I made a half batch (12.5#) of summer sausage this weekend. Pulled some beef cube steak, chuck roast, and couple 1-1/2 year old sirloin tip steaks out of the freezer and added part of a fresh, small, pork shoulder roast. Turned out pretty good for a bunch of "scrap" meat. I used a pre-mixed garlic summer sausage seasoning from PS Seasonings. Got me to wondering, if you aren't using wild game, what do other folks make this stuff out of? Buy fresh, or salvage stuff from the freezer?

I make mine entirely out of ground moose. Everyone says it’s better than store bought. I agree.

I hickory / birch smoke it too

Hickory smoked mine. Definitely, better than the store bought, mushy, fat pockets at the local market!

how well do those premixed cures work? will they keep unrefrigerated for a while?

I use the backwoods sausage kit. It’s premixed spices. With the cure packet you add to water and mix in.
Let it sit overnight in the fridge to cure and stuff and bake for an hour or two at 200 f depending on the size casings you use.
Then cold smoke for a few hours. Then vacuum seal and freeze or refrigerate.
The smoking adds to the cure and the longevity of the sausage.

I bring some to the Philippines in 95 degree heat and never had any problems. I think hung in a cool smokehouse to mold over it would still last for months.

I vacuum seal and put in the fridge or freezer. I've never had one go bad. I have cut one open and left remainder in zip-loc bag in the fridge for over a month and was still good. I've kept vac sealed in fridge for several months, no problem.

I made a batch of ring baloney while back. Wife wanted something wasn't wild game in it. So we watched for sale on the 10lb tubes of burger. We always watch for sales on pork butts. So I made the batch ring baloney 50/50 pork beef and ground it finer for her. Also ran some into Weiner casing made several packs weiners from same mix. All turned out good.

Mac