Dirk Chesterfield
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A few years ago, due to supposed customer demand, the pork industry started introducing lower fat pork. They claimed that they had bred a new pig that had a much lower fat content. I suspect that all they did was to cut out the finishing step (fattening with grain), saving them money while charging us more for this "new and improved" product.
These changes have had drastic consequences for home sausage makers. Store bought pork shoulder now has about half the fat that it had 5 years ago. Extremely low fat sausage is a miserably dry, rubbery and significantly lacking in flavor. This problem is especially prevalent in sweet or breakfast sausages that are cooked and eaten alone without condiments. Purchasing pork belly to increase the fat content of homemade sausage sometimes costs more than the original pork shoulder purchase and is cost prohibitive for most sausage makers.
My answer to this problem is larding. I spoon lumps of lard onto a plate covered with cling wrap and freeze it until it is hard (about 20 minutes). While grinding the pork shoulder I occasionally drop a lump of frozen lard into the hopper where, when ground, it mixes with the meat and increases the fat content. I grind all my sausage twice, once through a coarse plate and then through a fine plate. This disperses the fat evenly through the sausage and makes a finished product that is almost indiscernible from the traditional high fat sausages of yesteryear. Lard is also inexpensive when compared to purchasing pork fat.
Being rather flavor neutral, I suspect that frozen lard could also be used when grinding beef and venison sausage but I have not tested this as I almost exclusively grind pork sausages.
These changes have had drastic consequences for home sausage makers. Store bought pork shoulder now has about half the fat that it had 5 years ago. Extremely low fat sausage is a miserably dry, rubbery and significantly lacking in flavor. This problem is especially prevalent in sweet or breakfast sausages that are cooked and eaten alone without condiments. Purchasing pork belly to increase the fat content of homemade sausage sometimes costs more than the original pork shoulder purchase and is cost prohibitive for most sausage makers.
My answer to this problem is larding. I spoon lumps of lard onto a plate covered with cling wrap and freeze it until it is hard (about 20 minutes). While grinding the pork shoulder I occasionally drop a lump of frozen lard into the hopper where, when ground, it mixes with the meat and increases the fat content. I grind all my sausage twice, once through a coarse plate and then through a fine plate. This disperses the fat evenly through the sausage and makes a finished product that is almost indiscernible from the traditional high fat sausages of yesteryear. Lard is also inexpensive when compared to purchasing pork fat.
Being rather flavor neutral, I suspect that frozen lard could also be used when grinding beef and venison sausage but I have not tested this as I almost exclusively grind pork sausages.
