doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: making burger out of game.

A question for the cognoscenti here: if you do it yourself, how do you process your game animals? I have outsourced it in the past and have never been entirely happy with the results so... is there a general process that folks observe here? Unlike domesticated animals, game animals (deer, elk and antelope) inevitably have little or no fat in their muscle tissue so when making things like sausage or burgers, some form of fat must be added to keep things cohesive when grilled. I've read about adding lard, pork and/or beef fat (I even have an associate who adds olive oil) and there are probably other options I haven't even thought about yet. My solution to-date has been to add just enough ground chuck to achieve about a 94% lean primary grind. Hamburgers stick together nicely, have great flavor and any resulting meatloaf is perfection and comes out with no fat left in the pan. To that primary grind we then add ground pork and spices for breakfast and summer sausages. Italian sausage is made with the usual (fennel and other) spices and it's used for things like spaghettis and lasagna and whatever seems to compliment those traditional flavors.



Who else does this little dance? Not a bad way to spend a dark and snowy January day, btw.

10-15 % brisket to venison for hamburger has always been my favorite.

I have my deer commercially processed now, and always ask for a 70/30% mix with pork fat for my ground. I have tried that mix with cured bacon and it is good as well, but more expensive...Geo

Hi Lloyd, I process a lot of venison.

I’ll give you some pretty specific instructions when I get back to camp.

I'm fairly lazy about it, but I'll add lamb when I do. Tastes 100x better than pork fat, in my opinion.

We process our own & add 25% good quality ground chuck to our ground venison .

The patties we make form & hold together well & are great on the grill. What we don't put into patties is packaged in bulk for spaghetti sauce, meat loaf & etc. This keeps very well in the freezer

A long time a go we used very fatty pork sausage which is OK but does not keep as well & overall we prefer the ground chuck.

I used to add pork fat to my venison, but the taste of burgers made from it wasn't what I wanted in a hamburger. I switched to using beef fat trimmings to end up with about a 10% fat content in the uncooked meat, and am very happy with the result. It is actually best to trim away most visible venison fat from the meat prior to grinding, as venison fat just isn't that tasty. As you know, the muscle itself has very little internal marbling, but there are areas with large fat deposits, especially in well fed deer.

Years ago I had a source for the tails from fat tail sheep. I ground that into my lean game meat. Nice.

In recent years I have 10-20% pork fat ground in. And when I do smoked meat loaf I add a pound of ground pork to two pounds of ground venison. (And the secret ingredient? A couple of handfuls of crunched up Ruffles potato chips.)

Half the time I do it myself, half the time I have Crippen's do it. Often it's too warm. I have the capability to chill and age a deer but an elk is too big. Sometimes I'll take two quarters to Crippen and do the rest myself. I use pork fat for sausage and beef fat for burger. I agree bacon works very well for "burger" burgers. They have big bags of bacon trim, shorts, and end pieces at King Soopers that are relatively cheap. It's the leftovers that aren't pretty enough for packaged bacon. Last year we ran out of ground and still had roasts in the freezer. We ground them with the bacon and liked it. In my opinion a deer needs more doctoring up than an elk.

I've always wondered how you guys in the South manage to cool your game. What do you do with a deer with it's in the 60's?

90% Chilled meat, 10% chilled beef fat,
Grind twice
Mike