I always try to cut my own elk and make burger when I can depending on if I am away from home when I harvest and logistics. This year, after moving to WY I had an entirely new burger grinding set up which in theory should have been better, but all the burger from my sons elk came out really weird and I am at a loss to understand why.
The problem: The burger is all grey in the middle. Outside about 1/4" is normal red then inside of that is brownish grey.
How I processed:
Elk was placed in a cooler within a few hours of shooting it.
Meat was fully cooled for about 2 days then cut up.
Burger meat was then stored in a chest freezer, frozen at -10 deg F. First batch of 60lbs was about a week. Second batch was 1 week later. Each time the meat was taken out of the freezer and placed into a 2nd chest convertable set to fridge mode of around 32ish deg to that before grinding. The meat was soft frozen at the time of grinding.
Grinder is a new Meat 1 hp #22 dual grinder.
We used 10% beef suet
We did 60lbs each time in trays of 20lbs. We would take out 20lbs, mix with the suet, grind and then place back in the freezer at -10 deg F. Each 20lbs was never out of cooled for more than 15-20 minutes. Each entire 60lbs took prob about 45 minutes and the collar on the grinder stayed ice cold.
The meat was put into the Meat burger bags and sealed using one of the bag sealers and tape, just as you would get from a processor.
In addition to the color it also seems slightly mushy to me. It tastes good, but the color and texture seem off.
I really can't figure out what happened. The only guess I have would maybe be around the very hard freezing(-10 deg) of the meat before then rethawing it before grdinding.
Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?
The problem: The burger is all grey in the middle. Outside about 1/4" is normal red then inside of that is brownish grey.
How I processed:
Elk was placed in a cooler within a few hours of shooting it.
Meat was fully cooled for about 2 days then cut up.
Burger meat was then stored in a chest freezer, frozen at -10 deg F. First batch of 60lbs was about a week. Second batch was 1 week later. Each time the meat was taken out of the freezer and placed into a 2nd chest convertable set to fridge mode of around 32ish deg to that before grinding. The meat was soft frozen at the time of grinding.
Grinder is a new Meat 1 hp #22 dual grinder.
We used 10% beef suet
We did 60lbs each time in trays of 20lbs. We would take out 20lbs, mix with the suet, grind and then place back in the freezer at -10 deg F. Each 20lbs was never out of cooled for more than 15-20 minutes. Each entire 60lbs took prob about 45 minutes and the collar on the grinder stayed ice cold.
The meat was put into the Meat burger bags and sealed using one of the bag sealers and tape, just as you would get from a processor.
In addition to the color it also seems slightly mushy to me. It tastes good, but the color and texture seem off.
I really can't figure out what happened. The only guess I have would maybe be around the very hard freezing(-10 deg) of the meat before then rethawing it before grdinding.
Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?
