Hey Blackriver, Allow me to throw my 2 cents worth in here ok? I'm surprised only one member has answered your question. Odell is absolutely correct on both counts as far as I'm concerned. The shoulder roast is the perfect choice and foods over two months in plastic can fail and pick up off flavors. (see article in recent Cook's Illustrated Magazine). Here are a couple of observations on my part. I surely don't know it all, but my biscuits ain't bad!
Boston Butts And Secret Recipes!
Have you ever wondered why pork shoulder is called "Boston butt"? Meat cutters in the eighteenth century seaport Boston, Massachusetts, packed cuts of pork shoulder into wooden
casks called "butts" to be placed aboard ships.
I wonder if the folks in Boston yet know their shoulders from their butts.
Unless you butcher your own livestock, it is probably best to purchase untrimmed Boston butts from a reputable charcuterier, grocery-meat cutter, or specialty meat supplier for making all around well-balanced pork sausage.
Many people are under the impression that sausage is made from random odds and ends, cut from cheap meats being ground up with all sorts of cereals and fillers added to disguise awful offal. Rytek Kutas, the ol` Sausagemaker™ himself, used to say, "junky meat makes junky sausage". The plain truth is good sausage is made from good meat. Moreover, Boston Butt is the ideal sausage-making cut, having the perfect texture with just the right amount of fat. Most trained meat cutters and butchers today, do a great job in removing sinew, gristle, clots of blood, excess fat, and glands from meat processed and sold commercially. At home, we must be quite diligent in locating these impurities and removing them.
By cutting the meat into chunks before grinding, many problems may be eliminated. Any connective tissue or sinew is cut into short lengths rather than having long strands invariably wrapping themselves around the center of the rotating cutting blade in the grinder. If you see "smearing" taking place or sausage exiting the plate holes looking bland and ragged, you`ll know you must take the grinder apart and clean the blade.
As you gain experience in cutting, grinding, curing, mixing, stuffing, and finally finishing a few batches of sausage, you`ll begin to realize that your success in making quality sausage lies not as much in the ingredients found in a recipe as it is with the process you`ve used to achieve it. Almost every beginner dreams about discovering the "secret" formula for the world`s greatest sausage! Most spend hours closely scrutinizing recipes in books and the internet only to discover in time that the vast majority of sausage contains merely salt and pepper and just one or two more commonly used "signature" spices such as marjoram in Polish kielbasa, or sage in English bangers. At first, many believe they can "fudge" just a bit on the precise techniques and processing procedures, especially in dealing with proper temperatures. In due course, the quality of the product suffers and usually the recipe receives the blame. Although many beginners give up at this point, determined folks begin to correctly focus their attention on the details of accurate processing techniques, armed with the savvy of how microorganisms affect their product. Only then, will a novice begin to realize there is no such thing as a "secret recipe".
Best wishes, Chuckwagon