Elk sausage fat ratios

[Scottiem]

I'm getting ready to make some elk breakfast sausage and summer sausage for the 1st time and was wondering what everyone else is doing as far as fat ratios. I have the Outdoor Edge Advanced Sausage DVD and in it he recommends a 80/20 mix of elk to 50/50 pork fat for breakfast sausage. I've called a handful of meat markets in Denver and none sell 50/50 pork trim just straight fat. Ive read online guys are using pork shoulder/pork butt which they say is roughly 30% fat. Do you buy this at a meat market/grocery store and chop it up yourself? As far as summer sausage goes...in the DVD he still uses a 80/20 mix but as far as fat goes he uses 50/50 beef fat and bacon ends. Ex. 10# batch = 8# elk, 1# beef 50/50, 1# bacon ends. Again...nobody sells beef 50/50 trim, just straight fat. Anyways just wanted to hear what types of fat and what ratios and where you get the fat?

 

[colonel00]

We aren't that scientific but we just get pork butts and grind them up for fat. You can find them just about anywhere but the best price would be the two packs you can get at Sam's. These are the same huge hunks of meet that BBQ people use to make pulled pork. We then usually do a 1:1 or 2:1 mix of game meat to ground pork. Rarely are we that scientific though.

 

[PMcGee]

We aren't that scientific but we just get pork butts and grind them up for fat. You can find them just about anywhere but the best price would be the two packs you can get at Sam's. These are the same huge hunks of meet that BBQ people use to make pulled pork. We then usually do a 1:1 or 2:1 mix of game meat to ground pork. Rarely are we that scientific though.

Same here.

 

[ScottP]

I'm sure there are some sausage experts that will chime in, but in my experience with % fat is really that its matter of personal taste. I like a leaner sausage myself, while others I have made sausage with don't like it to be too lean. That said, I like to use all game meat and straight pork fat in about a 85/15 ratio is what suits our taste. I really don't see the need to add pork meat, personal choice there.

I buy pork belly and trim it out to get perfect bacon slabs. This generally nets me enough fat to make a 10-15lb batch of sausage. I've had trouble finding straight pork fat back once I moved away from the midwest. Seems every butcher there had it!

If I get a bear this spring, I will be using the fat from that to make sausage and skip the hog altogether.

 

[Scottiem]

So it sounds like I can pick up a pork butt, grind it up, and do something like a 60/40 mix for breakfast sausage. I already picked up a box of bacon ends that I planned on adding to the summer sausage with beef 50/50 trim. Seeing that I can't find beef 50/50 trim do y'all think I'd be alright just adding straight beef fat with the bacon ends? I know a lot of guys use the pork butt for summer sausage also, but I read that beef fat is better cause beef is closer to deer/elk in taste. The argument was if your making a typical pork product (breakfast sausage) than use pork. If your making a typical beef product (summer sausage) than use beef. Also what do y'all add to burger meat? Straight beef fat? Bacon ends? Thanks for the help.

 

[colonel00]

I have used beef fat before without issue. I used to BBQ a lot and I would trim down the briskets before I cooked them. This would leave me with several pounds of fat off of each that I would save. I can't say that I have ever really noticed a difference in the end product since there usually are so many spices in the sausages and stuff.

 

[huntin'monkey]

I grind 2 pounds of straight back fat into 10 pounds of elk/venison to make my sausages. No need to add pork meat to game sausages, imho. Happy grinding.

 

[Dromsky]

I use the 80/20 mixture and get pork fat from my local supermarket. I just ask the guy at the meat counter to save the fat trim for me and call me when you have 5#.
That allows me to grind 25# of sausage.

 

[JG358]

I guess I just think defferntly than most when it comes to grinding wild game for sausage. If I want to eat a bunch of pork/pork fat, I'd just make pork sausage. I mix in a couple lbs of 85/15 or 80/20 ground beef for a 25 lb batch of sausage(fresh and cured). Its more than enough fat to keep the suasage from drying out while cooking and doesnt hide the taste of the game meat.

 

[idelkslayer]

I prefer to get the straight pork fat. For breakfast sausage I mix in 20% fat by weight. For summer sausage I think I used 15% fat last time it might have been 20%. The same with bratwurst, 20%. I do 10% for hamburger.