Grinding and Mixing

If you do your own buchering and grinding, venison burger comes in at least three varieties: Straight ground venison; straight ground venison with ground beef suet; straight ground venison with beef hamburger. If you use a commercial processor, you can request no fat in your burger mix, or as much  fat as you want. The fat ratio we seek in our food is a matter of taste. To be sure your family will enjoy eating venison every day, it will help to keep the fat content of your venison burger at the same level you are used to eating in other meats.

The ground beef at the supermarket ranges from 27 to 5 percent fat (marked  73 to 95 percent lean). If you are used to buying 95 percent lean beef burger, add 5 percent beef suet to your ground venison, that is,  to each 5 pounds ( 21/2 kg) of venison, add 4 ounces (100g)  of suet. As a last resort,  a 50/50 ground venison with beef hamburger combination will probably be accepted without questions by even the most stringent of palates. With any of the recipes in this site,  you can use whatever form of ground venison your family will eat.

Year in and year out, I prefer the straight ground venison and have found that if I add 2 teaspoon of oil ( olive or canola to keep it healthy ) to each pound of ground meat, it will not crumble on the grill.

Cooking

Extensive scientific research has shown that the perfect burger is  4 inches (10cm) in diameter, 1-inch  ( 21/2 cm) thick, and is loosely  molded with the hands. That will qualify it as a hamburger rather than a hockey puck or miniature clay bird. To keep the patty from sticking to the grill, brush or wipe a very light coating of oil on the top and bottom of the patty, or alternately, on the cooking rack ( only when it is cool, or removed from the lit grill).

Finally, for the perfect finish, place it on a grill so hot that you cannot hold your hand more than  3-5 seconds at cooking level, and cook 7 minutes to a side. This provides you with a medium-cooked burger. If you have ground your own burger, being vigilant about cleanliness, and have not added commercially ground beef suet, you can  safely cook your burger a little less--5 minutes to a side, for rare to medium rare. That is the advantage of grinding your own venison and keeping it lean. (But do remember to add  2 teaspoons of oil per pound to keep it from crumbling.)