Ground meat questions.

[Remps17]

I have gone back and forth for no good reason on if I grind all my meat at one time or if I grind as I need it. Obviously grinding when you need it is a PITA and I haven’t noticed any difference in flavour or texture.

Part way through the most current meateater podcast and it got me thinking of what all you good people do with your grind. All at once or as you need it.

Reason I ask is I have two front quarters of my moose sitting in my garage, a knife in my hand and a grinder on the table and not sure which way to go. Also for those who freeze their meat then grind as you need it, do you leave in large pieces or grinder sized pieces.

Leaning towards grinding half now and then cubing up the rest for when I am ready to make sausage, then grind it then.

Thanks all, hope the season is treating everyone well.

 

[6mm Remington]

Grind it all at once. Use cheap fatty pork shoulder roasts for your fat. I mix about 20% because you are getting some pork meat in there also. I grind it once mixing as I go, stir it good by hand, then grind it once more before packaging. I have not had ANY go bad on me in the freezer. In my opinion it is just a pain to do what you are thinking of. Get it all taken care of at once.

 

[5MilesBack]

It's a pain to pull out the grinder and set it all up, I'd grind it all at once. However, if I wanted to grind it as I went, I'd just get one of those hand grinders that attach to a table or counter and grind away.

 

[Pepe55]

I used to mix with pork butt but now i use beef fat from the butcher better flavor grind it all at once

 

[idelkslayer]

I do it as needed. There are a couple reasons why I do this.

1. Fat never freezes and can develop a rancid flavor if left too long in a freezer. For this reason I prefer to not grind any more burger than I plan to use within 6 months. That said, I have found packages of ground meat in my freezer that were older than that and tasted just as good as a fresh grind.

2. I don't know what I want to do with all the meat. This may be the biggest reason I grind in batches. If all I was going to make was hamburger with 10% mix of fat, then I would probably do it all at once. (In fact my family used to have a big grinding party and we'd grind/package 100-200 lbs in a day). Now a days I do a lot more than just make hamburger. I find that I can't eat my way through all the burger that results from a successful season so I have started making my own bratwursts, summer sausage, italian sausage, etc.

Either way I trim as much of the silverskin/sinew etc. off the meat and package it in 5 lbs amounts for future grinding. I used to cut the meat into cubes before freezing but I found that I always had to cut the meat off from the semi-frozen block to grind anyway so now I just package the chunks and cut it into cubes right before it goes in the grinder.

 

[Broomd]

Agreed on the one-time grind. Avoid the on-going grinder nonsnse. My 2 cents. Freeze your meat below zero!
Beef fat keeps much longer than pork. Personally we like the taste of pork fat better, but it can spoil, go rancid or freezer burn quicker than beef fat.

 

[Remps17]

What size plate you guys running for your regular grind?

 

[5MilesBack]

I use a 4.5mm and I don't add anything to my elk burger. 100% elk.

 

[Jethro]

I do not grind my sausage meat until I am ready to make the sausage. I cube it and freeze. Burger gets ground all at one shot. I don’t add fat, straight deer or elk meat for burger.

 

[rayporter]

all at once. the cook says put fat in so I do. sometimes pork sometimes beef. I prefer beef because you don't have to worry if it is cooked rare.

I don't go the trouble of cubing meat for the grinder. I cut strips as long as I can get and as big around as will fit in the grinder.

I have discovered packages that were 3 years old that were as good as the day they were ground.

 

[Backwoods89]

I use a 4.5mm and I don't add anything to my elk burger. 100% elk.

How is the 100% elk verses beef/pork added? I have elk meat i need to have ground up soon.

 

[Trial153]

I have a grinder set up on an island in my kitchen, I grind as need to. All trim stays solid and frozen. Then I can tailor my grind to what I am using it for at that time.

 

[Deplorable77]

I have to set up my operation in the garage on tables.For me it's such a process to set up the grinder, scale ,casing stuffer, hot plate, yadda yadda yadda that I grind and package everything at once over a two day period. I do vacuum seal everything when finished and have eaten over 1 year old meats and I couldn't tell the difference.

 

[Catchfish]

I cube and freeze in 10lb tubes my grind meat, I will normally not
Grind any burger until it is needed which means I eat up the stuff I did the year before. I find that the freezing and thawing helps release a lot of blood from my meat. The individual tubes also make it easy for me to pull out what I want to then make summer sausage, or meat sticks, and my breakfast sausage. I do mix in pork for my sausages and normally use pork butts this helps because I can buy those on sell as well. I do mix in beef suet into my burger as well.

 

[5MilesBack]

How is the 100% elk verses beef/pork added?

It's 100% elk. No other meat or fat to mask or add flavor to it. The family loves the elk burgers, but I normally use something to help bind them together like mozzarella cheese and then cook them rare to medium rare since I know how the meat has been processed. For everything else it's fully cooked and put into Mexican food, chili, spaghetti sauce, etc. I even had a lady we know make some lumpia (Filipino egg rolls) with it. She even loved those. I don't like messing with suet. For meatloaf though I will generally mix in about 25% ground chuck and then layer bacon over the top of the loaf.

 

[MuleyFever]

I grind most of it all at once. I don’t add anything. I can still make sausages with the ground meat.

 

[AKYZ450F]

Burger we grind all of it while we are cutting meat, run it twice thru the grinder and bag on the second grind. Sausage most of the time is made at the same time, if not I will set it aside and freeze it for later.

 

[kiddogy]

never could understand why folks take perfectly good, lean, meat and add fat to it??????????????

 

[muddydogs]

never could understand why folks take perfectly good, lean, meat and add fat to it??????????????

So it stays together better and a little fat helps with moisture so the burger isn't as dry. I can't understand why guys have to knock other guys for adding fat to there burger but then these same guys turn around and add cheese, eggs, onion soup mix or other things to there burger meat so it stays together in a patty.

Lets get real I add around 10% beef fat to my burger meat so thats what less then 1 ounce per patty? I probably get more elk flavor with my meager amount of fat then the guy dumping a pack of onion soup mix, egg or cheese into the mix.

 

[Trial153]

So it stays together better and a little fat helps with moisture so the burger isn't as dry. I can't understand why guys have to knock other guys for adding fat to there burger but then these same guys turn around and add cheese, eggs, onion soup mix or other things to there burger meat so it stays together in a patty.

Lets get real I add around 10% beef fat to my burger meat so thats what less then 1 ounce per patty? I probably get more elk flavor with my meager amount of fat then the guy dumping a pack of onion soup mix, egg or cheese into the mix.

Stop making sense