Blutwurst mit Graupen (German Blood Sausage with Barley)

German blood sausage is a grain sausage as much as a blood sausage, and the grain is the regional identity — Graupen (pearl barley), Gersten, Hafer (oat), Buchweizen (buckwheat). Picking the grain is picking the region; this is the barley version. I’ve already cleared the hard part — sourcing fresh blood — for my black and white puddings, so the barrier here is familiar rather than new.

Ingredients

TOTAL MATERIALS (2,270 g / 5 lb)

• 454 g (1 lb / ~15 fl oz) pork blood — 20%, fresh and unclotted (see sourcing)
• 908 g (2 lb) meat trimmings — head meat, jowl, skin — 40%
• 341 g (0.75 lb) fat trimmings — 15%
• 113 g (0.25 lb) fat skimmed from the meat stock — 5%
• 454 g (1 lb, dry) pearl barley — 20%

SEASONING (per kg → per 2,270 g)

• 41 g salt (1.8%)
• 4.5 g Cure #1 (~125 ppm on total materials — colour and a modest botulism hurdle in a cooked, refrigerated sausage)
• 4.5 g black pepper
• 6.8 g marjoram (the top spice here — see notes)
• 2.3 g allspice
• 2.3 g nutmeg
• 1.1 g cinnamon
• 0.7 g ground cloves
• 68 g onion, chopped and fried golden
• 40 mm waterproof synthetic casing (or beef middles / hog bungs for the traditional article)

Directions

1. Key ingredients: the blood and its handling are the same as my Black Pudding and White Pudding — same supplier, same food-safety care.
2. Simmer the meat and skin trimmings in water until soft. Reserve the stock AND the fat that rises — the stock is not optional; it carries the gelatin that sets the sausage.
3. Cook the barley in the meat stock (~25 minutes), never plain water. If you sub oats, use whole or steel-cut — rolled breakfast oats turn to paste.
4. Fry the onions golden.
5. Grind the meats through 3 mm.
6. Combine everything WARM — blood, grain, meat, fat, seasoning — and mix fast. If it cools, the fat sets and won’t disperse.
7. Stuff loosely: the barley swells, so leave room. 40 mm waterproof casing in ~50 cm loops.
8. Cook — and mind the ceiling: 80 °C / 176 °F for ~50 minutes to internal ~72 °C / 162 °F. Do NOT exceed 80 °C. Blood proteins above that go granular and gritty, and it cannot be undone.
9. Chill 5 minutes in cold water, then finish cooling in air.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Marianski’s Blutwurst mit Graupen. Marjoram is the top spice here too — it recurs across German sausage as the national herb the way sage is in Britain.

Sourcing is the real barrier. Fresh pig blood must be fresh, unclotted, and food-grade — strain it, and if it’s already gelled it’s done. Ask a small slaughterhouse or a halal / Asian / Eastern-European butcher; some sell it frozen, which works. I’ve already solved this once — frozen blood from a market near the MSU campus, for the black and white puddings. Same supplier, same technique.

Telling it from its neighbors. vs British/Irish black pudding — that’s oat- or barley-and-blood with a much higher grain ratio and the characteristic white fat cubes; Blutwurst carries far more meat and skin, and marjoram/allspice instead of pennyroyal. vs boudin noir — the French versions are onion-and-cream-forward with no grain at all.

Still open. The buckwheat / oat / barley Blutwurst siblings and the Bavarian Blunzn, not yet worked up.