Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Mix fat into elk burger?

No added fat here. I think it ruins the taste of wild meat. I guess I know how to make burgers on the grill, never had one fall apart.

Bought a Cabela's 1 hp grinder about 10 years ago. Expensive at the time, but it grinds 50 lbs of elk in about 15 minutes. It weighs 68 lbs. (A long time ago a machinist told me the best machines were the heaviest. He was right.) I make two passes, one in 10 mm and the next in either 7 mm for chili or 4 mm for burgers. Two grinds helps to spread the suet evenly also. I use between a 5 and 10% mixture, just buy a few pounds of frozen beef suet and mix it in while grinding. Also, a butcher told me not to trim off all the connective tissue, that it helps to bind the ground meat together. Seems to work well that way. I do trim all the elk fat off though. Hand grinders are worthless, especially with cartilage and silver skin. Good luck.

I usually have two deer and one elk to eat a year.

The meat is usually cut and wrapped by me or canned.

The shoulder blades and leg bones are boiled to with vegetables and spices to make broth 4 canning and cooking later. I can the broth alone also. I use no salt.......try buying that at the store!

The scraps and some other muscle groups are put in gallon freezer bags and I do not take this frozen meat to the butcher until February, that way I know it is only my meat getting processed. I buy pork butt at about 15% of the weight. I figure about 9 pounds per gallon freezer bag.

I buy pork butts at under 1.75 a pound.

It costs about 70 cents a pound for the butcher to grind, package and flash freeze the burger.

I most likely do about 75 to 100 pounds a year at most.

So at let's say $70 a year I cannot justify investing or monkeying around with grinding my own.

The trick is the butchers grinder can handle sinew etc and partially frozen product so it never gets truly thawed or warmed up when processed. It is absolutely delicious.

As Emeril Lagasse says " Pork Fat Rules!"

This thread reminds me of when Lewis and Clark were on the west coast and literally dying to have some fat in their diet. Eating elk all the time was killing them, so when they would catch salmon, the fat was the first thing consumed. They would have ground it into their elk if possible, I am sure...

That is perhaps the most perceptive post on the internet I have read.

Thanks NEMO

AWESOMENESS!

Different folks, different strokes.
Do pure elk burger.
You can always add some beef or pork or what ever combo you want.
Experiment, keep track/ratio and see what you like for next years harvest.
If you make a whole batch and you don’t like it.... you’re SOL

I am in the leave it in larger cuts for freezing and grind as you need to camp. Partially thawed meat grinds better. Fat doesn't store well. Try to use Elk/Deer only whenever it will work for the recipe. If I add fat I like to add sirloin fat trimmings if the butcher will save some and for grilling some bacon ends but mostly just olive oil works for most cooking methods. Unlike Lewis and Cark there is plenty of fat in my diet already. I prefer grass fed beef to the really marbled cuts.

This with my wild game- musk ox excluded when I can get it gifted to me. That has enough natural fat in it. And it doesn't make the freezer anyway in the amounts I've gotten.

I have always found it ironic that the butchers charge for a waste product added to perfectly good game meat.

I finished grinding my elk yesterday, 50 pounds,no fat. Grilled up some burger last evening and it stayed together nicely. As Mule Deer states, let it cook a little before you flip i.
It's been a long long time since I have eaten any beef.I eat mostly deer ,antelope, elk and maybe a little pork. To me, manyhow adding beef or pork fat to good venison is like adding water or coke cola to a good bourbon

Most people likely have too much fat (good or bad) in their diet. And calories. There are exceptions.

Many moons ago I discovered eating freeze dried crud on a backpack hunt turned my legs to water after a couple days. I took to carrying a couple cubes of butter and adding a couple tablespoons to each sawdust meal. Flavor and fat content. Win -win.

On another occasion, I was working USFS trail crew, 10 on - 4 off.- Hard manual labor. We were eating OK, but come the 4 day weekend, Jim and I went moose hunting (we had been clearing trail after hours, for a week in addition to our 8 hour trail work day) 5 miles up this side valley.

Jim shot a moose first day, and on our second day, headed 10 miles out on foot to get horses (part of the deal for clearing the guide's trail) while I continued hunting. By noon I had rubber legs. which I then directed to the gut pile where I cut out a fist sized chunk of stomach fat, took it back to camp, broiled and ate it.

End of rubber legs.

The three major rules of extended heavy-duty backpacking are :

1. Take care of your feet

2. Sleep warm, (preferably dry also, but at least warm!)

3. Get enough calories. Usually not a problem for couch potatoe-ing..... noun into verb!

Assuming no injury, everything else on a 10 day to 2 week backpack trip is manageable, no matter how miserable it gets. Or get smart and buy, borrow, or steal horses....

I have to admit tho, I tend to use butter more than olive oil when cooking, except when frying burrger from game animals. In that case, I mix olive oil into the meat, then fry it in butter..... . Grilling I use olive oil only, if anything.

AMEN to never adding fat. if I'm gonna do burgers on the grill I'll add a little cheap breakfast sausage to make them stick together. they turn out amazing and my meat lasts a lot longer in the freezer.

Reminds me of the profound words of Bear Claw Chris Lapp, in Jeremiah Johnson:

“Can’t figure people down there, eating hog when they could feed on elk!”

I could never understand why anyone would contiminate good fresh wild meat with meat that was raised in cattle pens and fed chemicals.. the chemicals end up in the fat and ruins pure meat..


I also don't hang my meat up and let it rot for a week before I process it,, the fresher the better it tastes......Flame on..

We don't add fat to any of our burger meat - antelope, deer or elk. Would kind of defeat the purpose IMHO.

I'm not at all sure there is a right or wrong way to do this.....simply a matter of what fits your likes.

I recently made 28 pounds of breakfast sausage by adding 15 % beef tallow. I then used a commercially available spice mix but at 1.5 times the recommended usage.....the stuff is great. It's going to make a lot of "burger" dishes. I especially like elk chili.

Works in meatloaf, too. So does grated carrot.

Oatmeal is a good binder for lean beef burger on the grill as well. Nothing wrong with that.

I make burgers with wild game same as I do with beef. Egg bread crumbs and garlic and onion salt and pepper

So is beef fat;)

Oh yes there is an absolute right way and wrong way to eat elk. The taste YOU prefer does not matter. Several of us have made that clear. If you don't eat it the way they like the taste then you are doing it wrong and committing sacrilege against a noble beast.

BTW, if you add sugar to ground cocoa, you are ruining the natural taste of chocolate and are a defective human being. Ditto if you ever put ANYTHING in coffee...

FWIW re elk, the best I've ever tasted was a Roosevelt from Oregon that had 15% beef fat added. I think it just happened to be an exceptionally tasty elk. I've done 10% beef and about that much pork and up to 20% pork one time. It was all good. Like many, we prefer nothing added for ground elk or deer that goes into pastas, tacos, chili, etc. We usually estimate a scant 10% pork fat on the rest. Totally lean elk or deer makes the absolute BEST chili and I like to grind it a bit coarse for chili.