Homemade Sausage Making

Quick question. When a recipe from the files section of the website calls for "beef" what cut would I be using? Generic ground beef? Ground stew meat? Something better?

An example is the jalapeño sausage 700g of "beef"

https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... no-sausage

Thanks,

rlh3

With the amount of fat being added I'd think any lean beef cut would be fine.

Hey RHL3, welcome to our forum. Your question is a multifaceted one and there is no one answer. As to the type or cut of beef to use depends on the type of sausage you are making. For example a smoked sausage where there is 20% or less beef, you would use very lean beef, grind it through a small plate, mix separably from the pork before combining. Here the beef is used not only to add a different flavour profile but also to act as a binder. And in these types of sausages you don't want beef fat since the flavour id not as good as pork fat and when eaten cold beef fat has a waxy mouthfeel. When making dry cured sausages with beef you also don't want any beef fat as it has a tendency to oxidize a lot faster than pork fat. Meat from older animals is also preferred in dry cured products since it is more flavourful and is more acidic.

But if you in fact are looking to make the jalapeno sausage then as BB stated any lean cut of beef could be used, since the content of the pork fat is more than adequate And when it comes to making a fresh sausage, some beef fat can also work. Just think hamburger or steak, there is nothing better than one that is tasty, juicy and moist because of the fat. And I think that while you can get away with using store ground meat, it is always preferable to grind your own. That way you can attain the texture you want and like, and you will have a fresher product. And different cuts of beef will give you different flavours so you can experiment and discover the ones that are to your liking. Personally I prefer beef cuts from the front quarter, such as chuck roasts and cross rib roasts. But the last time I needed some lean beef in a Polish sausage, I ground up a sirloin roast that I bought on sale.

Personally, over the years, I’ve found that one of the least expensive cuts (sirloin “tri-tip”/“petite”), often on sale for less than $3/lb, to be my favorite for ground and whole muscle jerky, sausages/salamis/burgers/etc.

For the most part, it’s useless as a “steak”. Fried, grilled, broiled,roasted, bbq’d, etc, it is tougher than Chuck Norris.

It does, however, have one of the best FLAVORS of any lean beef cuts.

Just be sure to add adequate (pork) fat to anything you make it into other than jerky.