Applewood Smoked Goetta and Grits

Now we are talking pork grits & not corn grits. On the pellethead forum we got into a big discussion about corn grits when I cooked this once before.

Looking up about why a meat would be called grits I found it was probably because of the steel cut oats used in it as a binder. I also found that a Cincinnati Co., Griers, makes Goetta & looks like the Kah’s grits with similar ingredients. It is mostly an area thing but now Krogers does sell it & I bought a tube of it the other day to try. Griers calls it a breakfast sausage. I like Kah’s grits fried crisp with eggs for breakfast but also like it cold on crackers. After getting my smoker I found I liked it smoked.

I found where Griers is now offering their Goetta in hot dog and brat size. They have a yearly Goetta festivle in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Goetta, grits, scrapple, pon haus, pan pudding, head cheese all were made from scraps of meat & organ meat like heart & tongue cooked in it’s own fat & juices cooled into a loaf to slice & fry later. It was a way of using up all the meat from butchering. They were brought to America by immigrants from Europe.

While goetta comes in a variety of forms, all goetta is based around ground meat combined with pin head or steel cut oats. Usually goetta is made from pork shoulder or "Cali", but occasionally contains equal parts pork and beef. Goetta is typically flavored with bay leaves, rosemary, salt, pepper, and thyme. It contains onions and sometimes other vegetables.

While similar to scrapple in that it contains a grain product and meat for the purpose of stretching out the meat over several days, goetta looks very different. Scrapple is made with meal while goetta uses steel-cut or chopped oats. The oats in goetta are much coarser than the fine powder used in scrapple and add texture to the dish.

Using BBQ Select apple wood pellets I wanted to do a long slow smoke & get it to 160 deg IT. I did it on smoke 175 deg. for two hours then went to 180 deg. It was running closer to 190 deg. It took 3 ½ hours for the Goetta & another 20 min. for Kah’s grits. It is pretty fragile & you have to be gentle taking it off so I find a grill pan works best. Then after cooling in the fridge over night to set up before slicing & frying.

Griers Goetta and Kah's Grits



Before smoking



About done



Cooling



My breakfast today, Kah's grits, Goetta, applewood bacon, egg, cheesy corn grits, toast & butter. The cheesy grits I made with some of my smoked sharp cheddar. I like Kah's grits better than the Goetta. Both had a light smoky taste.



Snokin Don