Packaging Meat

O Wise One killed three deer this year which is about normal for us. His aim is for 3 young antlerless deer for the most tender meat he can get. This he home processes for a grass fed local alternative to corn fed beef. The problem with venison is it's low fat content. In some things such as meatloaf,sausage and burger without some fat content you get a dry end product that has a hard time holding together when cooked. So O Wise One cuts some of our venison into about 1 inch cubes and freezes it. We than purchase preferably local grown, grass fed beef when one of our neighbors butcher and have it ground into burger. From there we take it home and then the venison is thawed out and ground into burger on our small home grinder.

Ground venison

 Then the ground beef and the ground venison are added to this meat mixer at a ratio of half and half. You turn the crank and the paddles inside mix the two meat together.

This is probably one of the handiest contraptions you can own if you are going to make your own sausage in large quantities. 

Once the two meats are mixed then we put it in our large hand sausage stuffer and shoot it into one pound bags ready for the freezer.

This situation is not an ideal one having to freeze the venison but the local butcher shops do not butcher cattle during deer season because they can not butcher cattle and venison at the same time. It has to do with safety laws. So we either have to freeze the ground meat before deer season or get ground beef after hunting season is over and freeze the venison. It just depends on when a beef is available locally for slaughter.

We like this process as we think it improves the venison for things like meatballs, burgers and meatloaf and also has the extra benefit of extending our meat supply to last longer. All of a sudden 25 pounds of ground beef becomes 50 pounds of beef/venison combination. By purchasing our own meat processing equipment we save the expense of meat processing and packaging fees. Although the equipment can be expensive we purchased our  equipment years ago and it has paid for itself many time over in savings through the years. We know our meat is clean, we keep our work areas sanitized and our equipment and know exactly how it is handled and packaged.  

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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