Backfat in Sausage

[sawhorseray]

Sunday morning I had the hams separated from the boar hog I killed Saturday and had them brining before noon. Yesterday morning I dragged the cooler containing the rest of the carcass into the kitchen and got on with deboning what was left for sausage.



As I was getting the meat off the hogs bones I realized I'd kind of spoiled myself for the last decade by shooting at nothing but fat young sows. The sows not only seem to have a much thicker layer of white fat covering them but a lot more fat marbled into the meat, it usually looks identical to the domestic porkbutt going into the grinder. Not so with this boar, what came out as the finished grind material looked more like deer meat, hardly any fat at all. My standard 22 lb. batch of sausage used be 14lbs. wild pig meat and 8 lbs. of domestic porkbutt, worked perfect, but that'll have to change now. I'm thing a recipe using 12 lbs. wild hog meat, 8 lbs, domestic porkbutt, and 2 lbs. pure hog backfat might get me to where I need to be. I usually run everything thru my grinder using a 7mm plate, and I know to grind the backfat while still pretty much frozen. Should the backfat be run thru the same plate, or is a smaller or larger plate usually used for backfat?, Any advise about this, and the backfat ratio, will be appreciated. RAY

[redzed]

I know many recipes tell you to grind the fat through a fine plate separately and then mix with the meat. Each time I tried this it did not work out too well. The back fat came out like long strings of pasta but then stuck together in big lumps, making it difficult to mix with the meat. So if you like the fat to show in the sausage, cube it and grind it with the rest. If you want to hide the fat, then take some of the butt since it also has fat in it, mix in the back fat and run it through the 4.5mm plate then mix it with lean meat ground trough the 7mm.

What type of sausage are you making?

[Chuckwagon]

Do you guys remember the term that NorCalKid coined when he referred to those long, stringy, fat strands coming through a 1/8" plate? He called them "iceworms". I really like the way Redzed defined it when he said:

...if you like the fat to show in the sausage, cube it and grind it with the rest. If you want to hide the fat, then take some of the butt since it also has fat in it, mix in the back fat and run it through the 4.5mm plate then mix it with lean meat ground trough the 7mm.

Shucks, some folks just cube it in smaller dice and then mix it in without grinding it at all. It makes a very nice visual effect and is a tasty way to prepare some sausages.
One thing about this hobby... there are always variations for individual preferences.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

[Gulyás]

Being an old timer I just grind everything with 8 mm. plate.
Sometime I use 10 mm., because I want feel, that I'm eating meat, instead of pink slime.....
Back fat is good, so is jowl, or pork belly.

[Chuckwagon]

I want feel, that I'm eating meat, instead of pink slime.....

[STICKSTRING]

Sunday morning I had the hams separated from the boar hog I killed Saturday and had them brining before noon. Yesterday morning I dragged the cooler containing the rest of the carcass into the kitchen and got on with deboning what was left for sausage.
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As I was getting the meat off the hogs bones I realized I'd kind of spoiled myself for the last decade by shooting at nothing but fat young sows. The sows not only seem to have a much thicker layer of white fat covering them but a lot more fat marbled into the meat, it usually looks identical to the domestic porkbutt going into the grinder. Not so with this boar, what came out as the finished grind material looked more like deer meat, hardly any fat at all. My standard 22 lb. batch of sausage used be 14lbs. wild pig meat and 8 lbs. of domestic porkbutt, worked perfect, but that'll have to change now. I'm thing a recipe using 12 lbs. wild hog meat, 8 lbs, domestic porkbutt, and 2 lbs. pure hog backfat might get me to where I need to be. I usually run everything thru my grinder using a 7mm plate, and I know to grind the backfat while still pretty much frozen. Should the backfat be run thru the same plate, or is a smaller or larger plate usually used for backfat?, Any advise about this, and the backfat ratio, will be appreciated. RAY

What is the plan with the hog hams? And have you done this before or is this a new recipe? I harvest ALOT of hogs in CA, always looking for new ideas!

When I use my hog meat for sausage I always go with 25% fat in my sausages. If the hog was a fairly fat sow then I add 15% fat. Sow fat and domestic back fat I have found to be completely different in texture. Soft fat vs Hard fat.

For 12 lbs of boar meat:
3 lbs back fat
7 lbs pork butt (usually 20% fat or 1.4 lb fat)

22 total pounds
17.6 lbs meat
4.4 lbs fat
Total of 20% fat in sausage

You can increase or decrease that as you please. Like I said, I like 25% total fat, sometimes 30%.

[sawhorseray]

The hams are each brining in a solution of:
3.5 gallons ice water
3 lbs. canning salt
10 oz. Instacure #1
10 oz. sugar
1-2oz. bottle Mapliene
Each ham weighs 12.5 pounds and has been injected with 20 oz. of the brine before being placed in a bucket and being covered with the rest of the brining solution. The brining bucket is in a 165 qt. cooler full of frozen water jugs, stays right at 39° F. The plan is to start smoking the hams with applewood in my Pro 100 right about midnight on Saturday, that'll be about 6.5 days after going into the brine.

The sausage will most likely all get turned into Italian sausage using PS Seasonings 260-B mix along with a bottle of cab and a whole knob of finely chopped garlic for each 22 lb. batch. The 100 pounds of porkbutt I bought at Christmas time for 99≠ lb. doesn't appear to be as fatty as the butts I've bought in the past, so I think I will go with the three pounds of backfat to the twelve pounds of boar meat. I'll just grind everything thru the medium plate as I always have.

I've killed just over 70 wild hogs in Northern CA. but only sows for the last decade or so. The last time I shot a boar before this was when I was just taking them to Los Gatos Meats, only been making my own sausage for about seven years now. I like to whack the sows in the winter when possible, the fat is thick and congealed and what's chopped and ready for the grinder has the same appearance as domestic porkbutt, never needed backfat. To be honest the only reason I killed that boar was due to the fact he was far bigger than anything else I'd seen on that Ranch, everything was on the smaller side of average, and we'd seen at least 150 different wild pigs in about ten hours of hunting. Back when my partner and I leased our own ranch to hunt we weren't much for passing on wet or pregnant sows either, if they were fat they got whacked. Thanks for the input guys, I know my path now. RAY

[STICKSTRING]

What flavor profile are you hoping for with your hams? Will this be like a Christmas smoked baked ham? Are you going to smoke it bone in? How will you plan on eating these hams? Will you pull it? Or slice it up?

Thanks!

[sawhorseray]

What flavor profile are you hoping for with your hams? Will this be like a Christmas smoked baked ham? Are you going to smoke it bone in? How will you plan on eating these hams? Will you pull it? Or slice it up? Thanks!

"What flavor profile are you hoping for with your hams?"

Adding Mapleine to the brine imparts a flavor we enjoy. I also add it to the brine mixture when I make CW's Canadian bacon recipe for pork loins.

"Will this be like a Christmas smoked baked ham?"

I do prime rib for Christmas, this'll be more like a Easter ham

" Are you going to smoke it bone in?"

Yep, right up until it reaches a internal temperature of 150°

" How will you plan on eating these hams?"

With a knife and fork until the leftovers go into split pea soup, then I'll use a spoon

" Will you pull it? Or slice it up? "

The ham will warm up in a 325° oven while my wife bastes it frequently with a orange juice concoction, then I'll pull it out and slice it up.

The meat processor my partner brought his sweet little sow to told him that his smoker was down so today he brought his hams over to me for brining and smoking. His 7.5 lb. hams from that sow are covered with a solid layer of thick white fat, I'm envious. RAY

[STICKSTRING]

Sounds great