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Fermentation Atlas

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 warm for about a day 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

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are percent of the batter for the spreadable Mettwurst made in a Swiss challenge study. German guidelines set the meat cuts and minimum meat protein, not a recipe.
97.29 %Minced meat and fat[toenz2024]
2.4 %Nitrite curing salt[toenz2024]
0.25 %Dextrose · German guidelines cap added sugars in raw sausage at 2 %[toenz2024][leitsaetze2022]
0.03 %Starter culture · Optional in practice; starters are common in industry[toenz2024][sff2022]
Pepper and other spices · Spreadable 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

What makes this one different

Spreadable Mettwurst ripens for only about a day and dries 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.
  • Zwiebelmettwurst and Frische MettwurstCoarse and unsmoked, made to be eaten soon after making.

Safety

Mettwurst is eaten raw. Spreadable types are only lightly dried and must be kept chilled. In a challenge study, a cold-smoking and ripening process left most of a norovirus model active in the sausage, so viruses such as hepatitis E from raw pork may survive.

Hazards the sources name: Listeria monocytogenes; Hepatitis E virus and noroviruses (cold smoking did not inactivate a norovirus model in the sausage).

History and sources

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

The name is Low German; Middle Low German had the form "metworst".

  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