How to Add Fat When Grinding Wild Game Meat

Ground meat is easily the most common use of meat, especially wild game, specifically medium to big game species. Ground meat is so popular because of its wide range of meals and there isn’t nearly as much skill in the kitchen required to make the dishes. For the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on venison. Venison is most commonly associated with deer, but technically it is meat from wild game animals such as deer, antelope, elk, or moose. Ground venison is commonly used in burgers, spaghetti, chili, meatloaf, tacos, ground meat jerky, and sausage, just to name a few. It’s easy to see why many hunters make sure they get plenty of ground meat from their harvest. If you plan to grind your harvest, you must ask yourself what the final product on the plate will be. Will it be something that doesn’t require much, if any, fat, such as chili, tacos, or spaghetti? Or will it be something that will benefit from having plenty of juicy fat to keep the meat from drying out, such as burgers, meatloaf, sausage, or meatballs?

More often than not, many new hunters are told they will want to cut the “gamey” flavor of venison and that they should add beef or pork to their deer meat. This means ground beef or ground pork will be added, often at a 50/50 mix. The beef added is typically something fatty like chuck roast. As for pork, pork shoulder or pork butt is often what gets added due to its high-fat content. The next step in the cycle is going from full-on adding meat to their venison to just adding their preference of fat, either beef or pork fat. I think, by and large, across the country, pork fat is the added fat of choice by most hunters and processors. I have found no drastic difference between them taste-wise. However, some will say that if you are using pork fat and you plan to make burgers, snack sticks, sausage, etc., you will want to make sure you get past 155 degrees as you would normally cook pork. That said, pork practices have come a long way, and many pork leaders in the country will now say you can eat pork with a “blush” of pink in the middle. With beef fat there is no concern of cooking a burger to medium.

If you add beef or pork fat, the general rule of thumb is about a 20% mixture with your venison. Remember this is by volume (visual), not necessarily by weight. Meat weighs more than fat and if you plan to grind large batches of ground meat, and you are simply weighing your meat and multiplying by .2 (20%), the more you have, the more the ratio of meat/fat will be skewed. If you are only working with 5-10 lbs. of meat, you may not notice it, but if you are working with 40-60 lbs. or more, that 8-12 lbs. of fat will most certainly be more than a 20% ratio so just keep that in mind. Having more than 20% fat added isn’t a bad thing: it's just something to note when making meals and knowing what to expect.

I get my fat from a local grocery store. I connect with the meat department well before season, introduce myself, and see if they plan to use their beef and or pork trimmings or whether they will sell them to me. My local store charges me $0.99 / lb., and I have paid as much as $4.99/lb.! That was a one-time deal with a new store. The meat dept head said that if he were to sell me the fat, it would prevent him from making sausages, so he charged me a “ground pork” price. Needless to say, I learned to ask for the price up front! I have paid $2.79/lb. on multiple occasions from other meat departments, so it's just whatever you are comfortable paying. I am very happy with paying $1/lb.

The next step after adding in fat is just going with 100% venison! Now, I mentioned before that many new hunters often add meat and or fat to their venison. Well, there is also a decent segment of the hunting population that just wants to have clean “organic” venison (I'm not sure most venison in the corn/bean belt is organic, but it’s better than domestic for sure), and that is often where hunters end up at some point. I say “at some point” because if they are like me, they took the path to 100% venison and then found many recipes lacking much-needed fat. I have since returned to the 15-30% fat added depending on my desired final product.

It is worth noting that many of the hunters who fall into the 100% venison category oftentimes have beef ranked above venison in their house as far as consumption. They typically will use ground beef for dishes needing fat and use ground venison in dishes where fat isn’t needed. That is not to say that those who like 100% clean venison as their protein don’t eat beef and or other domestic meats. They may eat very clean and do their best to watch what goes into their bodies. That is largely why we are seeing a growing population of hunters who want to know where their food comes from. I have also noticed a portion of the population who may be vegetarian or, wildly enough, even vegan, who will, in fact, eat wild game, especially if they or their spouse harvested the animal. One such individual I know is a vegan who will eat wild game that her husband hunts. However, when I brought over some summer sausage I had mixed with beef fat, her husband politely mentioned that she wouldn’t eat it, and I then realized the reason why. It's pretty cool to me that someone who lives a vegan lifestyle not only marries an avid hunter but is also very understanding of the relationship between the hunter and their harvest.

Regardless of whether we are grinding with fat or not, the meat and/or fat should be as cold as possible. Ideally, semi-frozen is great. It is often brought up that you should freeze your grinder parts (auger/grinding head, etc.) before grinding. I think this is very appropriate when you are not adding fat. However, I have found that if I add fat, the very cold auger will cause the fat to adhere to the walls of the housing of the grinding unit, causing clogging. I have found that spraying the auger and chute with a food-grade spray/lube really helps get the mixture through the grinding head much better than freezing the parts.

As for grinding your venison twice or just grinding it once, I ground my venison just one time through the fine plate (1/8”) for many years and didn’t see the need to grind it more than once. This is especially so if you are not adding fat. If you are adding fat or if you just want to grind it twice for a better texture, I will most certainly grind it the first time through the stuffing plate or the coarse plate and then switch to the fine plate. A couple of years ago, I upgraded to a dual-grind attachment from LEM. It grinds the meat twice with just one pass, which really helps with time savings and the frustration of having to resend the meat through the grinder a second time.

Once your meat is ground, I recommend 1 of 2 choices for putting it in the freezer. First are the wild game bags from LEM and the other is using your vac sealer or chamber vac to get all the air out. The next best option would be butcher paper, but the shelf life isn’t as long as the first two options. The worst option and one that should only be done if you can’t afford the wild game bags or don’t have any other equipment, is to place your meat in a Ziploc-style bag. This is very prone to letting air in and causing freezer burn. Ground meat in the wild game bags will easily last over a year if done properly, and if you decide to use a vacuum sealer or chamber vac, that meat may last upwards of 2 years! The key to using a vacuum sealer is to make sure you have plenty of space around the edges of the vacuum bag so that when it vacuums, it gets a nice seal all the way around the meat. If you have a chamber vac, it’s not necessary to keep space around the bag, as it will get rid of all the air regardless of how it is stuffed. If you wanted, you could postpone grinding your venison and just seal everything up in the freezer as roasts or even chunks/pieces ready to be ground. Then, you could pull the meat out and grind it fresh on the spot for meals. The pros of this are that you get freshly ground meat, and the integrity of the structure of the grind is still present. The cons are that you would have to clean your grinder a lot more often and that you may not have fat on hand throughout the year.

Many aspects of this article would also work with waterfowl, small game, and upland. In those cases, I’m probably leaning heavily towards pork fat over beef fat, just for a more similar flavor profile. For a thorough demonstration, be sure to check out the video above! I hope this helps you as you process your own deer or just want to learn some other tips and tricks for grinding your wild game.

--Wild Game Cook