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Lebanon Bologna

Follow basic sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
  1. Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
  2. Keep your meat and grinder parts super cold (below 34F)
  3. Grind your meat/fat twice (once on a course plate then on a fine plate)
  4. Add the seasonings and starter culture to the meat and mix till tacky
  5. Stuff the farce into bologna casings
  6. Ferment for 24 hours at 90f till you hit your target ph
  7. cold smoke for 2 days
  8. Enjoy

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Original Recipe can be found here: Lebanon Bologna (with starter culture) (meatsandsausages.com)

Print Recipe
4.86 from 7 votes

Lebanon Bologna

A Pennsylvania Dutch Sausage
Prep Time2 hours
Fermenting and smoking3 days
Total Time3 days 2 hours
How much do you want to make? 1000

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Trim any silver skin off of the beef and cut into small strips. Chill before grinding. You want the temperature below 34F (1c).
  • Prepare the starter culture as it needs to rehydrate for a least 30 minutes, also get all the spices together and place in a small cup. Let the bologna casings soak in luke warm water for 20 minutes.
  • Grind beef through a course plate (10mm) then regrind using a fine plate (4.5,mm). Rechill between grinds if necessary. The temp of the meat needs to be below 34F (1C) at all times during processing
  • Mix chilled ground beef with all spices and the rehydrated starter culture. Once the meat mixture gets sticky and can stick to your hand when you turn it upside down you can stop mixing.
  • Stuff sausage mix into bologna casings.

If making this in warmer weather (above 65f or 18c)

  • Ferment at 90f (32c) for 18-24 hours, 90-85% humidity. Target ph 4.8 – 4.9
  • Cold smoke (temperature under 80f or 26c) for 2 days. Keep the humidity high during cold smoking by adding a tray of water into the smoker
  • Final pH target (after cold smoking) for this sausage is 4.5 – 4.6ph
  • If you want to dry this sausage out (like summer sausage) you can place in an area that's 55f (13c) with 80% humidity for 5-7 days

If making this in cooler weather (below 65f or 18c)

  • Ferment at 90f (32c) for 24 – 30 hours, 90-85% humidity. Target ph 4.6
  • Cold smoke (temperature under 75f or 24c) for 2 days. Keep the humidity high during cold smoking by adding a tray of water into the smoker
  • Final pH target (after cold smoking) for this sausage is 4.5 – 4.6ph
  • If you want to dry this sausage out (like summer sausage) you can place in an area that's 55f (13c) with 80% humidity for 5-7 days

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9 thoughts on “Lebanon Bologna”

  1. Joe Banditelli

    Looks like a great recipe. With the use of F-LC Starter Culture and 6g of dextrose is this Lebanon Bologna very sour? I understand safety hurdles and bringing ph down to 4.6,

    1. I wouldn’t say super sour. It has a nice tangy quality to it. When fermenting the safety hurdle is anything below 5.3. So if you prefer this sausage to not have that sourly flavor you could stop the fermentation around the 4.9 mark and you would be good to go..

  2. 5 stars
    OMG – WOWSA – My first attempt at this recipe and it is a total success!!!

    My parents are from York, Pennsylvania just 40 miles from the meat houses that produce bologna from Lebanon County, PA. The family have always been fans of this local Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy.

    We have now settled in Denver, Colorado and it is impossible to get Lebanon Bologna without $8-$9 per pound with exorbitant shipping and handling. I made made my bologna with 80/20 ground on sale at local grocery for $2.87 per pound.

    So fire up the MasterBuilt 30 inch electric smoker with a 12″ pellet Smoker Tube since the Materbuilt will only set to minimum of 100 degrees. Pellet Smoker Tube with outside temps of 30-50 degrees F held at about 80 degrees as it burned through apple pellets (needed to reload about every 8 hours or so). Since I doing one pound 2 1/2 inch chubs (total of 3), I backed off the smoking to 18 hours (seems perfect).

    Thanks so much for the recipe and exact instructions on the video – you took a fairly complex process and broke it down to home kitchen processing and back yard smoker.

    This recipe produced Bologna (probably more regular than sweet) that has the absolute perfect consistency and taste. I am impressed and everyone that is familiar with the taste will find this is very close to anything that could be store bought.

    Thanks so much!!!!!

  3. 5 stars
    Whoops – meant to say I smoked about 30 hours. Calls for 48, but with the smaller chub shortening by about 6 hours was perfect.

    Everybody give it a try!!!!

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