How to Grind Your Own Meat

Learning how to grind your own meat might seem like a daunting task, but it is actually quite simple. Whether you are using fresh venison from a recent hunt, or large cuts from the local butcher, the process is the same. The final result is absolutely delicious and yes you can taste the difference! Here is how we did it…

The Meat

In our case, we used fresh cuts of venison from Jeff’s most recent hunt. After processing, he ended up with 18 pounds of cubed meat. Because venison is so lean, we mixed it with brisket to get the right amount of fat. Jeff started with a 16-pound brisket. After trimming some of the fat and cubing it up, he ended up with 12 pounds of brisket. The goal was to get 60% venison to 40% brisket.

You don’t have to use venison and brisket as we did. There are other meat alternatives such as chuck roast and pork shoulder. The idea is to add some fat to your meat so it is not too lean. Ultra lean meat will likely burn when you try to cook it and won’t taste as good. The nice thing about this process is that you have total control over the fat content of the final product.

Once you cube up all of your meat, place it in the freezer until the meat is nice and firm. About an hour works well. This will make the grinding process much easier.

Meat Grinder Tools

The cubes of frozen meat will need to pass through a meat grinder. We used a stainless steel meat grinder attachment from smokehousechef. You will first pass your meat through a coarse grinding plate and then a second pass through a fine grinding plate if desired. Keeping your meat cold throughout this process will keep your meat fresh and easier to work with. We used several stainless steel bowls to store the freshly ground meat. Once a bowl was filled, we covered it and placed it back in the fridge.

This is the longest part of the process, but if you do it right, it is well worth the work. We made sure to clean our work space before and after this process. We made sure to wash our hands frequently and to wear exam gloves during this whole process. We also made sure our stainless steel tools and bowls were thoroughly cleaned.

Packaging the Ground Meat

Once all of our venison and brisket had been finely ground and mixed together, it was time to package it up into one-pound freezer-safe bags. We used a sausage stuffer (shown above) from the smokehouse chef. This stuffer is high quality, easy to clean, and simple to use. It is made of 100% stainless steel making it safer to use with meat. We packaged our ground meat in LEM Wild Game one-pound bags (shown below). These tools made the process very simple and efficient! Dividing the ground meat into manageable one-pound bags makes cooking and meal planning much easier!

After packaging was completed we ended up with 30 pounds of ground meat! Each bag was closed using LEM hog rings and clamped them with a regular pair of pliers. We simply placed the meat packages in our deep freezer and use them whenever we need them.

What to Cook with your Ground Meat

With ground meat, the possibilities are endless! One of our favorite dishes to make with our meat is venison wraps. Simply brown one pound of meat with half of a diced onion and two cloves of garlic. Spice it up with some salt, pepper, cumin, and chili seasoning. Then, place a few scoops of the ground meat onto a warmed spinach wrap and top it with your favorite fillers. We like to use sour cream, shredded cheese, avocado, salsa, lettuce, and black beans. Yum!!!

Some other favorites include venison chili, burgers, tacos, stuffed peppers, meatballs, and the list goes on! The nice thing about ground meat is it doesn’t take long to thaw out, and getting dinner on the table is a breeze.

If you are thinking about processing your own meat, we hope this post inspires you to go for it! Until next time, happy homesteading!

Watch the process in our YouTube video below!

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*Note the meat grinder attachment and sausage stuffer tools are available on SMOKEHOUSECHEF.com

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Have you ever experienced the process of grinding your own meat? Making your own sausage? How did it turn out? What kind of tips and tools did you use? Leave a comment below!