1st time making sausage.

[TMB]

Hey all, my first time making sausage will be in a few days. Any idea on the best cut of pork to use?  Fat/meat %?

  I'm a newbie at making sausage so any help would be great.  Now looking to make about 50 pounds so I can put it up in the freezer.

I do plan on using a food saver to store it when in the freezer. 

Thanks,

TMB

[dbondy]

Hi TMB, I use boneless pork butt. It usually has the right meat to fat % in my opinion. 50 lbs is a lot of meat to do on your first run at sausage, but if you have a good recipe that you can count on you will be fine. I just picked up 20lbs this morning to make kielbasa this weekend, I'll post the pics when I do it. My summer sausage meat % is usually 12lbs lean beef and 3lbs fatty pork butt, that % seems to work just fine for me.But it all depends on what type of sausage your are going to make because there are many different meat % that you can use. I'm sure there will be someone with more experience along shortly, so I hope this helps.

[RAF128]

What I buy my butcher call 50-50.    It's roughly 1/2 meat and 1/2 fat.    I usually go 70% lean meat, beef of lean venision and 30% pork.   That's what I was told to do by a couple of sausage makers who used to make my deer sausage before I decided to do it.   They said it made for a moister sausage that wasn't too fatty.   That mix has always worked well for me.

[TMB]

I'm making Italian sausage that my dad use to make. I will use natural casings for them so I know what size and shape, just not sure on the meat part.  Dad passed away some years ago and never really told me what the meat mix was as far as % of fat to meat.  :'(

But I'm will to try. The mix I have is for 50 lbs and it never failed so before I go cutting it in half I want to stay with what I know then I'll play with it.

Thanks
   

[Mr Walleye]

TMB

I'm a 80/20 guy.  ::)

Whole pork butts are on average about 80/20 and work well. I do a lot of blending between pork and beef but I always aim for the 80/20 final mix.

I have found, for my tastes, if I go more fat like 70/30, I find it too fatty. On the opposite side if I go 85/15 or 90/10 I find the texture crumbly or mealy so to speak.

Mike

[TMB]

TMB

I'm a 80/20 guy.  ::)

Whole pork butts are on average about 80/20 and work well. I do a lot of blending between pork and beef but I always aim for the 80/20 final mix.

I have found, for my tastes, if I go more fat like 70/30, I find it too fatty. On the opposite side if I go 85/15 or 90/10 I find the texture crumbly or mealy so to speak.

Mike

Good to know thanks.  Now I just need to get to the meat store and pick up the meat and lets see what happens.  I'll post my sausage when done.