Going back to S. Texas next year on another hog/javelina safari. Specifically, I'm bringing back the meat hog quarters to make into wild hog sausage. My question is should the hog fat be trimmed off, and use domestic hog fat for the mix, or grind it all [whole hog], and add extra fat if neccessary. I'm not talking about old tropy boars, but young boars and sows in the 80-125 lb. range. Also, where is a good place to order seasonings? Thanks.

Mad Dog

Cook up a bit of the fat and taste it .If it's ok then use it.I never use premade sausage spice , I make my own to my taste. The premade ones are usually sage based which I don't care for.My tastes go to nutmeg or paprika based.

Mete is correct about tasting the fat.It has so much to do with the diet of the hogs and how you process them.Here are some sausage spice suppiers if you do not want to mix your own.

http://www.zachspice.com/goshopping.php

http://sausagemaker.com/

If you do add fat try bacon ends and pieces its adds a smoky flavor,this is great if you are making fresh not smoked sausage.

Most of the time I just throw out the wild hog fat and use beef fat instead. Like the other two posters said, you can taste the fat to see if it will work. It all depends on what they've been eating recently. Some of the hogs we kill in a peanut field or corn field have really good fat for making sausage.

We have no luck making dry sausage out of hogs that have been in the peanut fields but they make good fresh sausage. The sausage just won't dry.

Call me paranoid but I don't make dried sausage out of pork anyway. Always use a beef and venison mixture. Maybe it's OK, but I grew up only making pan and link sausage out of pork so that's kind of what I stick with.

I used to a venison and domestic pork mixture but now I save my venison for ground meat and use wild hog to make fresh sausage and dry sausage. Everyone loves it. It's all good though, no matter what you make it out of.