Three generations, one recipe book.
Why we still break down our own meat, why raw sausage needs six weeks and what you won’t find in our sausage. If you want to know the details, the answers are here.
I’m Sepp. I’ve been working in this butcher shop for 31 years.
My father taught me that a piece of meat shows you how the animal lived. That’s why I don’t buy at the wholesale market. I buy from four farmers whose farms I know.
If you ask me where your schnitzel comes from, I’ll tell you the name of the farm. Not many people can do that.
And if something isn’t right, bring it back. I’m behind the counter myself every day.
In the same building since 1954
My grandfather started it in 1954, with a twelve square meter shop and a cooler you had to fill with ice blocks by hand. He slaughtered in the morning and made deliveries by bike in the afternoon. The building on Musterstraße has belonged to the family ever since. It’s been remodeled three times.
My father took over in 1978. In his time we got the sausage counter in its current size, the first proper cold room and the catering service. He also started driving out to the farms in the valley one by one instead of buying through a middleman. People back then thought he was crazy, because it cost more.
I joined the business in 1995, after doing my apprenticeship elsewhere. In 1999 I passed the master craftsman exam, and in 2003 I took over. Since then we’ve added the aging chamber and the lunch menu, and today we write down what’s in everything. The recipes and the Saturday opening hours have stayed the same.
Six people, no chain of branches
There are six of us. Two in production, three in the shop, plus an apprentice, since we started training again a few years back. We never had a second branch and we’re not planning one. If you grow, at some point you have to buy in goods, and then you reach the point where you can no longer say where something comes from.
That’s not modesty. It’s a limit we set on purpose. A business this size can work by hand and still make a living. Bigger than that gets difficult.
Why the certificate hangs on the wall
The master butcher’s certificate isn’t decoration. It’s what allows us to train apprentices, and it’s in every recipe.
The practical
Breaking down a whole animal against the clock, with every cut being graded. On top of that comes a masterpiece. Mine was a platter with seven of my own kinds of sausage, all made in the same week.
The theory
Product knowledge, microbiology, food law and technology. That’s where you learn why raw sausage keeps at all, and what happens if you get sloppy with the aging.
Business and training
Costing, law and vocational teaching. The most boring part, and the one you need most later on. Without part four we couldn’t have a single apprentice here.
The master craftsman certificate hangs to the left of the till. Issued by the Chamber of Crafts in 1999.
Time is the most expensive ingredient
Aging costs cold room space, electricity and money that hangs on the wall for three weeks. That’s exactly why many businesses skip it. But you taste the difference right away.
| What | How long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Beef on the bone | 21 to 28 days | The meat’s own enzymes break down connective tissue. The meat gets tender and takes on a nutty note. Without that time every steak turns out tough. |
| Pork | 3 to 5 days | Shorter than beef, but not zero. Freshly slaughtered pork is firm and loses a lot of water when you roast it. |
| Raw sausage, salami | 4 to 6 weeks | In the aging chamber at controlled humidity. The sausage loses about a third of its weight. That also explains the price per kilo. |
| Kaminwurzen | 2 to 3 weeks | Thinner than salami, so they’re ready sooner. Cold smoked three times along the way. |
| Farmhouse ham | 5 to 6 months | First cured, then cold smoked, then air dried. The longest process in our shop. |
| Speck | 8 to 12 weeks | Smoked over beechwood, then left to hang until it’s firm enough to slice. |
What never goes into our sausage
It’s easy to write a list of things you leave out. What’s more interesting is what you do instead, and where you draw the line.
We do without
- Flavor enhancers like glutamate. We season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, garlic and caraway
- Phosphates to bind water. That’s why our cooked ham weighs less after cooking, not more
- Mechanically separated meat and reformed meat of any kind
- Coloring, not even in liver sausage or Presssack (head cheese)
- Ready-made spice blends with carriers. We mix our own. It takes longer and you know what’s in it
- Soy and milk protein as filler
And to be honest, this is in it
Nitrite curing salt. In everything that’s cured. Ham, Kassler, Geselchtes (smoked pork), most cooked sausages. Without that salt there’d be no reddening, no typical cured taste and, much more important, no protection against botulism. Some businesses advertise that they manage without it. With raw sausage that hangs for weeks, we think that’s a risk we don’t want to take.
Ascorbic acid, in other words vitamin C, in raw sausage. It controls the reddening and keeps the salami from going gray on the outside. Not a magic potion, just craft with a recipe.
Starter cultures in salami and Kaminwurzen. They’re the same bacteria that used to come from the air by chance. Only now they’re added on purpose, so the wrong ones don’t get there first.
All of this is on the label. Ask at the counter and we’ll show you the recipe. We have nothing to hide, and we don’t think much of advertising with terms nobody can check.
A week at the butcher shop
So you get an idea why certain things are only fresh on certain days.
| Day | In production | In the shop |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Shop closed, but cleaning, ordering from the farms and writing the weekly plan | Closed |
| Tuesday | Pigs slaughtered from 5:00, then breaking down and sausage making | Fresh cooked sausage, liver sausage and blood sausage from midday |
| Wednesday | Scalding sausage, hanging raw sausage in the aging chamber, firing up the smokehouse | Fresh smoked goods and Speck come into the counter |
| Thursday | Cattle slaughtered, breaking down, hanging meat for aging | Fresh beef, goulash and soup meat |
| Friday | Getting ready for the weekend, marinating, barbecue range, catering orders | Full counter, barbecue meat from midday |
| Saturday | Weißwurst early in the morning, Leberkäs from 8:00, catering deliveries | Until 12:30, then pickup of pre-orders |
| Sunday | Nothing. It’s the only day the chambers can work in peace | Closed |
That’s why liver sausage is best on Tuesday afternoon and beef is freshest on Thursday. If you want to know exactly, just ask.
Come behind the counter.
We’re happy to show school classes, clubs and anyone who wants to know more around the shop. Wednesday afternoon works best. A phone call is all it takes, and it’s free.