Dustin Dorsey
TVWBB Hall of Fame
Leroy and Lewis is Top 50 barbecue joint in Texas. They are actually ranked number 5. An interview with Evan Leroy in Texas Monthly is where I first started understanding ratios in sausage. This is a specific sausage recipe, but the main takeaways are the ratio of lean to fat, amount of salt, amount of cure, and amount of liquid they add. They also started using milk powder as a binder at about 2%.
They were doing 3 to 1 lean to fat, 1.67% salt, .25% cure and 10% liquid (can be anything
Now it's 4 to 1 lean to fat, 1.67% salt, .25% cure and 5% liquid.
They use ice as a liquid because they don't have the freezer space. I wouldn't do that unless you have monster grinder (#12 or higher probably). I just freeze my meat for 30 minutes before grinding and use whatever liquid, sometimes just water.
Also they use a really coarse grinding plate at 11mm. I use a 6mm mainly because that's what the kitchen aid had as a coarse plate. I don't do 2 grinds with my sausage usually.
They were doing 3 to 1 lean to fat, 1.67% salt, .25% cure and 10% liquid (can be anything
Now it's 4 to 1 lean to fat, 1.67% salt, .25% cure and 5% liquid.
They use ice as a liquid because they don't have the freezer space. I wouldn't do that unless you have monster grinder (#12 or higher probably). I just freeze my meat for 30 minutes before grinding and use whatever liquid, sometimes just water.
Also they use a really coarse grinding plate at 11mm. I use a 6mm mainly because that's what the kitchen aid had as a coarse plate. I don't do 2 grinds with my sausage usually.
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