Food

Ring Bologna

American · Beef · Cured · Pork · Sausage · Smoked Foods

Ring Bologna
Prep 1 hour, plus overnight curing
Cook 4–6 hours smoking and cooking
Serves About 5½ lb / 2.5 kg — five rings of about 1 lb / 450 g
Level Medium

Ring bologna is the horseshoe of smoked bologna sold by small-town meat markets across Pennsylvania Dutch country, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota: beef and pork, ground medium-fine rather than emulsified smooth, often with garlic, stuffed into a beef round casing and smoked over hardwood until dark, then cooked. It is eaten cold in thick slices with cheese and crackers, simmered with sauerkraut and potatoes, or fried. It is a different object from the pink sliced deli bologna it shares a name with. That one is a fine, smooth emulsion in a wide casing; ring bologna is coarser, firmer, smokier and garlicky, and the ring is not decoration — a beef round is the curved small intestine of a steer, so the sausage comes out curved and is tied end to end. Pennsylvania makers trace it to German immigrants in the nineteenth century; Michigan has its own version in Yale, where a family plant has made bologna since 1924 and the town holds a bologna festival every July. I have not made this one yet; the formula is built from Marianski’s country-style bologna and published descriptions of ring bologna, and it is untested.

Ingredients

MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight

  • 1,362 g / 3 lb beef chuck, sinew removed (60%)
  • 908 g / 2 lb pork shoulder (Boston butt) (40%)

CURE (% of meat weight)

  • 45 g / 1.6 oz fine salt (2%)
  • 5.7 g Cure #1 (pink salt, 6.25% sodium nitrite) (0.25%) — 2.5 g/kg × 2.27 kg = 5.7 g; 2.5 g × 6.25% = 156 mg nitrite per kg = 156 ppm, the USDA ceiling for comminuted products
  • 11 g dextrose (0.5%)

SEASONING (% of meat weight)

  • 68 g / 2.4 oz nonfat dry milk powder (3%)
  • 6.8 g black pepper, fine (0.3%)
  • 2.3 g white pepper (0.1%)
  • 3.4 g coriander, ground (0.15%)
  • 1.1 g mace (0.05%)
  • 3.4 g mustard, ground (0.15%)
  • 11 g fresh garlic, crushed to a paste (garlic ring; halve for a plain ring) (0.5%)
  • 182 g / 6.4 oz ice water (8%)
  • 38–43 mm beef rounds, about 10 ft / 3 m, cut in 18–20 in / 45–50 cm lengths and tied end to end into rings
  • 1 roll butcher’s twine

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Mustard

  1. In the collection: Black Pepper and garlic. The collection’s other bolognas are Old-Fashioned Bologna and Smoked Bologna; ring bologna is good in Pickled Bologna (Mom’s), Ham Salad (Ground Bologna Sandwich Spread) and on a Bologna and Yellow Mustard Sandwich.
  2. Grind: chill the meat to 30–32 °F / −1–0 °C. Grind the beef through a 3 mm (1/8 in) plate and the pork through a 4.5 mm (3/16 in) plate. Marianski’s country bologna uses 6 mm for both; a slightly finer grind gives the tight, sliceable ring that is still clearly not an emulsion.
  3. Mix to a bind: dissolve salt, Cure #1 and dextrose in the ice water, add the milk powder, spices and garlic, and mix into the meat for 3–4 minutes, until it is very sticky and stretches when pulled. That bind is what lets a coarse ring slice cleanly when cold. Fry a teaspoon to check salt and garlic.
  4. Stuff and tie: soak the beef rounds, stuff firmly in 18–20 in / 45–50 cm lengths, tie each end, then tie the two ends together to close the ring. Prick air pockets with a sterile needle. Beef rounds are tougher than hog casing; that chew is part of the sausage.
  5. Cure overnight: hang the rings in the refrigerator overnight (Marianski: 38 °F / 4 °C overnight) for colour.
  6. Dry and smoke: dry at 130 °F / 54 °C with the damper open about 1 hour, until the casing is dry. Smoke at 140–150 °F / 60–66 °C with heavy hardwood smoke for 2–3 hours, until dark mahogany. Marianski smokes his country bologna cooler, at 115 °F for about 3 hours, before cooking.
  7. Cook: raise the smoker to 170–175 °F / 77–79 °C and hold until the centre reaches 160 °F / 71 °C, 1–2 hours more; or finish in 176 °F / 80 °C water, 60–90 minutes. Do not boil.
  8. Shower and bloom: plunge into iced water 10 minutes so the casing does not wrinkle, then hang at room temperature an hour to dry and darken. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks, or freeze.
  9. Serve: cold, sliced thick with sharp cheese and crackers; or simmered 20 minutes in sauerkraut with potatoes, as in the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin supper; or sliced and fried.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The working numbers start from Marianski’s “Bologna – Country Style” (80% beef, 20% pork trimmings; 1.8% salt; Cure #1 2.5 g/kg; white pepper, coriander, mace; 10% water; 6 mm plate; overnight cure; smoke 115 °F about 3 h; cook to 154–158 °F; beef middles or large casings), reshaped toward the ring bologna sold by Pennsylvania and Midwestern meat markets: beef-and-pork, medium grind, garlic, hardwood smoke, beef round casing. Deviations: (1) 60/40 beef and pork, nearer the commercial descriptions than 80/20; (2) milk powder added as a binder, standard in American bolognas (USDA permits up to 3.5% of such binders); (3) garlic and a little black pepper added; (4) hotter smoke and a 160 °F finish. Untested.

Where ring bologna came from. Pennsylvania makers describe ring bologna as a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty brought by German immigrants in the mid- to late 1800s; that is a trade account rather than a documented history. It spread through the Midwest wherever German and Central European settlers kept small meat markets. Regional preferences differ — one account has northern Ohio preferring a coarser straight German bologna and southern Ohio the finer ring. In Michigan, C. Roy Processing in Yale has made “Yale Bologna” since 1924, and the town has held the Yale Bologna Festival on the last weekend of July since 1989. Pierz, Minnesota, has its own Bologna Days.

The ring. The dive’s casing tables give beef rounds as 35–46 mm, “tougher, curved by nature, which is why ring bologna is a ring.” A round is the small intestine of a steer; stuffed, it curves, and the ends are tied together. Tied rings hang evenly on a smoke stick.

The name. American “bologna” (and “baloney”) descends from Italian mortadella di Bologna by way of German Brühwurst. Ring bologna shares the name with the fine sliced emulsion and with Lebanon bologna, a fermented, tangy, all-beef Pennsylvania sausage that is a different product again.

Variations. Plain ring: halve or omit the garlic. Cheddar or pepper jack ring: fold in 8% high-temperature cheese cubes after mixing. All-beef rings are common. Some Wisconsin markets sell a coarser, more garlicky ring for simmering with sauerkraut.

Sourcing and gear. Beef rounds (38–43 mm) from sausage-supply houses; a smoker that will hold 130–175 °F; butcher’s twine.

Still open. No Pennsylvania or Wisconsin maker’s formula with weights has been compared against this one.

Read more on the site. Casings · Casing or Not