Homemade Sausage Making

I am going to grind some venison scraps for burger. I have never done this before. What is the best meat to use for the added fat needed for good burger? I like to make hamburgers on the grill and I like a good juicy burger. How many grinds and what size plates should I use? Thanks

Beef fat is the way to go IMHO in fact buy some cheap burger 70/30 and mix it 50/50 with your ground venison, It will make the best burgers you have ever had.

I use about 30% fatty pork with ground venison.

I use pork butt. Mix 50-50 with venison. Or, use good pork fat and mix at about 20-80.

I'd have to agree with Dave, 20% pork fat by weight will make the lean venison succulent and juicy

Blackriver wrote:I am going to grind some venison scraps for burger. I have never done this before. What is the best meat to use for the added fat needed for good burger? I like to make hamburgers on the grill and I like a good juicy burger. How many grinds and what size plates should I use? Thanks

G'day Blackriver,

Our sambar deer are generally very, very lean and I grind it twice through a 10mm plate for mince meat. Never add any other fat to the mix unless making a sausage of some sort.
When making a rissole ( Your hamburger I think) we add boiled rice, egg, onion, bit of bacon, capsicum, bit of curry powder, worcestershire sauce, salt/pepper.

For pasta/spaghetti sauce add tomato paste/puree, bacon, mushrooms, capsicum, onion, salt/pepper, garlic.

Hope it works for you

May not help today, but when I trim briskets for smoking I save the fat and trimmings for just this occasion.

Charlie

Blackriver wrote:I am going to grind some venison scraps for burger. I have never done this before. What is the best meat to use for the added fat needed for good burger? I like to make hamburgers on the grill and I like a good juicy burger. How many grinds and what size plates should I use? Thanks

i was a pork user for many years but then my wife inadvertantly mixed it with regular beef hamburger and we have never gone back. we love pork but it just seems the beef gives that traditional taste you grew up on. i never have to use a binding ingredient to "keep it together" on the grill and they are always moist. being a new member to the forum i will gather my recipes and have them available in the near future.

I know its an old post but my two cents anyway. Pork loin at a 4-1 ratio with two grinds makes a excellent burger.

cogboy wrote:I know its an old post but my two cents anyway. Pork loin at a 4-1 ratio with two grinds makes a excellent burger.

Sorry, I'd go with the recommendation of Vagreys and Dave Zac before I'd be instituting any pork loin, there's not enough fat, and fat equals flavor. That's the biggest problem with venison, it tastes too much like deer meat, needs more fat to be palatable. Always makes me think of what a noble and under-appreciated animal a wild hog is, but that's just IMHO . RAY

Venison is the only burger I eat and I shoot deer because I LIKE the taste of venison. The loin has enough fat to bind the meat together and leaves no grease to drain from a frying pan even at a 3-1 mixture.

I gotta add my 2 cents here. Well cared for Deer meat AKA venison is delicious but it does smell different than beef and has almost no fat. You just need to know how to prepare it properly. It is also a bit of an acquired taste.

Like cogboy I rarely eat a burger if it does not contain Venison.

My mix:
45% Venison
45% Beef (usually bottom round or chuck)
10% Bacon

CT has a very liberal deer season..starting with 4 Archery tags on Sept 15th and not ending with various other tags until the end of the year.

I think SawhorseRay maybe referring to mule deer instead of whitetail ?

The only experience I have are with the blacktail deer we have on the west coast. There are some mule deer in the far east part of the state but the few times I've tried for them I always came up empty. I'm just encountering a fat ratio problem with the boar I killed Saturday, new thread. RAY

My wife doesn't eat venison. Says it tastes bad. I add 30% beef fat to the venison and grind into burger. She loves this and says its so good and wonders why I insist on asking her to eat deer meat when beef is so good. I'll fess up one day. Maybe.