Grind pork chops for Italian sausage? add brisket fat?

[airedale]

I am thinking about making my second-batch-ever sausage this week. My first batch, ground from a shoulder went pretty well. No shoulders on sale in today's/Sunday grocery adverts but I find center-cut pork chops at $1.99. Pretty good price I think. But will they have enough fat for good sausage?

Also, same store, I find "whole" prime brisket at $2.98/#. I assume this means packer briskets. I'm also thinking about grinding one of these into hamburger based on all the hamburger wisdom here. So ... related to the sausage, should I trim the brisket a bit and use the fat in the sausage? I do several briskets a year on my pellet pooper and am very familiar with trimming them to about 1/4" fat. Can I/should I trim that far for brisket hamburger?

I suppose I could try to trim 100% of the pork chop and brisket fat, then weigh it to work out proportions but that seems like a lot of work.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[thirdeye]

A center cut pork chop has the loin muscle, which is lean, and the tenderloin muscle, which is leaner than the loin. When you typically cook a chop it's done at 145°, and many folks will brine or marinade them to keep them as moist as possible. When you grind any whole muscle meat, it has to be cooked to 160°-165°. If you don't add more fat your sausage from pork chops will be dry.

Yes, a whole brisket is a packer. The meat itself has plenty of fat and does make really good hamburger, although I recommend grilling because if you fry a pattie inside the splatter is very noticeable. You can also grind brisket with sirloin, round or chuck to get a little leaner blend.

Brisket fat can be added to burger, say ground chuck to raise the fat percentage, but you want the hard fat, not any soft fat. Same goes if you are making beef sausage and want to raise the fat percentage. I suppose you can add brisket fat to pork sausage, I've never tried that

 

[scp]

Pork shoulder with plenty of fat works best...you need the fat...trust me...when I first started making sausage...I tried lowering the fat...not good.

 

[dward51]

Some store butchers will give away pork fat trimmings as they just toss them. Again you want the hard fat. You can also use "fatback" which is sometimes sold for use in soups and with greens in stores. But yes, you can use lean loin, but it does need more fat added when ground for sausage.