salami is a fermented and fully cured sausage usually made from a mixture of beef and pork or just pork. It’s characteristic deep red colour comes from the curing salts used during its fermentation and curing which contain sodium nitrite.
you can use pork fat instead of beef fat and use ordinary sea salt for your sausage providing that the sausage is cooked. If you want to eat it uncooked then you just need to use a curing salt that has the correct amount of sodium nitrite in it.
I buy my curing salts from Weschenfelder and then season and spice sausages I make with fresh herbs etc. Rather than buying pre made seasonings .I only buy two types of curing salts , one that is relatively low in nitrite for cured cooked sausage ( frankfurter s etc) or meat ( ham or salt beef ) and the other is slightly higher in nitrite and used for making cured and fermented Sausage ( salami Mettwurst etc) if making a cured and fermented sausage like a salami I’d recommend the use of a bacterial starter culture like besserstart ( weschenfelder sell it) as it will kick start your fermentation and safeguard a good healthy bacteria growth ( a bit like using Bakers yeaSt when baking bread or using brewers yeast when making beer)
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[aris]

Speak to your local halal butcher - he would be glad to give you beef fat for free as they throw away tons of it. Lamb/mutton fat works very well too - but the stuff they use in SA tends to be tail fat which our local breeds of sheep do not have.

I would not use pork fat to be honest - it does carry certain inherent risks.

here is my recipe

10lb Beef mince - but not too lean
5 tsp. salt
1 level tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cloves
5 tablespoon rough ground coriander.

75ml white wine vinegar. Don't use malt vinegar.

50ml Worcester sauce

Sheep casing or a butcher who is willing to fill them
for you. The butcher will know them as chippolata
casings. These casings are much thinner than normal
casings.

Mix the dry ingredients.
Combine the wet ingredients.
Put the mince in a big plastic bowl. Sprinkle
about 1/4 of the dry mixture and mix it thoroughly with
your hands. Repeat the process with the wet mixture.
Repeat the process until all the mix is gone.

Stuff sausage casings. Don't stuff the casings to full
else it takes too long to dry and don't stuff them too
loosely else it tastes yucky with all the dry skin.
Don't forget that you will lose about half of the total
weight to moisture loss. If you are getting a butcher to
stuff the casing tell him to stuff it about 75% of the
amount that he stuffs chippolata's.

Hang in box

Wait a few days

The vinegar breaks down the fat and the worcester sauce
neutralises the vinegar taste.

You can substitute beef for venison + beef or lamb fat. Look for 10-15% overall fat.

 

[Olaf]

Speak to your local halal butcher - he would be glad to give you beef fat for free as they throw away tons of it. Lamb/mutton fat works very well too - but the stuff they use in SA tends to be tail fat which our local breeds of sheep do not have.

I would not use pork fat to be honest - it does carry certain inherent risks.

here is my recipe

10lb Beef mince - but not too lean
5 tsp. salt
1 level tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cloves
5 tablespoon rough ground coriander.

75ml white wine vinegar. Don't use malt vinegar.

50ml Worcester sauce

Sheep casing or a butcher who is willing to fill them
for you. The butcher will know them as chippolata
casings. These casings are much thinner than normal
casings.

Mix the dry ingredients.
Combine the wet ingredients.
Put the mince in a big plastic bowl. Sprinkle
about 1/4 of the dry mixture and mix it thoroughly with
your hands. Repeat the process with the wet mixture.
Repeat the process until all the mix is gone.

Stuff sausage casings. Don't stuff the casings to full
else it takes too long to dry and don't stuff them too
loosely else it tastes yucky with all the dry skin.
Don't forget that you will lose about half of the total
weight to moisture loss. If you are getting a butcher to
stuff the casing tell him to stuff it about 75% of the
amount that he stuffs chippolata's.

Hang in box

Wait a few days

The vinegar breaks down the fat and the worcester sauce
neutralises the vinegar taste.

You can substitute beef for venison + beef or lamb fat. Look for 10-15% overall fat.

Aris, im sure these sausages are delicious, I certainly like the simplicity of your recipe but could you please possibly explain What the inherent risks of using pork fat are ? It’s used in charcuterie throughout the world and has been for thousands of years . Also, what is there in this recipe to safeguard against botulism?
kindest regards, Olaf

 

[aris]

Trichinosis. The risk is low, but still there. you can mitigate it be freezing the meat for two weeks.

As for the botulism - the acid in the vinegar helps mitigate this, again risk is low.

Ive been making the stuff for 30 years and I'm still here

Some of the best droewors I've made was a mix of lean beef and lamb breast.

 

[martin_b]

I'm off to Bisley in about 30 mins, and I'll be paying my usual visit to Hot Rocks for supplies. Ive also just hung the my latest batch of homemade biltong but there is a flavour in the shop bought stuff I cant replicate.

 

[aris]

Lots of recipes out there - you may want to give a commercial mix a go. There are two main suppliers, Crown National, and Freddy Hirsch. If you look on amazon or eBay, there are several people who import and sell it. You could casually try ask this what he uses.

 

[deerstalker.308]

So is Trich really the only potential issue with using pork fat raw? Funny how all the traditional recipes strictly stick to beef fat and I hadn’t found any suggesting pork as an alternative.... guess it might make the droewors more greasy possibly?

 

[aris]

Greasiness depends on where the fat comes from. For instance in cooked sausages, they tend to use pork back fat which has a higher melting point and tends to keep its structure rather than just melt away. Back fat is actually a commodity in itself because of this. The fat which you may find around internal organs used in suet - has has a lower melting point- it tends to melt away and in the case of a dried sausage, makes it 'greasy'. That's my experience at least - i'm not a food scientist, just a hobbyist/enthusiast.

 

[deerstalker.308]

To be fair finding pork back fat is almost harder than finding beef fat..... no one seems to have it round here! I always just use belly fat in regular snags.

 

[Olaf]

Trichinosis. The risk is low, but still there. you can mitigate it be freezing the meat for two weeks.

As for the botulism - the acid in the vinegar helps mitigate this, again risk is low.

Ive been making the stuff for 30 years and I'm still here

Some of the best droewors I've made was a mix of lean beef and lamb breast.

There is no risk of Trichinosis in uk and Eu pork as all meat is checked for it. As for the vinegar stopping botulism
why not just use some curing salts, they are cheap as chips , they don’t taste any differently from normal salt and the sausages won’t look like some wrong black dried out meat. You will have also removed the risk of accidentally serving someone one of the most deadly neurotoxins known to humankind.
just my opinion. Failing the salt issues, I think it’s an interesting recipe.
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[deerstalker.308]

There is no risk of Trichinosis in uk and Eu pork as all meat is checked for it. As for the vinegar stopping botulism
why not just use some curing salts, they are cheap as chips , they don’t taste any differently from normal salt and the sausages won’t look like some wrong black dried out meat. You will have also removed the risk of accidentally serving someone one of the most deadly neurotoxins known to humankind.
just my opinion. Failing the salt issues, I think it’s an interesting recipe.
Kindest regards, Olaf

It has to be said, botulism is the major reason I will just stick to proprietary recipe mixes and be done with it, they taste great anyway and it couldn’t be simpler to use, just finding the sweet spot for just the right balance of salt is all I’ve struggled with, but that’s just a bit of experimenting.

 

[aris]

There is no risk of Trichinosis in uk and Eu pork as all meat is checked for it. As for the vinegar stopping botulism
why not just use some curing salts, they are cheap as chips , they don’t taste any differently from normal salt and the sausages won’t look like some wrong black dried out meat. You will have also removed the risk of accidentally serving someone one of the most deadly neurotoxins known to humankind.
just my opinion. Failing the salt issues, I think it’s an interesting recipe.
Kindest regards, Olaf

I didn't say it stops it, it mitigates it by lowering the Ph creating a hostile environment for bacterial growth - similar to how the maturation phase of traditional salami making creates lactic acid lowering the Ph. Nitrites or nitrates have their own health issues and are not traditional for droewors. It does alter the taste and colour too - but you can use that if you really want. Droewors and biltong looks like 'black dried out meat' - it is what it is and has always looked that way.