Homemade Sausage Making

As most recipes call for 10# of meat, it always seems when I buy a bone in pork butt it weighs out at roughly 9 1/2 #. So to make up the shortfall can I add a pork jowl? As I have a whole case on hand. This would be for a fresh kielbasa recipe, but I was wondering if the jowl meat would give it to much soft mouth feel, as jowl meat isn’t as firm as say the hard back fat which I don’t have any of at the moment.

I've screwed up an awful lot on my trajectory of sausage making. Haven't seen too many things that made enough of a difference to take an otherwise good sausage to bad. There seems to be a lot of flexibility in my experience. Unless you were actually trying to dial a specific result or sausage in I think you could add the jowl, or just as likely ignore the remaining half pound (of course cure adjustment and a small dialing of the salt would be the only course corrections that are "truly" important).

Just my two cents...much more experienced answers will hopefully follow from the more expert charcuterists

The best and easiest way is to simply convert your recipes to percentages, that way is doesn't matter if you make 10 lbs. or 4 lbs

Good point Bob.

Take Bob's advice, work in percentages and in metric. You'll be able to do most calculations in your head. Jowl is a great addition to most sausages. The fat is firm and together with the meat, the jowl has a distinct and desirable flavour and texture. You are lucky to be able to source it, because I can't unless I get a side of pork.