Fruits of my labor

[Iluv2hunt]

Took out all my bags of venison grinding meat I had bagged up in the corner of my chest freezer. Ended up with 40 bags all weighed between 1~1.5 pounds each. Done and drinking a beer at noon. Not bad doing it by yourself



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[reel_spoiled]

Lookin good man. I'm afraid to get my freezer organized. I have a chest freezer and who knows what gets buried in there. I need an upright freezer. I'm pretty sure there's alligator, quail, rabbit, deer, mule deer, elk, hog, squirrel, dolphin, catfish, crappie, bluegill, and duck still left in mine.

When I process, grind and organize mine its an all day affair,sometimes a weekend. How do you get all of that accomplished before beer-thirty in one day? I need a few tips from your book.

[DONY1]

That's a good pile a burger there. I've never ground anything up myself. How much fat you mix in and where'd you get it? You use some fat off those hogs you got? Just curious cause I've thought about getting a grinder. I leave a lot of good grinding meat on a hog or deer when I clean them and may want to give this a try.

[Iluv2hunt]

Doug, I don't add any fat to my ground venison. Personal preference only. I used to go to Winn Dixie to the meat dept and have them save me a few ## of beef trimmings. The last couple years I just do straight venison. A lot of people complain they can't make a hamburger with straight venison and not have it fall apart or stick, I have no problems with it. When I was a kid we took everything in the freezer and mixed it together, and grinded. Now I like to keep my deer and hog separate. Ive got a ton of pork trimmings in the freezer to do bags of ground pork and sausage here in the near future.

All the trimmings, rib meat, neck meat, etc gets put in bags and tossed in the freezer till I feel like pulling out the grinder and fooling with it

[DONY1]

Think I'm gonna keep my eye out for a grinder. I'm not in a hurry but would like to get one before season starts. Any of them I should consider or stay away from or smallest one that will still do the job?

[Iluv2hunt]

Well, you definitely want to stay away from a manual grinder. I cut my teeth grinding meat on a manual one. When my dad finally bought an electric, I took the manual and buried it. Seriously. Ironically, later in life I went and bought a manual grinder again for making chum for offshore fishing.

I have the one on the front of the LEM website. For guys like us that are doing a few animals a year, it works well. And I push mine to the limit. I guess with grinders, bigger is better. The bigger the motor, the faster it can grind
I am willing to bet mine has had well over 2000 pounds of meat thru it. That is probably a very low estimation. Only thing I ever replaced was the cutting blade

[TerribleTed]

leave the Mexican style grinders( El manual) in Mexico . Also don't cheap out. iI you hunt you use it. Even if you like chicken or turkey salad it will make it super fast and easy. I take my old gobblers and bake them then debone and grind it add mayo onion seasoning and celery. I also have a cuber to make cube steaks. You can add sausage stuffer tube and make sausage.
It easier especially when you get you hunting Buddie involved to help. 3 of us ground mixed badged and tagged 50 lbs of breakfast bulk sausage in less than one hour and one case of beer. I bought 1.5 hp grinder. new approx 700.

[Kortsman]

My biggest problem with grinding my own wild game is the amount of sinew and connective tissue that clogs the plates. How do you prevent that? Last attempt at grinding a deer shoulder didn't work out so well. I froze the meat and then let it thaw some and cut out all the silver skin that I could. After running 3 or 4 pieces, the plate was clogged and didn't push anymore meat out until I cleared it. That was using the largest diameter plate too. Any ideas on how to prevent this?
This is the grinder that I have...

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/ ... _200451267

[treefarmer]

Kortsman, Years ago we experienced the same problem but we were using a small sized hand grinder and just like you described it would ball up with silver skin and just not work till it was disassembled and cleaned. Go again and clean it again, that got old right quick! I ended up getting a #32 size hand grinder and didn't have that problem any more. I ended up powering my #32 with an electric motor, using a jack shaft to slow it down to 80 rpms. The whole mess sits on a little oak table with casters, making it easy to bring into the kitchen. Unbolt the grinder and in its' place put on the vertical 15# stuffer and finish making the sausage. When you take it apart to change to a smaller plate you will still find silver skin and sinews wrapped around the blades but it doesn't seem to slow it down a bit. At the botttom right hand side of Northern Tool page you referenced is a grinder very similar to the one I am using. I think bigger is better when it comes to grinding meat but I'm an ol' tightwad, so I haven't spent the money for a commercial grade grinder. Love to have one, but we only process 4 or 5 deer a year and that doesn't justify a grinder costing hundreds more. Treefarmer

[trapper dan]

Good thread with lots of info. When we grind deer I try to watch the marbling more than any thing but I guessing its around 10% fat to deer. Nice stash luv2hunt.

[TerribleTed]

Clogged end plate sounds like one of two problems both relating to the blade. Either blade is dull or blade it not tight enough against plate for clean cut.
I sue the stainless curvedblades on my grinders leaned not to bother with the steel straight style.

Like show in this link
http://www.lemproducts.com/category/Grinder_knives

[Kortsman]

Now that I think about it, I think it may be due to the blade not being tight enough. Since I had to keep cleaning the plates, I would only hand tighten the ring that holds the plate and blade. I'll crank it down tight the next time I use it.

[Iluv2hunt]

If the machine is bogging down on silver skin its one of 2 things. A dull cutting knife or not enough azz in the motor to cut thru it. I replace the knife about every 3~4 years. I did 40 bags yesterday all on the fine plate, and only had to stop and clean one time. And I only did that because I was taking a break and wanted all the meat out of it

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[TerribleTed]

at 18 lbs per minute how long is that.

[CanadianBlackBears]

This is great information for sure. Thanks for all the tips

Question though, what do you do with all the ground venison? I have always found it very gamey tasting and unless it is spiced to the nines it is not good. I recently received some jerky from a friend in Texas who makes his jerky with ground venison and it was, by far, he best jerky I ever ate.