I’ve got the grinder, mixer, and stuffer all set to make burger and sausage from our venison scraps this year. Between the group we have about 60 pounds of nice clean scraps. What do you all recommend for a good source of pork trimmings to add to the mix? I figure on going about 20% fat on my burger and 25% on the sausage, but open to hear what’s worked well for others.
We’ve had great success using bacon ends for burgers.
I’m sure your local butcher can supply you.
I use pork butts and use %50 on sausage. If you are using trimings they will probably have more fat so maybe %30. If your venison does not have enough fat it will be very dry. Without seeing your trimings it would be hard to tell the ratio.
We do both bacon and pork butts as mentioned above. If we are mixing a burger batch we prefer the bacon/venison mix. For making sausage or seasoned grind we prefer the pork butt mix.
We use a 50/50 ratio when mixing with pork butts.
Or, 75/25 ratio when grinding in bacon ends.
My venison trimmings are all cleaned up, no silverskin, no fat.
Call your meat market and ask for picnic trim. this will be a little heavier on the fat content than pork shoulder. But otherwise go with straight ground pork shoulder. I tend to prefer a less juicy, more meaty sausage where the venison really shines through. So I rarely go over 25-30% pork. Just a personal preference.
70/30 is my preference.
I mostly use pork butt now, fat on them is really good fat.
I’ve used picnic, I’ve also used cushion meat, which is a cut from the anterior side of picnic.
I prefer a 50/50 ratio for sausage – especially if you have zero fat in your venison. Not enough fat and it tends to be dry or grainy to me.
One thing that has definitely changed over the years is the amount of fat on a pork butt. Recipes that were created 40 years is not the same fat ratio using today’s pork.
Call your meat market and ask for picnic trim. this will be a little heavier on the fat content than pork shoulder. But otherwise go with straight ground pork shoulder. I tend to prefer a less juicy, more meaty sausage where the venison really shines through. So I rarely go over 25-30% pork. Just a personal preference.
Bingo. Besides i use pork butt. I can’t understand why some one would go 50 50 on venison, must be to kill the venison taste. 20 percent tops. Burger gets maybe 15 percent and that’s for actual burgers. Otherwise ground stays 100 percent venison for tacos, spaghetti, and so on.
My venison trimmings are all cleaned up, no silverskin, no fat.
No need to clean it up that clean. I use to do the same. Then realized I was wasting so much time and energy.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brian G wrote:</div>
My venison trimmings are all cleaned up, no silverskin, no fat.No need to clean it up that clean. I use to do the same. Then realized I was wasting so much time and energy.
Agree,
If you’re just grinding for ground venison or sausage making, a little silver skin or fat will make no difference at all. Just get the big, obvious stuff off.
For burger we mix beef trim in and turns out great.
Thanks for all the great advice, as usual, guys. I think I’m all set. I picked up 30 lbs of picnic trim from my local butcher today, enough to make a good dent in the bags of trim we have in the freezer and then weigh out the rest from there.
I’m not the expert in our group but I’ve helped with process the last 3 years. We use beef fat for sausage in casings and pork fat for ground that we pack in meat bags. He says it’s so the sausage in casings is less greasy. We did 70/30 on the breakfast sausage and 80/20 on the ground. We also made a patch of pre-made burgers with seasoning, bacon, and some pork fat.
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