My wife and I have 24 packs of burger in the freezer so far this fall. Our goal is always to not have to buy "cow burger" from the grocery store before next October when we replenish our supply. As we cut up our deer we always have a "burger bucket" for smaller pieces we trim off steaks or roasts, and many times we'll just steak up the backstraps, a few round steaks off the hind quarter, and burger the remainder of the quarters - we use a lot of burger.

Advice? Trim out your venison as best you can - remove all fat, tallow, suet, silverskin, blood vessels etc - it will make a huge difference in the taste. Also we use the grinder attachment for coarse ground burger vs the finer ground.

Now you'll get many different opinions on this, but we do add good quality pork to our burger - the ration we use is roughly 2 parts venison to 1 part pork. We've found that when we don't add pork there isn't enough grease to fry up a burger, for instance. Personal preference and to each his own. We'll buy boneless pork butt or in a pinch will even use pork steak. We don't use the pork fat or connective tissue - just the prime marbled pork. This is blasphemy to some, but I'll put my wife's venison chili, spaghetti sauce, or buck burgers up against anyone's anytime.

Our process goes like so - we do a grind mixing the venison and pork, and then mix that up by hand (nothing like burger squishing between your fingers). We then do a second final grind and package that up in freezer paper - 1.5 lb packs work best for us.

We were taught how to make our own burger by a local (UP) butcher, and we've been doing it for about 10 seasons now. We started out with a hand grinder, and then bought the grinder attachment for our KitchenAid mixer. Lots of folks like the Cabela's grinders too

Hope this helps - Good Luck and Enjoy!

 

We use 3lbs of pork butt to 10 lbs of venison. First we run everything through the course plate then mix and run the mix through the the fine plate. Everything else is basically the same as yooperkenny

Good luck

 

I have been using a hand grinder for years and years without any problem. It is a larger than usual unit so the handle is long and gives good leverage.

As they have already mentioned trim off all the tendon and silverskin. Keep the meat cold, very cold, and even cold enough to have ice crystals in it is not a bad thing.

Use a plate with the large holes for the first grind. Then run the coarse ground through once again but this time try a smaller sized hole in the plate. I do not know about the other guys but my grinding plate with the large holes has holes almost as big as my thumb. I will usually use that one to start or the one that is one size smaller.

If all that you have is a grinding plate with real small holes then give some thought to chopping the venison with a sharp knife first. That would act as the first grind. Then put this chopped meat through using the smaller holes. Similar to the style that some of the chefs use on the Food Channel.

 

I can't really add much more than what's already been said...good stuff. One thing I have noticed when grinding is that the electric grinder I use is great for pulling off any suet, connective tissue I miss. I just clean off the blade a couple times while grinding. It works very well.
As with adding the pork butt, one thing I do with grind that I plan on using for sausage is to add some slab bacon fat. The meat shop I go to has fresh smoked slab bacon. The don't have it too often, because they have excellent cuts of meat, but when they do I pick up the ends that have a good chunk of fat on them. Then throw as much as I can get into the grind...about 1:10 then with the butt roasts. It does very well and offers a nice twist for burger, chili ect if I don't use it for sausage.
A good partial pre-freeze is always good for the meat I grind too, easier to handle.
Anything can be ground for burger. I generally start with the neck, front quarters and if meaty enough ribs, and the rear shanks. Everything else goes to steaks or roasts.

 

Tried something different on Sunday. As stated try to remove as much fat as possible and all hair. I use a 1 hp electric meat grinder that I bought at Gander Mountain. It works great. I grind the burger twice, once with the course blade and then once with the fine blade. I added a pound of smoked bacon per 8 lbs of venison. It really turned out great. Gives the burger a nice Hickory Smoked Flavor. Hope this helps! Good Luck.

 

"Buck Rogers", you have learned one of the many advantages of pork fat.

 

we grind ours first with the corse then with a fine...my wifes uncle owns sebrease market in milan and he saves us all the fat he trims off steak / anything ... we use that when we grind the first time...approx 1 part fat to 2 or 3 parts deer....works for us..

mikie

 

Tried something different on Sunday. As stated try to remove as much fat as possible and all hair. I use a 1 hp electric meat grinder that I bought at Gander Mountain. It works great. I grind the burger twice, once with the course blade and then once with the fine blade. I added a pound of smoked bacon per 8 lbs of venison. It really turned out great. Gives the burger a nice Hickory Smoked Flavor. Hope this helps! Good Luck.

I usually leave all the hair,,, it gives the meat a nice "cinged deer hair" smell while cooking.:lol:



Seriously though,, I never grind any meat into burger. Most people use the "less desireable" cuts of meat to grind. The problem I find with that is,, there is so much sinew and tendons in those cuts that they clog up the grinder sumthin' fierce. And I'm not about to waste some prime steaks on burger.

 

I do not mix anything with my ground venison, I can always do that when I am about to use it. Try this trick- gring it as course as possible. After you grind it all separate it into 1 pound and pack each in a 1 gallon zip lock. Take a rolling pin and make it as flat as possible, getting out all the air and useing up the entire bag with the 1 pound. This make it great to stack and freeze and when you take it out to use it will thaw in about 20 minutes.

Good luck
DRN

 

just running it through the the course plate is fine for most things but if you plan on making hamburgers and dont want them to crumble apart after theyre cooked you need to run it through the fine plate too.

 

Don't any of you have problems with the auger gumming up when running through coarse ground meat through a second time?

Every time I try to grind the second time, it's a time consuming pain in the buttocks. Is there a trick?

 

I usually leave all the hair,,, it gives the meat a nice "cinged deer hair" smell while cooking.:lol:



Seriously though,, I never grind any meat into burger. Most people use the "less desireable" cuts of meat to grind. The problem I find with that is,, there is so much sinew and tendons in those cuts that they clog up the grinder sumthin' fierce. And I'm not about to waste some prime steaks on burger.

What do you do with the shanks then? Throw them away? You need to remove as much of the silverskin as possible then grind it while "soft" frozen. Works fine. Tastes good.

 

What do you do with the shanks then? Throw them away? You need to remove as much of the silverskin as possible then grind it while "soft" frozen. Works fine. Tastes good.

I'll cut 'em off and let my dad trim 'em up and grind it,, he likes it. Just way too much work for me.