Thread: Economics of your own meat grinder

We had to slaughter a beef steer last week unexpectedly cos he got a respiratory infection and I wouldn’t pay the daylight robbery to get him fixed and a vets cert for the transport to the works. The only problem was freezer space - there’s already a 425kg hook weight Hereford steer in there plus who knows how much venison. So out came all the venison for a check to see whats what. Realised that there was more than I thought...

When we weighed the venison we came up with 97kg off the bone and 24kg on the bone. Hmmm, what to do. Having a yarn wife the The Wife I asked how much mince costs at the supermarket, we looked it up and just about bloody fell off the stool - $15/kg for standard grade??? Bloody hell. No wonder we are always getting asked for homekills...

Last year our old electric mincer finally died, didn’t get round to replacing it. So I bought a Kenwood 2000W mincer from Harvery Norman on a VIP deal for a little over $300 delivered.



This morning we minced 32kg of fallow and red venison, and in a production line of me as Butcher-And-Grinder-In-Chief and three sous chefs (and two keen as mustard dustbin dogs for the scraps), we made up heaps of nice fat burger patties using the bite.co.nz recipe which is a real winner (just dropped the parmesan, we don’t need that). We packaged them up into layers in boxes separated by baking paper and back into the freezer they went... in supermarket money for standard grade beef mince thats $480 worth plus whatever the eggs, milk, spices, mustard and garlic costs. The onions, herbs and bread we grow / make ourselves.

http://www.bite.co.nz/recipe/11063/Venison-burgers/

Makes my eyes water how much beef is these days. Now we don’t notice the difference really between beef mince and venison mince, when we cook up bulk meat sauce we usually mix the two. The venison burgers are bloody good, the kids love ‘em and will eat them for brekkie and dinner quite happily all week, very easy to prepare, just cook them from frozen at 180°C for half an hour, job done.

So yeah, just reflecting I guess on how much more of the deer is processed into edible food with a good strong mincer, everything goes in right to the boney part of the ligaments, no hassle having to strip out silvering or tougher parts, in it all goes. Plus it comes with the sausage making tools too. One of the deer in the freezer was a battered old fallow stag who probably wouldn’t have been much chop but as seasoned mince you won’t notice the difference. The new mincer has already paid for itself, I doubt we’d have used a lot of the older venison it would likely have gone to the dogs. If you shoot a few deer and don’t think you’ll likely get through it all, a good mincer is a bloody good investment.

We have got a George Forman meat grinder. Sadly only used it once. Reading this it might get a dust off

Originally Posted by Flyblown

We had to slaughter a beef steer last week unexpectedly cos he got a respiratory infection and I wouldn’t pay the daylight robbery to get him fixed and a vets cert for the transport to the works. The only problem was freezer space - there’s already a 425kg hook weight Hereford steer in there plus who knows how much venison. So out came all the venison for a check to see whats what. Realised that there was more than I thought...

When we weighed the venison we came up with 97kg off the bone and 24kg on the bone. Hmmm, what to do. Having a yarn wife the The Wife I asked how much mince costs at the supermarket, we looked it up and just about bloody fell off the stool - $15/kg for standard grade??? Bloody hell. No wonder we are always getting asked for homekills...

Last year our old electric mincer finally died, didn’t get round to replacing it. So I bought a Kenwood 2000W mincer from Harvery Norman on a VIP deal for a little over $300 delivered.

Attachment 89941

This morning we minced 32kg of fallow and red venison, and in a production line of me as Butcher-And-Grinder-In-Chief and three sous chefs (and two keen as mustard dustbin dogs for the scraps), we made up heaps of nice fat burger patties using the bite.co.nz recipe which is a real winner (just dropped the parmesan, we don’t need that). We packaged them up into layers in boxes separated by baking paper and back into the freezer they went... in supermarket money for standard grade beef mince thats $480 worth plus whatever the eggs, milk, spices, mustard and garlic costs. The onions, herbs and bread we grow / make ourselves.

Venison burgers – Recipes – Bite

Makes my eyes water how much beef is these days. Now we don’t notice the difference really between beef mince and venison mince, when we cook up bulk meat sauce we usually mix the two. The venison burgers are bloody good, the kids love ‘em and will eat them for brekkie and dinner quite happily all week, very easy to prepare, just cook them from frozen at 180°C for half an hour, job done.

So yeah, just reflecting I guess on how much more of the deer is processed into edible food with a good strong mincer, everything goes in right to the boney part of the ligaments, no hassle having to strip out silvering or tougher parts, in it all goes. Plus it comes with the sausage making tools too. One of the deer in the freezer was a battered old fallow stag who probably wouldn’t have been much chop but as seasoned mince you won’t notice the difference. The new mincer has already paid for itself, I doubt we’d have used a lot of the older venison it would likely have gone to the dogs. If you shoot a few deer and don’t think you’ll likely get through it all, a good mincer is a bloody good investment.

Using the same mincer for 3 years now and it's still going strong.

I have made venison mince with a standard food processor, it worked okay but I expect a proper mincer would be faster and handle the workload better.

Do you add fat to your mince? I picked up a hand grinder a while back and have tried to make mince a couple of times with venison but always found it cooks really dry, I don't really like fat off venison, tried using fat off the backsteaks of a real good condition spiker way back when I was a young fella and it put me off leaving too much fat on venison anyhow.... yuck!
I was thinking of giving the mince a go again but adding some beef tallow?

I do use venison mince for things like Ragu, add some fat for flavour with bacon generally

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

Do you add fat to your mince? I picked up a hand grinder a while back and have tried to make mince a couple of times with venison but always found it cooks really dry, I don't really like fat off venison, tried using fat off the backsteaks of a real good condition spiker way back when I was a young fella and it put me off leaving too much fat on venison anyhow.... yuck!
I was thinking of giving the mince a go again but adding some beef tallow?

We don’t add fat to the burger recipe posted in #1 above, or to any of the other dishes we make. Not overcooking it is quite important. IMO there’s no need to add fat if you use the right recipe, it would kind of negate the whole point of healthy low fat super tasty burgers. They really are bloody good. Like I said we don’t add the parmesan cheese, but use a thin slice of Tasty cheddar in the bun instead.

The burger aficionados might be a bit sniffy (you know who you are gimp, I’ve seen those tasty looking burgers in your videos), but no one I’ve fed the bite.co.nz burgers to have ever complained! When we’ve had a feast at our place in the last couple of years the first thing that always goes first are the venison burgers. They are never dry due to the milk soaked breadcrumbs.

For meat sauce used in bolognaise, lasagne, etc depending on what we have in the freezer we’ll usually use a mix of beef and venison. Shepherds pie likewise. For bototie, a lightly curried flavour, you can use either.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

Do you add fat to your mince? I picked up a hand grinder a while back and have tried to make mince a couple of times with venison but always found it cooks really dry, I don't really like fat off venison, tried using fat off the backsteaks of a real good condition spiker way back when I was a young fella and it put me off leaving too much fat on venison anyhow.... yuck!
I was thinking of giving the mince a go again but adding some beef tallow?

Go to pak n save and ask for a bag of pork fat, costs just about nothing.

Deer (or other game meat excluding pork) fat doesn’t taste good. A proper burger (in my opinion, and I’m something of an enthusiast) contains only meat and seasoning, the meat ideally with something like a 20% fat content. Venison isn’t ideal, need to add fat. I haven’t managed to find a good source for fat to add to venison mince but I haven’t tried too hard yet. So I just buy beef mince for burgers.

Originally Posted by gimp

Deer (or other game meat excluding pork) fat doesn’t taste good. A proper burger (in my opinion, and I’m something of an enthusiast) contains only meat and seasoning, the meat ideally with something like a 20% fat content. Venison isn’t ideal, need to add fat. I haven’t managed to find a good source for fat to add to venison mince but I haven’t tried too hard yet. So I just buy beef mince for burgers.

I have to disagree we use a recipe from an old Allison Holst book oaty meat balls no fat added and it's awesome never falls apart and so bloody nice.
Make them 25 to 30mm thick and never dry.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by 25/08IMP

I have to disagree we use a recipe from an old Allison Holst book oaty meat balls no fat added and it's awesome never falls apart and so bloody nice.
Make them 25 to 30mm thick and never dry.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

��
Please share

I'll have to dig it out as we are moving house and all things are packed away but I'll try and fish it out.

Originally Posted by sako75

��
Please share

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by 25/08IMP

I'll have to dig it out as we are moving house and all things are packed away but I'll try and fish it out.

If you can, that would be great. Sounds delicious.

I think the old timers had it all worked out, some of the traditional recipes we use from are fantastic. But there’s also no doubt that the liberal additional of fats in whatever form contributed to shorter life expectancy! So we find ways to get around the added lubrication if possible and generally speaking we don’t notice the lack of added fats at all.

(We are far from super health concious, my standard brekkie is 3 eggs, 3 toast, cheese, beans, a banana and a giant pot of English Breakfast Tea. Theres no tofu, lettuce with green tea to start the day in this house....)

I guess the thing we notice most with venison mince, used either exclusively or in a mix, is how much less chunky fat there is sitting on top of a pot of sauce when its cooled down, which can only be a good thing. For added flavour we’ll use an Oxo cube, homemade meat & vegetable stock, liberal garlic, lots of home grown fresh herbs.

Originally Posted by gimp

Deer (or other game meat excluding pork) fat doesn’t taste good. A proper burger (in my opinion, and I’m something of an enthusiast) contains only meat and seasoning, the meat ideally with something like a 20% fat content. Venison isn’t ideal, need to add fat. I haven’t managed to find a good source for fat to add to venison mince but I haven’t tried too hard yet. So I just buy beef mince for burgers.

I got some done recently and they added some mutton for fat. Sausages were best I've had in a while.

Originally Posted by gimp

Deer (or other game meat excluding pork) fat doesn’t taste good. A proper burger (in my opinion, and I’m something of an enthusiast) contains only meat and seasoning, the meat ideally with something like a 20% fat content. Venison isn’t ideal, need to add fat. I haven’t managed to find a good source for fat to add to venison mince but I haven’t tried too hard yet. So I just buy beef mince for burgers.

if you cant find fat just use lard it is rendered pork fat