Recommendations Needed to Correct Salami Problem(s)

[JerBear]

I had some major issues with my first attempt at salami making which really spooked me. I'm just now getting ready to try my hand at it again and wanted to get some feedback. In hindsight there were likely two issues going on, the first was too much fat and the second, which is debatable, was that I used a non-ideal fat. The base recipe called for a little less than a 2:1 ratio of shoulder to fatback (technically it was 3.5 # shoulder / 1.5# fatback) which I followed to a T.

I'm thinking for next time that I'm going to either fully trim out the shoulder to get lean and fat, hold the fat for future fresh sausage making and use fatback for all the fat. I'm hoping that this would reduce the overall fat content and use the harder back-fat instead of the shoulder and back fat. Thoughts?

[fandtm666]

when i make mine i normally use a ration of 15-20% back fat to meat
and its cubed very small.
i will freeze the back fat then take it out to cube up before putting it into
the mix.

[BriCan]

For what its worth, I do about a 13% ratio of backfat to 'other' meat.

This holds true for my latest a duck salame

Duck thighs, pork shoulder and backfat -- duck thighs are 'just' trimmed -- pork shoulder is how it comes (possibly 60/40 ratio)

The last one I made was a killer plus all round

In my very humble opinion, taking all the fat off the pork could/will lead to a dry salame

The norm that I would use would be the following -- old school recipes

10 kg Sow shoulder meat
9 kg Lean Beef trim
9 kg Back Fat