Making sausage

[Chucknduck]

Asked earlier about grinding burger and got lots of good info. Now I'm gonna make some breakfast sausage and some bratwurst. So what percentage wild game and pork do you guys use??

 

[Treeline_Pursuits]

I do a couple ways...

1. I use pork fat sometimes. I usually go for 10-15%.... The normal Johnsonville brats are crazy fat, hence why they always catch on fire.. With low fat content you will not want to cook to well done or will get dry, but much healthier that way.

2. I've also buy pork picnic shoulders and add that to my wild game.. It has decent fat content, you can get on sale many times and it not that much more expensive than buying fat. I love the taste of brats using this method... Same percentage but more likely to try to go to 15%.

 

[macnshana]

For me it kinda depends on what wild game you have. I use deer for sausage and elk for burger. With deer I usually add about 25% pork. Just my own personal taste. I've never made brats so I can't speak on that.

 

[Fire_9]

This year I did about 40% pork. Could probably go lower but I wanted to make sure it was edible.

 

[Gr8bawana]

I made some breakfast sausage once by adding the seasonings to ground venison burger that had about only about 10% added fat. While it tasted like sausage the fact that there was not nearly enough fat made the texture of the cooked product dry, tough and chewy. Yuck! There is a good reason most sausage has a fat content of 20-25%.

 

[Flatrock]

I'll sometimes use 50% pork if I don't have a lot of meat to work with so I wouldn't worry too much about how much you add. I usually add in pretty lean pork though so it doesn't have a ton of fat in it.

 

[huntin24/7]

I've always had good luck with 60% game and 40% pork in most all sausages, snack sticks, etc. Add about 1# of high temp cheese to every 10# meat,and you're in business.

 

[Chucknduck]

Do you guys grind, season, and grind again?? Was thinking a guy could grind season and run thru grinder to stuff. I don't have a stuffer and seems like three times thru grinder is a lot

 

[JohnCushman]

I do a coarse grind, then season, mix in the mixer, then grind a second time. A lot of my sausages I make just in bulk packages, like breakfast and Italian. I used to stuff right from the grinder with the stuffer attachments, but I went and bought a 5# stuffer to do brats and sausages in casings since it's more convenient to measure the meat out for batches.

 

[JohnCushman]

I like to use a little extra fat in brats and summer sausages. The extra fat keeps them from drying out when you cook them.

 

[TheSurveyor]

I'm 30% or so pork. One thing I always buy if I see marked down is the packages of bacon scraps. Toss in the deep freeze till ready to use. Of course it tastes great but also already cut up and ready to use

 

[Chucknduck]

I do a coarse grind, then season, mix in the mixer, then grind a second time. A lot of my sausages I make just in bulk packages, like breakfast and Italian. I used to stuff right from the grinder with the stuffer attachments, but I went and bought a 5# stuffer to do brats and sausages in casings since it's more convenient to measure the meat out for batches.

So do you use corse plate on both grinds???

 

[JohnCushman]

So do you use corse plate on both grinds???

No, coarse first grind and fine the second

 

[sbhooper]

I use a mix of 17 pounds of wild with eight pounds of pork for a 25-pound batch using Cabelas Jalapeno Summer Sausage mix. I buy whichever pork that I can get the cheapest.

Course grind first and then fine grind the mix as per the instructions in the box.

 

[Jamen]

I do 1/3 pork 2/3 wild game. We double grind but use the course plate on both. Cheese I add roughly 1LB for every 10lb of meat. I catch myself adding more than the 1lb though.

 

[sbhooper]

I do 1/3 pork 2/3 wild game. We double grind but use the course plate on both. Cheese I add roughly 1LB for every 10lb of meat. I catch myself adding more than the 1lb though.

Cheese and ground jalapenos are always a good addition!

 

[el unit]

50/50 wild game/pork shoulder works great here. Coarse grind together once, then mix seasonings thoroughly, then into the grinder for stuffing sausages. No pork or fat added when I make snack sticks or summer sausage.

 

[buckbull]

I do 50% venison, 40% pork butt, and 10% pork fat. I'm guessing I'm around 20% fat. I grind course first time, and fine the second time through. I've pretty much given up on casings and put everything into bulk. The exception is the polish sausage I make. I stuff 33mm casings and smoke on my bro-in-laws Traeger. I bought 1lb game bags from amazon that come to around 4cents a bag. We usually process around 400 pounds of meat (venison + either port/beef) and try to do whats easiest without impacting quality.

I'm pretty excited to try to make this bacon- http://curleyssausagekitchen.com/Seasonings/Smoked-Seasonings/bacon-ground-formed-10.html

 

[Flatland Crusoe]

Its really not about how much pork, but how much pork fat % by weight. You really need to have at least 20% fat to get good sausage effects. I like to trim all of the fat off of the pork so I can actually weigh it rather than guessing on ratios. whether on not I use the lean pork in sausage is really limited by how fatty the pork is. If the pork cuts are too lean your pork percentage gets very high very quickly. In that case I use the lean pork for fajitas or soups.

 

[Jamen]

I do 50% venison, 40% pork butt, and 10% pork fat. I'm guessing I'm around 20% fat. I grind course first time, and fine the second time through. I've pretty much given up on casings and put everything into bulk. The exception is the polish sausage I make. I stuff 33mm casings and smoke on my bro-in-laws Traeger. I bought 1lb game bags from amazon that come to around 4cents a bag. We usually process around 400 pounds of meat (venison + either port/beef) and try to do whats easiest without impacting quality.

I'm pretty excited to try to make this bacon- http://curleyssausagekitchen.com/Seasonings/Smoked-Seasonings/bacon-ground-formed-10.html

I have made this from the same place. I enjoyed it my dad did not so much. Tasted really good I thought.