Juggy D Beerman
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2006
- Location
- Warrensburg, MO
My favorite day of the year has passed. No it wasn't Christmas Day, it wasn't Friday Night at the American Royal and it was not my birthday. It was the day of our annual deer grind. Our group of five people got together and ground up 190 pounds of venison burger. The grinding and packaging process took us about five hours.
Our crew has been doing this as a group for about six years. My buddy, the deer hunter and I have been doing this for going on 15 years. I have the log records on file for the various amounts we have ground and the amounts of fats we have used to get out recipe for fat to venison mix. We have decided that an 80% venison to 20% fat mix yields a mix that is suitable for grilling burgers or making sausage.
To determine the amount of fat needed, we weigh the total amount of venison by .25 and this gives us the amount of fat we need. For example, if we have 100 pounds of meat, we add 25 pounds of fat. This gives us 125 pounds total with 25 pounds of that weight being fat. Doing the math results in one-fifth of the total weight being fat.
In years past, I would save and freeze the hard pork and beef fat from the previous years trimmings from my contest and catering gigs. I don't compete nor cater like I used to so we had to purchase our beef and pork fat at the local meat processor for $2.00 per pound. I do keep the end trimmings of the sliced bacon I buy throughout the year. The bacon trimmings are also a part of the mix. Once the amount of fat needed is calculated, we break down the ratio of beef, pork and bacon fats to 11% beef, 11% pork, and 3% bacon of the total weight of the venison. Using that earlier mentioned example of 25 pounds of fat to 100 pounds of venison, you would have 11 pounds of beef fat, 11 pounds of pork fat and 3 pounds of bacon fat.
This year, we harvested eight deer resulting 152 pounds of venison to grind. One-quarter of 152 pounds equals 38 pounds of fat that was needed. We went with 17 pounds each of beef and pork fat and a little over 4 pounds of bacon fat. This gave us the 80/20 of venison to fat ration we were trying to achieve.
On Sunday we did the grind. Once the grinding was done, we sampled our work by frying up some burgers. Once they hit 160F they came off the skillet. All of us were happy with the results. The beef fat helps cover up the venison taste, but the venison flavor still comes through. My grinding buddy and I are meticulous about our harvesting and butchering practices prepping the deer. The meat is cooled properly and food safety practices are of the utmost important to us.
Today, I cooked up five burgers that weighed 180 grams each. These were cooked on the top shelf of my 18" WSM directly over the coals with no water pan in between. The burgers hit 160F internal temperature in about 25 minutes. Cooking temperature was about 400F. I weighed each burger after cooking and they weighed between 150 to 155 grams. They lost 14-16% of the original weight during cooking. Our 80/20 meat/fat ration worked out great as the burgers stayed together and this batch cooked over the coals tasted better than the fried. I am going to have the college girl neighbors across the street evaluate them for me later this evening. They were happy with last years batch and I think they will like this years too.
If anyone is interested, I will post more details that went in to prepping for the grind and the actual grinding process. That will be another long post.
Deers to all,
Juggy D Beerman
Our crew has been doing this as a group for about six years. My buddy, the deer hunter and I have been doing this for going on 15 years. I have the log records on file for the various amounts we have ground and the amounts of fats we have used to get out recipe for fat to venison mix. We have decided that an 80% venison to 20% fat mix yields a mix that is suitable for grilling burgers or making sausage.
To determine the amount of fat needed, we weigh the total amount of venison by .25 and this gives us the amount of fat we need. For example, if we have 100 pounds of meat, we add 25 pounds of fat. This gives us 125 pounds total with 25 pounds of that weight being fat. Doing the math results in one-fifth of the total weight being fat.
In years past, I would save and freeze the hard pork and beef fat from the previous years trimmings from my contest and catering gigs. I don't compete nor cater like I used to so we had to purchase our beef and pork fat at the local meat processor for $2.00 per pound. I do keep the end trimmings of the sliced bacon I buy throughout the year. The bacon trimmings are also a part of the mix. Once the amount of fat needed is calculated, we break down the ratio of beef, pork and bacon fats to 11% beef, 11% pork, and 3% bacon of the total weight of the venison. Using that earlier mentioned example of 25 pounds of fat to 100 pounds of venison, you would have 11 pounds of beef fat, 11 pounds of pork fat and 3 pounds of bacon fat.
This year, we harvested eight deer resulting 152 pounds of venison to grind. One-quarter of 152 pounds equals 38 pounds of fat that was needed. We went with 17 pounds each of beef and pork fat and a little over 4 pounds of bacon fat. This gave us the 80/20 of venison to fat ration we were trying to achieve.
On Sunday we did the grind. Once the grinding was done, we sampled our work by frying up some burgers. Once they hit 160F they came off the skillet. All of us were happy with the results. The beef fat helps cover up the venison taste, but the venison flavor still comes through. My grinding buddy and I are meticulous about our harvesting and butchering practices prepping the deer. The meat is cooled properly and food safety practices are of the utmost important to us.
Today, I cooked up five burgers that weighed 180 grams each. These were cooked on the top shelf of my 18" WSM directly over the coals with no water pan in between. The burgers hit 160F internal temperature in about 25 minutes. Cooking temperature was about 400F. I weighed each burger after cooking and they weighed between 150 to 155 grams. They lost 14-16% of the original weight during cooking. Our 80/20 meat/fat ration worked out great as the burgers stayed together and this batch cooked over the coals tasted better than the fried. I am going to have the college girl neighbors across the street evaluate them for me later this evening. They were happy with last years batch and I think they will like this years too.
If anyone is interested, I will post more details that went in to prepping for the grind and the actual grinding process. That will be another long post.
Deers to all,
Juggy D Beerman