Store up north used to make really good bratwurst with pineapple, apple, or cheese in them.  Stores down here don't seem to do the same thing (I miss Fareway), so I am thinking of making my own.  Also thinking of playing around with making breakfast sausage and making different burgers (steak, short rib, etc instead of just ground beef).

What are some of your favorite recipes?

What grinder and/or casings do you use?

Experiences making brats with turkey/chicken?  What do you use for fat content?  What about for making burgers with leaner meat?

If you want to get a good starting point

Buy whole boston butt bone in roasts as cheap as you can get them.

The fat content should be a good starting point here

Lightly trim them, just cut out what doesn't look good, leave the fat. Cube to your gringers capacity. You can get away with rather large cuts with a #42 grinder vs a small #8.  

Throw the meat in the freezer after cubing. Leave it until it's firm and slushy- it grinds better for me.

Grind through a coarse plate

Start with a seasoning package. LEM backwoods is pretty good for brats or Italian.  I like the high mountain prairie sage breakfast sausage. Follow the mixing instructions.

You can make bratburgers or breakfast sausage patties easily. I like bulk italian for pasta. If you are going to stuff casings - get real natural casings. Pork for brats / italian. Sheep for breakfast. A hank of salt cured casings makes a good amount of sausage. Rinse thoroughly before stuffing.

Sausage is best made by eying the fat as grinding. It is a waste of time to separate meat from fat and weigh. Start with whole shoulders your first batch. After that you can make it leaner or fattier to your taste.  

After getting a good idea with the kits you can try scratch recipes, or adding to the kits. Bacon and high temp cheese in brats are easy and tasty. Same with jalapeños.

You dont need a great grinder, but you will want one after you do more meat. I have the cabelas commercial grade #8 and have done 21 deer a whole hog, and hundreds of pounds of pork shoulders with it. I started out hand cranking my first deer through my grandmother's 1920's cast iron grinder. My friend and I did a 350lb and a 430lb hog in one day with his grinder bought at auction from a grocery store meat counter.  Now i want one!

I like lean burgers, but you can go too lean. I think it's the colagen in the fatty tissue that binds the burger together. I don't grind for burgers any leaner than store bought 93/7, by eye only.   I don't do much beef though. I don't have the time for whole steers and the rest it usually too expensive for me to grind.