thanks all, I used to chunk up my venison and store it in ice cream pails but they are so bulky that I decided a couple years ago to just grind it all to a medium grind and then pack it in either 1, 2, or 5# packages in the freezer. I do the same with pork butts when they are on sale. I get a lot of grinding out of the way at one time, and the flat packs of ground meat store and thaw a lot better then irregular shaped and inconsistent shaped bowls and buckets that I used to use. so now when we want to make various types of sausage we can just pull out whatever meat we want to use and make it in smaller batches, usually 10 to 25#s at a time.
I have a buddy that has a butcher shop that is going to get me a case of boneless pork trim instead of the pork butt. its supposed to be available in either 70/30 or 80/20 mixtures so I think I will be trying some of that soon instead of the bone in butts I have been buying and then having to bone out before grinding, and the best part is its about 50 to 70 cents a pound cheaper and I wont be paying for the bone.
I really need to get my butt going on my smoke house so I can get busy trying to do some of the smoked and cured products I see on here every day!
It seems you are well on your way with the info.
Another potential option is to buy trimmed pork backfat if you are making sausage out of game meat like venison or feral hogs. They have such little fat plus people don't really care for the taste of venison fat.
Each year I bring back about 6 whitetail deer after my marathon hunting vacation and process them starting the day after I get back home.
With the trimmed pork backfat I consistently make amazing 80/20 meat to fat ratios in my sausage. No guess work, no inconsitency, just perfect repeatable results every time. I also don't have to buy extra pork or brisket or other meat to get proper "fat" content. I simply have pure pork fat to work with so it is just simple math.
80/20 ratio of meat to fat goes like this:
- 5 pounds of sausage = 4 pounds meat + 1 pound fat
-10 pounds of sausage = 8 pounds of meat + 2 pounds fat
-Combine 5 and 10 pound numbers to make any increment of 5 and/or 10 (25, 30, 40, 50, 100, etc.)
This works perfectly with game meat. Also since you grind 1, 2, or 5 pound bags of venison you can take any left over trimmed back fat and grind and use when you want. The consistency of the sausage produced is amazing!
That is just some food for thought, and it makes life easy to just have the stuff available int he freezer :)