Venison to burger ratio
Mule Deer
How much beef fat or hamburger do you add to venison for the perfect meat, 10%, 25%?? This is to western venison.. Thanks
I usually have my butcher do 5 or 10%, just enough to hold it all together.
10% or so to keep together and add some mositure...
Thats what i tried last year and it was awesome, just wondering if smoething different is better... thanks
11 lbs of game meat, 1 lb of pork or beef fat. It's 8% and change. I've done both fats from 4-20% and I feel for a cheeseburger, that's where you want it. For sausage, I do 9 lbs of game meat and 2 lbs of pork fat, which is closer to 20%.
I usually add 5-8% for most of my customers. Bacon ends and pieces also adds a really nice flavor. It costs more but you can add pork shoulder or beef brisket to it as well. I added pork shoulder to the two I shot in 2013 and bacon ends to the one in 2017. The cheapest way and still help it stick together is to add beef fat. You can also just add an egg or bread crumbs to help it stick together if you don’t want any fat in it. There are a lot of ways to mix your hb.
8% pork suet (preferred) or 10% beef suet.
For my burger I do elk deer etc strait.
If I’m making sausage then I’ll ad fat. But otherwise I do burger strait
I don’t add anything. Throw an egg and bread crumbs in if you’re making burger or meat loaf. On the flip side for sausage I like it very fatty, like 40%.
15% Pork to all my burger Elk ,Deer& Antelope
Like the two above. Keep it lean with straight grind. It can still hold. Can always use a bit of egg, oatmeal or crumbs for more sticky.
I do 10 percent fattest pork by weight I can find. Used to use bacon ends and it was great for hamburgers on the grill, we didn't like it for other uses like meat loaf etc
0%. It's perfect, and healthier, the way it is, imo.
Nothing in my grind these days.....unless I'm making summer sausage. As mentioned above, eggs make a great binder if you need the meat to hold together.
I prefer mine straight as well. For sausage, I go 50-50 pork burger to venison.
For elk I used 6% beef suet this year and think that is a good amount. Enough that the burgers stick together and don't fall through the grill. If fried in a pan don't even need to drain the fat. Now my wife likes elk but not deer. To get her to eat deer I mix 50% deer with 50% beef burger of whatever variety is on sale.
Nothing here, just learn to cook without drying the burger out
Nothing but salt, pepper, and garlic powder prior to grilling.
Eat venison nearly every day until I run out. Eating fish now. Freezer's empty.
Do not add anything other than a little salt, pepper.
2:1 ratio WT venison & wild hog, then add 20% pure domestic pork fat. This produces a very lean meat that can be seasoned accordingly for sausage or ground meat.
100% venison for me. If I want beef I'll have a beef burger. I want my venison to be venison. Plus my kids love unadulterated venison so that's what we use
Thanks guys, great info..
+1 cnelk. If I'm cooking a venison burger, it's never cooked past medium and I prefer closer to medium rare!
We grind up and add 15-20% pork butt and it turns out great every time.
10% Pork for sausage, 5% beef for burger.
I add about 10-15% for the first deer, 5-10 percent for the second and sometimes the third depending on how late in the season it is. Anything after that is straight deer. For me, adding beef is more about getting some extra burger than it is adding flavor.
I grind with and without fat. If I add fat I normally do around 15% fat.
hell i'm on the other end of the specturm. i do my own.
i add 20% total fat to 80% venison.
i mix bacon end pieces and beef fat... don't really measure it just mix it in..
i like a greasy bacon burger, screw that lean ground burger crap......
Eating animal fat isn't bad, it's all the other processed stuff we eat that is...
Straight elk or moose. Fat makes it go bad quickly in my experience...maybe poor quality fat? We vacuum seal and 3 year old moose burger is still as good as the day I ground it.
You can mix in a bit of olive oil and Teriyaki sauce to hold burger patties together when you make them. Otherwise for enchiladas, meat loaf, spaghetti etc the 100% game burger works fine.
nothing, its called wild game,,, unless your raise your own beef, I would not put that antiboitic crap in my venison
Zero. I buy beef when I want beef. I know how to cook venison burger. Sausage was never my thing but you do need fat for that.
For burger grind I'd guess about 10-15% pork belly added. Stays together much better..... I really don't know of anything a little bacon won't improve.....
The rest I grind straight up, we eat a lot of tacos and the straight venison crumbles nicely. For meatloaf etc, lots of other ingredients to hold stuff together and the fat doesn't bring much to the party. Burgers on the grill.... it's hard to beat.
Just ground up and made about 50-60 lbs of axis hamburger patties yesterday morning and grilled them over a 5' mesquite grill for a 4th of July party last night for about 200 people. Everyone raved about them, hit of the party....... well, except for the $10-20,000 of fireworks for the show the guy puts on at his house. =D
Heck of a show..... computer controlled and set to music on a sound system, everything from Jimmy Hendrix Star Spangled Banner to the finish, Flight of the Valkyries ..... I didn't time it but I'd guess 15-20 minutes long.... started off before the music with a wall of 100,000 firecrackers.... best I've ever seen year in and year out....
But once again.... proof that the way to a non-hunters heart is through his stomach.......
10% bacon ends and pieces in regular grind, 50/50 mix for sausage.
1.6 oz of fat by weight per pound of red meat is hardly enough to cause any form of a health concern.
For my burger I do elk deer etc strait.
If I’m making sausage then I’ll ad fat. But otherwise I do burger strait
Straight meat no fat. My burgers stick together great without any fat???
I go to the Wally-Martin and get two of those 20-something oz of the hickory smoked bacon packs, slice it up in 3/4" pieces and feed it thru the grinder while doing venison. Not a fan of the apple or maple bacon in the burger. I usually get a large chili pot full of burger meat....maybe 23-25lbs....and and the bacon to that. Between the natural fat and the bacon fat it seems to do a pretty good job. I like the bacon-burger smell when it's cooking. The neighbors seem to like it that way too.
I use the 3 lb packs of bacon ends and pieces. At the end of the day, 10% of that is really closer to 5 to 7% of fat alone.
Pretty interesting responses here. I subscribe to the "less is more" group wanting to keep my wild game as pure as possible. But never have I been able to make wild game burgers hold together without some type of help (suet, pork etc). Especially whitetail. It just doesn't happen. Ever.
I don't understand. My 100% deer burgers stay together fine. You guys must be using baseball bats for spatulas.
Of course, we don't know how coarse the grinds are or how each other cooks. I've stood in awe of how some folks unnecessarily abuse burgers, overcooking them, smashing the juice out of them, flip and smash, flip and smash, flip, flip, smash, squish. What the? It's already dead, dude. Venison is not going to take that. NO burger should have to take that :^(
No smashing. Flip once. Done.
It's probably because the redness inside is confused with blood and smashing it gets the "blood" out to help it burn, sorry cook, more thorough.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Also, fat is added more for flavor than anything else, just like any other seasoning...
I've mixed others in the past but with my moose this year went straight up ground for everything. Spaghetti sauce, tacos, burgers etc. It's a beautiful thing. BBQd a beef burger to medium rare on the weekend (got them for nothing) and almost ralphed. The next deer I grind I will be trying straight up as well.
I quit using beef fats years ago. 30# is deer I but about a 10# pork butt. You get a little pork flavor and just enough fat.
15% rib-eye fat is the best
Nothing extra added for me.
0% added anything (fat, pork or burger), except seasonings, minced onions/green peppers/mushrooms, olive oil, and Italian bread crumbs when actually making the burgers to grill. I never pollute my wild game meat with commercial or farmed meat products.
Reason for no fat added: that is where the cholesterol is, and we all know the result of that. Its the reason I hunt and eat wild game, to lower the cholesterol. Lean game meat is far healthier than fatty chicken, beef or pork. I want to love long and hunt into old old age. It also why I eat a lot of fish, esp. salmon. No heart or circulation issues equal healthy active living and keeping the extra weight off. Its working so far.
If you eat red meat like your supposed to, 10% fat added will not harm you at all.
Normal portion sizes and frequency are 6 oz, 3 times a week...
For burgers and meat loaf, 100% corn fed beef (none of that organic grass fed crap). For stuff like chili, 80% venison/20% pork fat.
X2 on the corn fed beef. I cringe at the thought of grass fed beef.
Personally I use 20-30 % of the hottest and most spicy pork sausage I can find. I cook all burger's well done.
Great on a cold day or out in the field. Even when cold they are simply delicious to me and to other folks I have shared them with while afield.
"Reason for no fat added: that is where the cholesterol is, and we all know the result of that. Its the reason I hunt and eat wild game, to lower the cholesterol."
Actually, venison is higher in cholesterol than beef but less saturated fat.
I'll eat my burger with a half an avocado on it...... then the good cholesterol beats up on the bad cholesterol....... =D
We'll pretend the mayo is a neutral party..... heheheheh....
Kind of like eating a garden salad and washing it down with a chocolate shake...
I just don't really eat venison "hamburgers". Maybe once or twice a year to remind myself I don't really care for them. When I want a good burger every couple months, I buy high quality ground chuck, 80/20 and I grill that up to medium well with some sharp cheddar and a fried egg and pig out. It don't get much better than that, I guess a "deer burger" is just so inferior I don't care for it. I only buy beef maybe a half dozen times a year, and it's when I want a good burger.
I use my unadulterated ground venison a couple times a week. Taco meat for all sorts of Teximexican dishes. Meatballs. Meatloaf. Lasagna. Meat sauce. Wontons. Chili. Shepherds Pie. Gyros. All work tremendously with 100% lean venison, although I add olive oil to a lot of those. Maybe even bacon grease if I have it around.
That's just the way I roll with it and my reasoning for not adding fat. To each their own.
To those add 5% fat, does it really make that much difference? Other than 5% satisfaction?
100% for anything loose like chili, spaghetti, sloppy joes. For patties I use 20% bacon ends and pieces with 1t High mountain burger seasoning per pound of venison. Usually that means 12 pounds venison, 3 pounds bacon ends and pieces, 12 t or 4T seasoning. . Grind venison and bacon once, mix together by hand, dissolve seasoning in about a cup cold water, add to meat and mix again. Grind together a second time and form into 6 oz patties. Layout on parchment paper and freeze. After frozen vacuum pak.
For me, the 8% pork fat I add to my venison burger has little to do with keeping it together and everything to do with making it a juicier, fatty-flavored burger. I just like the taste.
I've eaten no-fat burgers and they're just drier than I like them and I like the fat flavor.
I also fry the cheese with already-fried bella mushrooms, jalapenos, and diced onions and serve with L.O.T. after toasting the buns and spreading avocado and thousand island on them. Stubbs, garlic, salt, and pepper on burger while frying in cast iron.
I eat venison cheese burgers 3-4 times a week while I'm at work and I've had multiple people tell me my burgers are the best they've ever had.
5% fat yields 100% satisfaction...
Try this recipe, Seasoned ground elk (3 parts) and (1 part) Jimmy Dean's sage flavored sausage. Make the burgers about 1/3 of a pound each. Cooked them medium to medium-well with sautéed onions and mushrooms. Was so dam good I forgot to put cheese on the first one! They stay together and don't fall through the grill. Terrific flavor that can make a meat lover out of a vegan! LaGriz
20% pork butt and 80% venison for everything.
So, I ran out of burger and had this thread in mind and all the comments about not adding fat so I ground up a few chuck and round roasts (White tail). I did some without fat and some with 2% and 4%.
My burgers with zero fat added held together just fine. But IMO, they're just not even close to as tasty. I just like a greasy burger I guess. I'll stick with 8%.
Ike, watching Alton Brown on the food channel (he's like the "science chef").... I remember a show he did.... oils and fats are what transfer or saturate the taste buds with the flavors they like. If you think about it.... oils and fats are what have kept man from starving in the wilderness for millennia. It makes sense pork fat (Asians with duck fat) satiates the cravings.... it's in the DNA..... kinda like sex..... or hunting.... almost..... =D
8% beef fat cut in to our pure venison
The great part about this thread is that no one is wrong. Do what you want with the venison that you have and enjoy. I used to add 10% beef or pork fat in my venison grind because that was what I was told to do as a youngster. However, as others have said, over time the meat didn't hold up well in the freezer with the fat added. I switched to no added fat and find I like it better that way. I tend to change things up a bit with burgers and add diced onions in the meat and sometimes Dijon mustard (Dijon is also great for turkey burgers). Its important to add salt as well and most importantly do not overcook. If I want a greasy burger, I just go buy one :)
I've been doing everything zero for the last little while. Used to do some zero and some with fat. The with fat is what I would use for burgers, and most everything else is zero. All the moose meat that I ground had fat included so now that is what I use for the stuff that I want a little fattier.
Me and big dan are friends it would appear. 15% pork fat !!! Add a few green olives, Montreal steak seasoning and you have the greatest burgers ever on the BBQ !!!
Doesn't matter if it's beef, elk or deer. All the above and you be salivating for an hour before the second time :)
Cheers, Pete
