Congrats on the bear! After your ordeal last year, I am sure you are pleased.

We bought a meat grinder a few years back too. Works like a champ. Don’t skimp on the grinders. Cheap ones (anything with plastic anywhere on it) are a pain.

One of the most interesting things I learned from using a meat grinder is how much aging meat helps break down the connective tissues.

Putting a fresh deer through even a good meat grinder is hard work, requiring several stops to remove collagen tissue from the screw. But age the deer 10 days or more, and the deer goes through the grinder without any hangups, Collagen tissue and all.

Alex, that sure is making the slice of pizza I’m having at the mall (don’t ask. ) seem pretty lame! Dwc

2014 deer backstraps

Ptaylor wrote: Yeah sure does feel good Steve. I wish we could age deer out here. It’s just too warm and humid by the coast for me to leave it outside. The flies are active all year. And we don’t have a walk in meat cooler…

Another option for the committed predator is to convert an old fridge into a cooler. Take out the shelves and affix a couple rods across the width of the fridge upon which quarter can be hung and you have a pretty decent cooler.

Get some large S hooks to hang the pieces, and you are good to go.

Before I built my walk-in cooler, I used to just set the quarters on the shelves in the fridge. Not ideal as there is no air flow under the quarters which limits how long you can leave the meat lay.

When using a meat grinder keep all the metal parts in the freezer and keep the meat extremely cold. This keeps the fat and such from binding the grinder. Also good trimming of the meat is helpful as well.

I lack the walk in cooler myself and instead use a refrigerator I have in my garage. Works very well for me.

Hi Preston

Congratulations on a successful hunt and a very productive day.

Saw your post when it went up but could not put into words the satisfaction I feel from what you have demonstrated.

Preparing and storing meat or any harvested produce for later use especially sharing with family and friends is something opponents of hunting can never know.

It gives a connection to nature that only a hunter can know, butchering a game animal is an intimate experience feeling the movement in joints and seeing connective tissues move elevates it, small wonder that our ancestors revered these animals.

Memory of the hunt is revisited each time we open the freezer, smell the meat cooking and sit down to eat.

On the subject of aging I have a friend that bought a drinks chiller the type used at gas stations with the sliding glass front door, works well.

Mark.

The best thing about processing your own meat is you know what your getting.My dad showed me how to butcher my first deer as a teenager and I’ve been cutting and wrapping game meat ever since.It’s fun to get the kids involved in the wrapping.My daughter helps me with the cutting as well.One thing I’d recommend is wash the grinder parts ,saws and knives in diluted bleach water , followed by dish soap(before and after).Like everyone else I knew ,I used to put pork or beef fat in my burger, till my wife scolded me for putting the unhealthy in the healthy.Now I find fat in wild game ruins the taste and creates more work when cooking,think drain the fat.If you want to make patties you can use eggs to hold it together.To me processing game from the field to the freezer is part of the whole hunting experience.P.S. burger is always the first to go so make plenty!

skinner biscuit wrote: …I used to put pork or beef fat in my burger, till my wife scolded me for putting the unhealthy in the healthy.Now I find fat in wild game ruins the taste and creates more work when cooking…

Good comments! You are probably right about the fat too, but we still put a bit of organic beef fat in our venison. Not much, say 2% by weight. Most recipe’s call for 10% which is way too much. We kept cutting it down till we stopped at about 2%.

Organic beef fat can be had from Organic Markets for pretty cheap… If it’s grass fed organic beef fat it’s free from the hormones and higher in good fatty acids. So I don’t mind putting a little in.

But as you say, an egg will do the trick too.

I’ve had good luck with a very inexpensive alternative to the usual vacuum packers:

Ziploc vacuum storage bags

If you follow the instructions and pay close attention to getting a good seal on the bag before pumping, I am fairly certain you will have a similar experience. I’m pretty sure the people who have complained elsewhere about this system did not do that.