It’s not hard to grind your deer meat at home, but there are a few steps you need to do before. Similarly, for the most tender and flavorful minced venison, there are a few tricks to remember.
How to grind deer meat (venison)? Deer meat can be ground in several different ways. You utilize a food processor, electric grinder, or manual grinder. Cut the meat into small pieces so that it can fit into the grinder, whether you are using a manual or electric one. The complete deer steaks can be placed in the food processor for processing.
As such, we penned this piece to serve as a guide for those interested in learning the finest methods for grinding deer flesh and preparing delicious venison patties.
How to grind deer meat?
You’ll also need a high-quality meat grinder for processing deer, as its muscle fibers are challenging to break down. A high-quality grinder will make short work of this task. Our detailed instructions are as follows:
- Put your grinding apparatus, including the tray, auger, plates, and blade, in the freezer to get them nice and cold. The meat will no longer stick to the knife.
- Then, gather your venison; some fat should be reserved for added flavor in the finished burger. To fit the venison into the feeder of your grinder, you will need to chop it into smaller cubes or smaller parts. The meat should be chilled before grinding so that it sticks less to the blade.
- The next step is to remove everything from the fridge and begin grinding your venison by placing chunks of the meat into the grinder’s feeder. This completes the procedure of preparing ground venison for burgers.
How To Store Venison?
Ground venison that has just been prepared has the best flavor because it has not had as much time to sit out in the open air and develop oxidation and germs.
- If you follow this approach, it’s best to store the complete offcuts and scraps and only cut them up when you’re ready to grind them, although breaking them up into golf ball-sized pieces is OK.
- Store them in the refrigerator for two to three days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius), or in the freezer for six to nine months at zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius).
- The venison can be stored in the refrigerator for about two weeks or frozen for about two to three years if vacuum sealed.
How Should I Thaw The Deer Meat Before I Grind It?
Grill-friendly cuts like loins and tenderloins mean you should use quarters for ground meat.
- First, skin the deer and remove the meat from the bones to make a steak. Then you should use a razor-sharp knife. A dull knife not only makes cutting more difficult but also compromises the quality of the protein.
- When grinding venison, be sure to first remove the silver skin. The silver skin adds nothing to the flavor and is insipid. As a bonus, it can stop the ground venison from getting too sticky. What you want are the meats with the fattest and most connective tissue so you can crush them into a delicious burger.
- Separate the protein into serving-sized pieces and store them in the fridge. At last, you can extract your protein and begin processing it. Use any seasonings you like on hamburgers, just make sure to let them soak in for a while before grilling.
Is it Possible to Grind and Refreeze Frozen Deer Meat?
The short answer is that you can grind and refreeze frozen deer meat. When planning an open house, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
- The meat must be thoroughly frozen before grinding.
- Second, if your grinder isn’t particularly robust, it may not be able to withstand the strain of grinding meat.
- Finally, it’s recommended that you use ground meat within a month or two after regretting it.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can move on to discussing the motivations behind grinding frozen meat.
Most people do this since it speeds up and simplifies the grinding process. Frozen meat can be ground without any of these problems occurring.
Frozen meat is preferred because it yields a more uniform ground than thawed meat. Because of this, it may be challenging to achieve a uniform grind, which is necessary when utilizing ground meat for burgers, sausage, or any other dish in which consistency of the texture is desired.
By breaking down frozen meat in a grinder, you can make sure that each piece is the same size and will cook more thoroughly. Grinding frozen meat is a wonderful alternative if you want your grind to be more consistent or if you just want to save some time. Just remember the aforementioned advice, and you’ll be OK.
How Can Venison Meat Be Used?
Preparing Venison Meat for Sausage
Although it’s not the first item that comes to mind when most people consider venison, ground venison is surprisingly adaptable. It can be taken advantage of in a wide variety of recipes, including:
- Hamburgers Sausages
- Meatballs and Chilli Tacos
- Ravioli and lasagna and other pasta meals
- Pasta with meat sauce (bolognese)
And that is not even near to being a complete list. Ground venison can be used in a wide variety of dishes, and you can even come up with your own! The aforementioned recipes are open to variation using the addition of various seasonings, condiments, and other ingredients.
Tips To Properly Grind Deer Meat
Cut deer meat into small chunks
The ideal cut size for most meat grinders is a two-inch cube of solid meat. Make sure to properly prepare both the venison muscle and the fat.
In the end, the size of your meat grinder will determine the largest pieces of meat it can process. Cutting the meat into even smaller pieces than a golf ball-sized chunk may be necessary if you have a particularly compact grinder.
Remove Bones
Any home meat grinder will be damaged by the deer’s heavy bones. It will probably just dull the blades. It may force you to completely halt your operations.
Before grinding your venison, make sure all bones have been removed. With a boning knife, carefully cut the muscle away from the bone.
Take Your Time and Don’t Rush
Most people’s meat grinders become clogged when they try to force too much meat through them at once. The key to great ground venison without any grinder issues is patience. Be patient and feed the meat carefully into the grinder. If the meat seems to be piling up in the hopper, you should reduce your speed.
Make Sure That The Blades And Plates Are Sharp
Standard sharpening stones can be used to sharpen such surfaces, but the process is not without its challenges. Using a specialized meat grinder sharpening kit makes the job much simpler. These feature stones in the form of flat, circular plates that can be stored within the appliance.
To sharpen a blade, you might swap out the plate for a sharpening stone and run the grinder for only a few seconds. In a similar vein, a stone can be used in place of a blade to hone a dinner plate.
Many meat grinder manufacturers and independent dealers offer blade and plate sharpening services for a nominal cost if you’d rather not do it yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you recommend grinding venison?
To ensure a uniform distribution of meat and fat, run them through the medium grinding plate in succession. Then, put it all through the grinder again. The consistency of this grind is quite close to that of packaged hamburger.
Is adding fat necessary when grinding lean deer meat?
You can create venison patties without adding any beef fat if you like a leaner grind. However, you should exercise caution when grilling it because it easily could fall apart.
What is the optimal number of times to grind venison?
Double-grind the Venison. Tougher chunks of meat can be broken down and stringy sinew can be sliced through by first grinding with the coarse grinding plate and then again with the finer die.
Before being ground, does deer meat require soaking?
Ground deer cannot be marinated or soaked like whole chunks of meat can. Ground meat that will be cooked later should not be soaked and rinsed first. Soaking and rinsing the piece of meat well before grinding it will ensure the cleanest ground meat possible.
Final Words
One of the finest ways to make use of every part of the deer is to grind the venison, including the trimmings that can’t be used for cuts. Although this appears to be nothing more than venison scraps, it is one of the most adaptable cuts of meat and lends itself well to culinary experimentation. Maybe the next time you enter a chili cook-off, your venison chili will take first place.
I hope that you would have found this article useful about how to grind deer meat.
