Grinding of venison is best done at the right time when required purposely to obtain fresh flavor with the highest quality food outcomes. Most of the meat pieces last relatively longer in the freezer, and they are capable of holding moisture better as compared to packaged ground deer meat.
Therefore, venison grinding acts as a catalyst to the speed at which the moisture loss and reduces the shelf life for quality texture and flavor, thus allowing you to grind it the way you want. In this article, we will discuss step by step followed on how to grind venison to enable you to appreciate the grinding process.
Steps on how to grind venison
When grinding your venison at home, you need to follow the following steps for you to obtain the best out of it. So, let’s have a look at these steps.
1. Ensure that your venison and grinder blade, Auger and neck assembly is cold
It is very crucial when grinding your venison at home to ensure that the temperature of everything is nearly below 400. Before starting, place the meat into the freezer for about 30-40minutes to make it delightful as well as cold. If possible, you can use Cabela’s Commercial-Grade grinders, which are very powerful for grinding even when the meat has frozen partially.
Besides, you can keep the blades of the grinder, neck assembly, and auger cold if there is enough space. Usually, this helps to maintain the meat cold so that the blender can chop the meat other than smearing it completely. When there is a rise in the temperature, the fats, and protein separate in the process called breaking, therefore, it is advisable to make everything cold for natural prevention throughout the entire process.
2. Do some trimming
It is good to trim some of the gristle and fat from your meat in case you are using a small grinder. When you are grinding, the gristle and silver skin gets stuck and wound up within the blades of the grinder, which may clog the blade hence slowing down the rate it works. However, you can take the shortest time possible for you to clean the blades and begin again.
Notably, one gets tired with the slow process of grinding using the smaller grinder that grabs only a very high-quality roast for the grind. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that you obtain plentiful venison, which is very simple and easy for the grinding process.
In case you get access to a giant grinder, it is the most suitable, which makes a massive difference in that the gristle may not get stuck at all; thus cannot affect the taste, texture, or flavor. Besides, it pushes up the sausage using the sausage tube more effectively. If you want sausage faster, you can use a plastic wrap even without necessarily using casing.
3. Add Fat to the venison
Whether the venison comes from a moose, elk, or deer, it is usually extremely lean leading into the ground meat that is completely dry and lacks flavor. Therefore it is easy to mix some extra fat during the process of grinding so that you can combat the dryness, flavor, and crumbly.
There are many types of options, especially when adding fat to your meat grinder for venison according to your preference. Pork butt is the most suitable, which comes from the shoulder at a low price and also has enough amounts of fats. Other sources of fats include bacon ends and tallow, which you can find them easily from your nearby butcher.
You have the right to determine the amount of fat that you should include in your meat. However, you should note that the more the amount of fat you put, the juicier your ground meat becomes. For a start, it is advisable to measure a ratio of 1/3 to ¼ fats for every part of venison.
Furthermore, it is advisable to add about 10-20 percent weight of fat where less of it is healthier. The best of adding fat is usually to grind some small pieces of venison as well as adding to it the required quantity of suet. Next, mix the suet with venison using your pair hands and immediately run them into the grinder quickly.
Besides, you can use the coarse grind and then running them once because it is possible to ground them again. However, finer grind may not be suitable at all. You can use your experience to make a decision on which one to use.
4. Grind the venison twice
The grinder consists of different kinds of plates for grinding, or a coarse die having holes which determine one-quarter inch and on the other side a first die which comes with 1/8 inch holes. Besides these two plates, it is possible to get a grinder with a medium die which falls between the coarse die and finer die.
Beginning from the coarse grinding plate to the finer die, they play a vital role in breaking down a very tough cut of the slices and meat via stringy sinew. To proceed, on the auger as you place the plate on the upper part while ensuring that everything is secure using the retaining ring.
5. Remember to use cheap patty press
This is an essential tool to use when grinding venison. It makes all the venison to have a uniform shape and size as per your preference. Besides, patty enables press the meat closely together so that to prevent it from falling, especially when cooking. At times, you can press all the venison ground to the patties as you break the patties for use in dishes, spaghetti, and sausage.
If you want to get manageable portions of ground venison, you can press into patties depending on the thickness that you want to achieve. You should ensure that you wear medical gloves during the grinding process for the smooth and faster cleaning process.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, learning how to grind venison may seem to be simple and easy, as you can see; however, if you are not keen enough, you may find it hectic. Therefore, we hope that you have gotten enough information from our guide that will enable you to carry out proper venison grind.
Hi, this is Cynthia A. Rose. Welcome to my Grinder related blog. Usually, I am busy with my kitchen and cooking all day. My main desire is to create a new recipe every day. But I have to use new tools every day to create new recipes. In this blog, I will share you how to use kitchen tools properly. I will not just share cooking related equipment, I will try to review all kinds of grinders like angle grinder among you. I hope my 12 years of experience will come in handy. Thanks!