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Meat from Germany

Mettwurst (raw-fermented forms)Mettwurst

Pork, often with some beef and fat, is minced, mixed with nitrite curing salt and a little sugar, stuffed into casings and ripened for a few days while lactic bacteria sour it. The spreadable kind is usually smoked, dried only a little and kept chilled; firm kinds are dried longer until they slice.

Fully documentedMeat28 h

Recipe

Mettwurst (raw-fermented forms), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Monstourz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceAmounts are percent of the batter for the Mettwurst made in a Swiss challenge study. German guidelines set the meat cuts and minimum meat protein, not a recipe.
Minced meat97.29 %[toenz2024]
Nitrite curing salt2.4 %Never a concentrated cure mix at this rate; see the safety note[toenz2024]
Dextrose0.25 %German guidelines cap added sugars in raw sausage at 2 %[toenz2024][leitsaetze2022]
Starter culture0.03 %The Swiss guidelines say some raw sausages are made with starter cultures[toenz2024][sff2022]
Pepper and other spicesSpreadable types are often seasoned with paprika; coarse Braunschweiger is flavoured with rum[wp-de]
Starterdefined culture (most industrial) or spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 28 h

Start
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What changes: Cold pork and fat are minced fine

Step 1 of 6
Chill and mince the meat
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Latilactobacillus sakei
L. curvatus
L. plantarum
Pediococcus acidilactici

German guidelines call for fine mincing in spreadable Mettwurst. Output: finely minced meat and fat for spreadable types; medium to coarse for firm types.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Pork, often with some beef and fat, is minced, mixed with nitrite curing salt and a little sugar, stuffed into casings and ripened for a few days while lactic bacteria sour it. The spreadable kind is usually smoked, dried only a little and kept chilled; firm kinds are dried longer until they slice. Made in 6 steps over 28 h. The longest step, ripen warm and humid, takes 28 h (Tönz A 2024) and runs at 24 °C (Tönz A 2024). Salt is 2.4 % (Tönz A 2024). Latilactobacillus sakei and Latilactobacillus curvatus, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Pediococcus acidilactici and P. pentosaceus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step28 hReported[toenz2024]Ripen warm and humid
Temperature24 °CReported[toenz2024]Ripen warm and humid
Salt2.4 %Reported[toenz2024]Mix in curing salt, sugar and spices
AciditypH 5.6–5.6 → 4.74Measured[toenz2024]Ripen warm and humid

What makes this one different

Spreadable Mettwurst is ripened for only a few days and dried very little, so fat coats the meat and it spreads; it must be kept chilled. Firm Mettwurst is ripened and dried longer, like salami.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Braunschweiger MettwurstSpreadable Mettwurst; the coarse Braunschweiger type is flavoured with rum.
  • Westfälische grobe MettwurstCoarse-grained firm Mettwurst of pork, beef and bacon.
  • Luftgetrocknete MettwurstAir-dried, coarse to medium grain, usually in pork small intestine.
  • Zwiebelwurst and Frische MettwurstCoarse-grained; the German guidelines call them unsmoked and meant to be eaten soon after making (Zwiebelmettwurst is listed in the same coarse group but is not called unsmoked).

Safety

Mettwurst is eaten raw. Spreadable types are only lightly dried and must be kept chilled. In a study of a cold-smoking and ripening process for mettwurst, a norovirus model (murine norovirus) fell by only about 1.9 log in the sausage, so a substantial amount of virus would remain in the product. Hepatitis E virus was tested only in solution, where it was inactivated, so the study does not show how it behaves in the sausage. In 2016 Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) said it was not fully clarified whether raw sausage passes on the virus, but advised anyone wanting to minimise hepatitis E risk to avoid barely cured raw sausage such as fresh Mettwurst, above all people with weak immunity or liver damage and pregnant women. Never use a concentrated cure mix at the 2.4 % rate given here. A mix of 6.25 % sodium nitrite at that rate would put about 1,500 mg/kg of sodium nitrite in the batter, about 1,000 mg/kg as nitrite ion. That is over 12 times the 80 mg/kg, as nitrite ion, that EU law has allowed to be added to non-heat-treated meat products since 9 October 2025, and the US CDC warns that nitrite poisoning can be fatal.

Hazards the sources name: Listeria monocytogenes; Noroviruses and hepatitis E virus (in a cold-smoking study a norovirus model fell only about 1.9 log in the sausage; hepatitis E virus was tested only in solution, where it was inactivated).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [leitsaetze2022] Deutsche Lebensmittelbuch-Kommission 2022, Leitsätze für Fleisch und Fleischerzeugnisse, BAnz AT 28.07.2022 B1, Nos. 1.3.2.1 and 2.4.1.2 (raw and spreadable raw sausages)gov
  2. [sff2022] Schweizer Fleisch-Fachverband (SFF) 2022, Qualitätsleitsätze für Fleisch und Fleischprodukte, Version 4 (Rohwurst definitions)spec
  3. [toenz2024] Tönz A., Freimüller Leischtfeld S., Stevens M.J.A. et al. 2024, Growth control of Listeria monocytogenes in raw sausage via bacteriocin-producing Leuconostoc carnosum DH25, Foods 13(2):298paper
  4. [bungenstock2020] Bungenstock L., Abdulmawjood A., Reich F. 2020, Evaluation of antibacterial properties of lactic acid bacteria from traditionally and industrially produced fermented sausages from Germany, PLoS ONEpaper
  5. [loikkanen2025] Loikkanen E., Mikkelä A., Joutsen S., Tuominen P., Maunula L. 2025, Effectiveness of cold smoking on inactivating murine norovirus in salami-like pork sausages (mettwurst), and hepatitis E virus and murine norovirus in solution, Food and Environmental Virologypaper
  6. [wp-de] German Wikipedia, Mettwurst (name history and variants only)wiki
  7. [bfr-hev2016] German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), FAQ of 9 February 2016 on the transmission of hepatitis E virus through wild boars and domestic pigs and food derived from themgov
  8. [cdc-nitrite2002] US CDC 2002, Methemoglobinemia following unintentional ingestion of sodium nitrite, New York, 2002, MMWR 51(29)gov
  9. [wisc-cure] University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension, Restricted ingredients calculations (curing salt at 6.25 % sodium nitrite)web
  10. [eu2023-2108] Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2108 of 6 October 2023 amending Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 as regards nitrites and nitrates (category 08.3.1, and recital 20 for the conversion factor)spec