Tell fat ratio visually?

[greyartist]

Hey Ya’ll. I am new to all this. We raise cows and have one processed a year for the freezer. I am looking for ways to use the abundance of hamburger. I tried the fake bacon recipe and it worked great. Now I want to try making something like beef smoked sausage. But am worried about the fat ratio. Since we don’t process it ourselves, I have no idea what the fat ratio is. Can you tell by looking at the meat? How vital is the ratio in these type of recipes???

[processhead]

greyartist
I am no expert, but the picture looks pretty lean.
My guess would be 90% lean and 10 fat.
Possibly even a bit leaner than that.
Is all your ground beef look like that package or is there some variation?

[twilliams]

greyartist I would guess that at 80/20, if you have some pork fat I would add another 10% in the weight of the meat block you are wanting to do. It wouldn’t be terrible just a bit dryer than typical. Would still be tasty.

[greyartist]

processhead It all looks like that

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

greyartist As an experienced whole animal butcher looking at this photo, I would say it is 85% lean. That means it would have a similar fat content to commercially sold ground round. I would add fat for sausage making at about 10%, leaving it in the area of 75% lean. I will add though, that if your bacon turned out well and held together nicely, it shouldn’t be too much different then how sausage would turn out. If you were happy with it, you could try sausage without adding more.

[glen]

greyartist I would guess 85 to 90.
Do you notice much fat separating from the meat when you brown it?

[mrobisr]

greyartist I will not speculate on the fat content, but it is lean for sure. I would either add at least 10-15% beef tallow or better yet 30-40% boston butt if I was making a sausage product. Me personally most of my sausage recipes are a mix of beef and pork, but to each his own.

[dawg]

It looks like good hamburger and fairly lean. Either way it will be good but a little pork fat from a local locker might help carry the flavor.

[processhead]

Here is a package labeled 96/4 for reference.

[Mike Sample]

One might go to the meat store and take a quick photo of some 80/20 and 70/30 (or whatever ratios your meat market carry) for comparison. This should give you a quick idea on where to start concerning fat content for sausage making.