Homemade sausage with picnic shoulder?

[mystikdrey]

Hi everyone, so as I mentionned in the title, can I make homemade sausages with a picnic shoulder? I read it's better to use pork butt, but can't find out exactly why. Thanks!

[dalewest]

The only issue would be your lean to fat ratio. Most agree the butt has a perfect 80/20 lean to fat ratio but the picnic end of the shoulder might run leaner. If it seems pretty lean you might want to add some fatback to your mix.

[chefj]

For Hamburgers 80% lean to 20% fat is the common ratio.
Most sausages have a higher fat to lean ratio, more like 30% to Fat 70% lean. There is variation depending on what kind of Sausage and other adjuncts.

[dalewest]

Maybe :"perfect" is not the right word for 80/20 fat lean ratio for sausage. Maybe "minimum" would more accurate?

[chefj]

Agreed.
There are definitely "lower fat" sausage recipes out there and that may be some peoples motivation for making their own. But for taste and texture, especially in a fresh sausage you need a good amount of fat.

[Zeldog]

I was not happy with my one try using the picnic cut. I added fatback, as dalewest suggests, but the end product was crumbly and dry, which has never happened using butt. It may have something to do with the fact that a lot of the fat in the butt is marbled into the meat while the picnic is quite lean, comparatively. Also, there's a lot of sinew and silver skin in the picnic, so you either leave it in and hope it doesn't clog your grinder or spend a lot of time trimming.

Come to think of it, I've read at least a hundred sausage recipes, and I can't recall a single one that suggested using picnic.

[ediblover]

Lats batch I made was with picnic and it turned out great. Can't think of any reason why butt would be better. The only argument I can make for one over the other is the meat/pound (picnic having bone) and whether or not you're going to use the skin (yummy).

[mystikdrey]

Thanks, ediblover, I'll give it a try today!