Pig fat and hog casings

[dime]

Hey all you lower mainland sausage makers, where do you get your pig fat. I have called a few places and found that Johnson packers in Chilliwack seems to have the best price on pork and beef fat, $0.59 per pound. Does anyone know of a place that is less expensive that that? A few local shops are selling for $0.69 per pound. It sounds like Stuffers is the best for casings ($23/100 yards) unless someone knows a better source. I called Britco Pork (pig slaughterhouse) and was suprised to find out they do not sell hog casings and are charging almost a buck a pound for the pork fat.
Any ideas?

[dukester]

Hey all you lower mainland sausage makers, where do you get your pig fat. I have called a few places and found that Johnson packers in Chilliwack seems to have the best price on pork and beef fat, $0.59 per pound. Does anyone know of a place that is less expensive that that? A few local shops are selling for $0.69 per pound. It sounds like Stuffers is the best for casings ($23/100 yards) unless someone knows a better source. I called Britco Pork (pig slaughterhouse) and was suprised to find out they do not sell hog casings and are charging almost a buck a pound for the pork fat.
Any ideas?

late reply but try Costco its free... might have the odd peice of beef fat in there but that doesn't matter.

[tuchodi]

Dime: You will be much more satisfied if you use pork fat instead of beef fat. I know you can get beef fat usually free but it does not make as good a sausage especially if you keep them in the freezer for some time as beef fat will go ransid quite quick and pork fat will not. 60 to 80 cents is not bad for pork fat but sometimes at costco you can get it for nothing. We just finished making 300 lbs of differant sausage's this week end and it turned out great. We use pork butt which has quite abit of fat content and you dont have to use quite as much of your prize wild game. We mix 75% wild meat with 25% pork butt and it has always turned out good.

[Steeleco]

Sort of on topic, how long do the natural casings stay usable if kept in the fridge, 100 yds is tons for a beginner like me. Can they be frozen.
Also do you find that ground pork is as good, the thought of adding fat to any lean game, defeats the purpose of eating game IMHO??

[Bow Walker]

Sort of on topic, how long do the natural casings stay usable if kept in the fridge, 100 yds is tons for a beginner like me. Can they be frozen.
Also do you find that ground pork is as good, the thought of adding fat to any lean game, defeats the purpose of eating game IMHO??

Natural casings can be kept in the fridge (coldest part) in a sealed container of water (Tupperware) for up to 2 months. Although you may get longer out of them if you change the water and add table salt to it. don't skimp on the salt.

The key is to keep the water fresh (every week) and keep the casings heavily salted. If you don't change the water you'll soon start smelling them - not good.

Natural casings usually come already salted and cured and dry - at least they did when I was a meatcutter - try to take only as much as you need from the package and keep the rest dry and salted and cold. Casings that are dry and salted will last months and months (if needed) in a sealed ziploc bag, kept in the fridge.

Hope this helps.

[Bow Walker]

Sort of on topic, how long do the natural casings stay usable if kept in the fridge, 100 yds is tons for a beginner like me. Can they be frozen.

Sorry, I forgot to reply to the second part of the question...brain pharte.

Yes, you can freeze natural casings. If you have washed and/or rinsed the whole 100 yard package and you want to freeze the leftovers I'd suggest that you drain them thoroughly, salt them heavily and try to get them back to the "dry" state that they came in. Or as close to it as you can.

Then, once they are dry and salted, put them in a heavy, freezer-type ziploc bag and freeze away.

Also do you find that ground pork is as good, the thought of adding fat to any lean game, defeats the purpose of eating game IMHO??

Adding pre-ground pork to your game meat and then grinding is not something that I'd recommend. You'll likely end up with sections of just straight pork in your sausages, instead of a well mixed and proportioned batch throughout.

If you don't want to add straight pork fat then the best thing to do is to add Pork Shoulder Butt - not the Picnic as it's too lean - use the Butt with its natural mix of lean and fat.

What I'd recommend is that you cut the Pork Butt (fat and all) into large-ish chunks and then coarse grind it in with your game meat. This way the pork fat and pork meat get well mixed with your game meat.

I'd also highly recommend using a coarse grind. The sausage will still be tender and easy to eat, but the texture will be vastly improved.

Coarse grind all the meat and fat, mix in your binder and spices/flavourings, hand mix the batch very, very well, and then pass the whole batch through the coarse grind once again. Then add your moisture (water, wine, apple juice, or what-have-you) and hand mix again. Once this is done then you're ready to stuff the batch

Oh yeah, freeze a few links and send them to me....

[Steeleco]

Thanks BW, that's great info.

[tuchodi]

Bow Walker: A question about what you said in your last post. You stated that after mixing your spices and binder you put it throught the grinder again. We tried that once about 10 years ago and had a disaster as the meat by then is so sticky from the binder it would not pass throught the grinder very good and we just had to abandon that method. Do you have an old trick that works as I have not dared try it again as we lost about 5 lbs of meat that we couldn't get out of the grinder until we washed it plus I was told if you grind it again after the binder it will heat up the meat a little and thats not good as they recomend you use ice to keep the meat cold.

[tomahawk]

the best price on pork and beef fat, $0.59 per pound.

Too bad you just missed the annual sale that Save On and others have on pork legs. You get the whole rear leg for $0.89 cents a lb. That breaks down to lots of good pork for roasts and steaks (or sausage meat) and about 3 -4 lbs pork fat. Fairway Markets (I think there is some in the LML) has free beef fat as well.

Natural casings usually come already salted and cured and dry - at least they did when I was a meatcutter - try to take only as much as you need from the package and keep the rest dry and salted and cold. Casings that are dry and salted will last months and months (if needed) in a sealed ziploc bag, kept in the fridge.

They still come dry and salted. The key is to only wash and clean what you will need for each session. The remainder I vacuum seal and keep for over a year no problem.

[Bow Walker]

Thanks BW, that's great info.

No problem - I hope it helps you and that it works well enough that you want to use it regularily.

Bow Walker: A question about what you said in your last post. You stated that after mixing your spices and binder you put it throught the grinder again. We tried that once about 10 years ago and had a disaster as the meat by then is so sticky from the binder it would not pass throught the grinder very good and we just had to abandon that method. Do you have an old trick that works as I have not dared try it again as we lost about 5 lbs of meat that we couldn't get out of the grinder until we washed it plus I was told if you grind it again after the binder it will heat up the meat a little and thats not good as they recomend you use ice to keep the meat cold.

Thanks for pointing that out tuchodi. I've altered my rambling post to reflect your concerns. Usually, IIRC, with the coarse grind - I mean that the grinder plate has holes in it the size of wooden pencils - that didn't present a problem.

Sometimes when I was making sausage and changing from one grinder plate to another, I didn't tighten the grinder head back up correctly. This invariable resulted in the meat clogging up between the grinder knife and the grinder plate. The meat would actually start to emulsify. I had to take everything apart, clean it, and re-assemble the grinder head properly before I could continue. Didn't sit well with the boss.