Ratios and Percentages, lean vs fat, etc.

[dan5047]

I've been honing my skills making venison summer sausage and have come across many threads regarding lean to fat ratios and percentages. Each post confuses me more it seems. To me, if I'm looking to achieve a 75/25% lean to fat ratio in a 15lb batch of meat, I'd use 11.25lbs of lean and 3.75lbs of fat. 11.25 is 75% of 15 and 3.75 is 25% of 15 (15 being the total batch size). But I've read several posts where people say "Yeah... I was doing a 75/25 lean to fat ratio so I did 1lb of fat to 4lbs of lean. In that scenario, for every 5lbs of mix, 1lb of it would be fat (20%) and 4lbs of it would be lean (80%). Isn't that an 80/20 mix and not a 75/25 mix?

 

[mosparky]

You are correct. I see the same posts but decide to let it ride as the result is not life threatening and I find it often useless to try to explain math, fractions, ratios and percentages to some folks.

 

[chef jimmyj]

I've made a similar mistake years ago calculating the Percent Salt and Cure in a Brine. daveomak set me straight. Use and post what you know to be accurate and dont let other posts confuse you...JJ

 

[DanMcG]

You were right with your 15 pound calculations, 75/25 is the percentage of each to make up the total 100% of the mass.
75:25 ratio for 5 lb.s would be 3:1 or 3.75 lean and 1.25 fat.
I think calling it a ratio is the problem, It's just the sum of the two parts.