Venison Burger Question

[Sitting Bull]

Hey guys I was successful this weekend and I have a question regarding burger meat. My wife is getting turned off from the accumulation of blood and the smell in the package when she thaws it and gets ready to prepare it. Do you have a suggestion as to how I can either eliminate this or at least reduce it ?
After grinding I package in 1 pound and wrap in butcher paper.
Thanks for the help.

[DirtShooter]

Unwrap it while froze, put it in a dish and in the fridge to thaw. It will have blood but you can pull the meat out of the dish and drain the blood and start making burgers.

[bat119]

Tell her it’s not really blood
As meat ages and is handled or cut, proteins lose their ability to hold onto water. Over time, some water is released and myoglobin flows out with it, giving the liquid a red or pink color. When the water seeps out, the protein that gives meat its color (myoglobin) flows out with the water.

It didn’t work on my wife maybe yours has a more open mind

[Sitting Bull]

Originally Posted by bat119

Tell her it’s not really blood
As meat ages and is handled or cut, proteins lose their ability to hold onto water. Over time, some water is released and myoglobin flows out with it, giving the liquid a red or pink color. When the water seeps out, the protein that gives meat its color (myoglobin) flows out with the water.

It didn’t work on my wife maybe yours has a more open mind

My wife won't buy that one for sure. Sounds to good.

For some reason after all this time married and hunting she won't eat bear meet any more, the blood turns her off and if it smells to strong she won't want to eat it.

[Bushleague]

Best way to help your meat thaw with less mess, is to avoid washing it before grinding. If you can skin and butcher your meat really clean, then avoid needing to wash it with water before you grind and package, it should generally thaw out with fairly minimal mess. As a side bonus it seems to last longer in the freezer.

If you are already doing this then I dont know what else to tell you, other than take care of cooking the burger yourself so she doesnt have to see it.

[EZM]

If it was ground fresh (without a few days in the cooler) it will be bloodier and have more of that smell. Pre salting your ground can also help.

You can also add some regular ground beef when using your ground venison.

Your wife is not alone here - that's why our ground ends up in salami, sausage, etc..

[huntinstuff]

Easy!

Have her sit comfortably, hand her a nice drink, and you cook the deer meat

[Maxwell78]

When we do our grinding. the meat sits in a tub with many small drain holes inside of another tub. When left overnight in a cool place(garage) we find much of the blood had drained into the bottom tub. Then we do the packaging.

[bagwan]

You can always pre make your burgers and cook frozen. There are commercial tubes for doing them.

[fishnguy]

Option 1: do not let it thaw completely and it will not “leak”; it only leaks when the meat gets “soggy”.

Option 2: do not grind before freezing, but cut and pack whole pieces of meat that you would otherwise grind; that way you also get freshly grounded meat every time; still, don’t let it thaw completely before grinding.

Also, drain blood right after the kill. If possible, let the meat hang for a few days.

And congrats on the harvest! With No 1 or MK?

[calgarychef]

I know what your wife means, I don’t like the smell of that stuff either when it’s treated like that.

Lots of good suggestions. I freeze my meat for grinding in about 1kg. Bags.
Put it in the bag then wrap in butchers paper. It doesn’t stink, like it does only in paper (I know it sounds wonky but I’m convinced of this). And it won’t freezer burn nearly as bad double wrapped.

I thaw it just enough to be able to grind it and only grind a couple KG. at a time as I don’t use much ground meat (mostly steaks and roasts). Grinding it still partially frozen really helps too in various ways.

Right after grinding I make my burgers, (only salt and pepper) and individually wrap in plastic. You can refreeze them without ant problems as you kept them as cold as possible while thawing and grinding.

If I want cooked burger for chili etc. I always cook outside on the bbq, no smell in the house and happy wife. I do that with any ground meat though, I don’t like that smell in the house when the bbq is right outside the door.

You can take your cooked ground meat and put in bags and freeze it for later use, that’s soooo handy. It’s easy and fast to make some tacos, wraps etc.

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by huntinstuff

Easy!

Have her sit comfortably, hand her a nice drink, and you cook the deer meat

This.....I really enjoy the process from field to table and don’t like it much when others try to touch my meat

[Smoky buck]

Have you considered it might be time to start looking for a girlfriend

[Stubb]

Put a doubled up piece of paper towel under the package of meat on a plate and thaw for 2 days in fridge. My wife also thinks it’s gross dumping a plate of blood into the sink but doesn’t mind throwing out a soaked up paper towel. As soon as I start cooking the ground I add spices, most of the time that’s salt, pepper and garlic or seasoning salt as that goes which most things. It cuts the smell by quite a bit. Lately I’ve got my butcher to add 10 percent beef fat, which has really improved it overall imo

[bubba300]

I unwrap mine,put on a plate with lots of paper towel,cover with saran wrap and thaw in the fridge until most of blood is gone or thawfirst then let it sit on papertowel till blood is gone.

[JULIUS]

Sorry to hear about the issue. Some good ideas here though. I have never figured out how to avoid the blood issue.I have never noticed a bad smell so either I am use to it or too dam old to smell anything. Yes I was blessed enough to marry a girl who was also raised on venison so neither of us get bothered. She also helps me butcher at times.
One thing you might try and what I notice makes nice burgers is to make a bunch of sausage meat form it into hamburgers and vacuum pack. They last a long time and no smell ( that I notice ) and they last a long time in the freezer.

As an after thought I butcher all my own and I think perhaps the grinding allows me to drain some of that blood off before packaging.
Congrats on your hunting success

[-JR-]

Originally Posted by Maxwell78

When we do our grinding. the meat sits in a tub with many small drain holes inside of another tub. When left overnight in a cool place(garage) we find much of the blood had drained into the bottom tub. Then we do the packaging.

2x

[amosfella]

Meat need to hang longer and be cool from what I understand. Grinding the meat too 'green' causes extra cellular fluid to break down. Blood looks like leaches after the animal is butchered. Excessive thawing times will increase the amount of red fluid released.

Vac packing may help. I like to pack one pound packs, and put them in an 8" x 14" bag. That makes a bag that's about 1/2" thick in the freezer. That will thaw out in 20-40 min. As a side benefit, they will stack nicely in the freezer.

[omega50]

Two issues-Smell and excessive purge.
Both easy fixes. Good eating

Relentless trimming of fat= reduced odor
Depending on final use-spices can be ground into the raw meat before freezing.


Dry Ice will dramatically reduce freezing time and reduce disruptive large formation ice crystals that occur when jamming a deer into a home freezer.

Aim for under 2 hours to freeze solid. Then stack in home freezer.
Purge will be reduced.

Redirect thawed purge flow before the fact with a 1% salt addition before grinding to reverse flow direction and encourage osmosis.

[Okotok]

Add a muktuk appetizer for her while she's processing the venison and she'll forget all about the venison!

[Marty S]

You could ask the meat counter people at Safeway what kind of chemicals they overload the regular beef burger with. Makes for a beautiful chemical aroma in the kitchen when frying. That should help with the unusual smell to something she is more accustomed to!

[Sitting Bull]

Well, I processes my deer and elk this weekend. Meat was hung in cooler for 7 days and was cold when butchering. After grinding I placed the meat in a make shift stainer inside of meat tubs overnight in the cooler for blood to drain. A fair bit of blood was accumalated from the deer burger and next to nothing from the elk. I wrapped the meat today and in the freezer. I will keep you posted as to it looked when thawed.
Thanks for the suggestions.