Do You Grind Your Own Burger?

[ElkNut1]

We've been grinding ours for the last several years, it's fast & very easy, when doing it yourself you can also add any spices or suet if you prefer at the right percentage that suits your taste buds! Here's my wife grinding up this years elk front shoulders minus the roast that comes off the lower portion!

Who here grinds their own burger as well?

ElkNut1

[twinkieman]

I grind my own burger as well. I usually mix about 30% wild pig with my elk for my suet.

[cnelk]

I do and make sausage too

[pointysticks]

man..you guys are commited!! i love it.

me? i do small batches in my food processor. i have a tiny house, and a meat grinder would be a storage problem. if i remodel, then i am all in!! but baby steps. my food processor can do about 6 burgers at a time.

do your guys grind the rump meat? or is it too lean?

[cnelk]

I grind it all except for the backstraps and just a few packages of steaks.

[T/H]

I make some hamburger. if i had to guess i'd say an 80-20 mixture of beef trim/fat. yum. think i'll make some elk spaghetti this week.

[CrazyElkHunter]

It's a lot easier for us to have it processed before we make the 1000 mile trip home. I stay the entire archery elk season, and it would be hard to store the boned out meat and then do it at home myself. This year I shot my bull on the 25th of Aug. and last year on the 30th of Aug. and did not head home til late in Sept. Having it done there we are able to leave it at the processor for the 1st week only, then take it back to camp and load a freezer we run off of a generator. Then when I return home all I have to do is transfer the frozen marked and dated packages to the larger home freezer. I have the processor add 10% beef fat for the burger and it has been perfect for us for several years. We use elk burger for a lot of our meals so I have all but the backstraps made into burger. If I lived where I elk hunt I would definitely do it myself. We've been doing the generator, freezer thing in camp for over 20 years. We just run the generator a few hours a day in camp and it keeps everything frozen. The freezer is used to keep extra ice and our camp food for most of the hunt and then use it for the trip home for our game. No more dry ice needed for the trip home. The freezer runs off of a inverter on the way home. The temperature was a 105* when I got home in late Sept. and the freezer was 18*.

[redtop]

I process all of my critters myself. It's part of what hunting is all about to me. The whole package from the scouting to freezer and grill. I don't mix any pork fat into my elk or deer burger. You do have to pay attention when cooking it that way but it still tastes like elk not pig. I use some olive oil in the breakfast sausage I make, it keeps the sausage really moist. I posted a recipe here on the forum someplace a while back.

[ElkNut1]

Same as Redtop here! We don't add anything to ours either, it's all deer or elk with no additives! It still makes decent burgers & stays together better than one may think! (grin)

Nice grinder Cnelk!

ElKNut1

[pikemaster]

I grind all my own also. Just got done making some sweet and spicy jerky, and 8lbs of summer sausage smoked over pecan wood. Doesn't get any better than that. With a little help from Cnelk by this time next year I will have a walk in cooler and a full cutting, grinding room to cut everything up in.

[Harmy]

Since I process my own I certainly have my own meat grinder (cabellas 2 HP). For a typical cow elk I end up with about 40 lbs of ground elk with nothing in it and now I also grind about 40 lbs of breakfast sausage as well. The rest is steaks, roasts, jerky slices, and stock scraps. The front quarters make up the majority of the meat that goes into jerky and ground. I used to take a bunch of time making stew cuts from all the random smaller cuts but now that I have a grinder I find I rarely ever make stew packages any more.

[>>>---WW---->]

I do my own burger as well. I don't add anything to it either. Just fry it up in bacon grease and your mouth will water.

I'm a tightwad and didn't feel like spending several hundred bucks on a grinder. So, I bought a #32 grinder (that's the big one) with the v-belt pulley from northerntool.com for $69.99. I mounted it on a board with an old washing machine motor that I bought at a yard sale for two bucks. This thing will grind elk meat just about as fast as you can feed it through.

[cnelk]

I dont add anything to the burger meat. I do add 20% of pork fat to my sausage and spice recipe tho.

[Waygoner]

I started processing my own critters a few years ago. I use the Kitchenaid attachment and add some bacon. Makes for some fine burger.

[one_elk]

We process all of our wild game as well and when we grind burger we don't add a thing....

[redtop]

Heres a grinder story for you. I always wanted to buy a nice grinder but didn't have the funds. One day while bowhunting elk I stumbled upon a $100 bill. I opened it up and there were two of them. I looked around and found 5 more!!! The dates on the bills were all several years old and mouldy. I took them to the bank and they looked at them and called the manager. When I told her my story she said congrats on a good find and traded them for new ones. I have no idea where those bills came from, I have been back looking as you can imagine. Every years since! In my windfall I felt rich and bought a grinder. Also a new set of tires for my truck and...in the end I spent about twice what I found! Oh well I got a really nice LEM brand stainless metal geared grinder.

[foxvalley]

I also grind and process all our own meat.The little grocery store out west has a refrigeration truck converted into a game cooler,so we can keep our elk there untill we leave for home.We like to age our meat,weather permitting,and double wrap everything,first plastic film,then freezer paper.We average 4 deer a year,and the meat stays good for at least 2 years.We don't add anything to our burger,as fat especially pork fat can turn rancid over time.We have a large cabelas grinder that has paid for itself many times over,and although we make lots of jerky,we are looking forward to getting a smoker and making sausage.

[cnelk]

I smoke my sausage just enough to give it some flavor.
Then I either grill them or boil in beer before eating

[twinkieman]

I still have some frozen trim to grind, after reading all the posts, I'm going to try it with no additives.

[Vanish]

The grinder is an awesome ancient beast from my great grandfather's farm.

55 pounds of pure elk burger, 10 pounds of elk italian sausage (70 elk/30 pork), 12 pounds of pure ground pronghorn.

Last night we did 82 pounds of venison burger.

[BarW]

Process all my deer and hogs 100%. Try and process all elk a's well but sometimes time and temperature problems force our hand. I don't add anything to the burger and the pork I put in the sausage is wild that we hunt and kill. Training the next generation of do yourselfers now.

[bowhunterty]

process my own also. Girlfriends kitchen aide gets a work out. If you want a good burger for the grill try adding bacon. Great cheeseburgers. Also make summer sausage and pepperoni.

[Lefty]

We have mostly done our own meat in the past,.. .
After getting back my daughters moose,.. Im ready to buy a grinder and sausage stuffer

[Beekeeper]

I alway process my own animals. I add a 1# package of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage for every 10# of meat. That is just the right amount of fat & seasoning for a great flavor.