How to Grind Deer Meat

Outdoors Allie • January 30, 2023

Hi folks! My name is Allie D'Andrea. Today I'm going to share with you some tips on how to grind your wild game meat at home. First thing you'll need is a meat grinder.

I have a 0.75 horsepower LEM meat grinder that I will be using today. The main thing to know when choosing a meat grinder is they come in various levels of horsepower. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the number the quicker it's going to grind your meat, the lower the number the longer it's going to take. So really, it's just about choosing a grinder that fits your needs.

Before you actually start grinding your meat, you want to make sure that it is very, very cold. I like to throw the meat in the freezer 30 minutes before I start grinding and I keep the parts that come in contact with the meat in the freezer for a couple hours before I get started. When your meat is warm, it will get gunked up and stuck in the grinder so it's best to keep the things cold. If you're ever grinding meat and you kind of hit that wall where it feels like things aren't flowing through the machine, well, just take a break put the meat in the parts in the freezer, allow everything to come down to a colder temperature and then begin again.

It's really important to add fat to your venison. Venison is extremely lean and for a more pleasant eating experience I find anywhere between 10 to 20 percent pork fat added to my venison is like the sweet spot. If you don't like pork, you can always add beef or your fat of choice. I always start with a coarse grind, allow that mean to chill, and then run it back through a fine grind.

And, finally, it's time to seal. I like to use a vacuum sealer for all of my cuts of wild game meat, but it works great for ground meat as well. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, some plastic wrap in freezer paper works well too. And that is it for this this video! I hope some of these tips will help you next time you go to process your own wild game meat.

--Outdoors Allie