Making Burger what went wrong?

[Gulf of America]

When you put the ground meat in the freezer between grinding and packaging, are you covering it? I wonder if it’s getting freezer burnt at the -10 with all the surface area induced from grinding.

This is 91/9 elk burger that’s been in the freezer since 2022. I don’t do anything special to refreeze meat throughout the process - the meat was semi frozen through the grinder for the first grind and was still painfully cold to mix at the end of the multiple grinds and staging.

 

[ShootsManyBullets]

When you put the ground meat in the freezer between grinding and packaging, are you covering it? I wonder if it’s getting freezer burnt at the -10 with all the surface area induced from grinding.

This is 91/9 elk burger that’s been in the freezer since 2022. I don’t do anything special to refreeze meat throughout the process - the meat was semi frozen through the grinder for the first grind and was still painfully cold to mix at the end of the multiple grinds and staging.
View attachment 398775

2 more years and that'll be a delicacy. Damn I'm hungry

 

[Gulf of America]

2 more years and that'll be a delicacy. Damn I'm hungry

I got a bull and cow that year and wound up with 120+ lb of burger. Haven’t burgered any elk since then and struck out this year, and suddenly we’re down to the last 5 lbs. So 2 more months might be optimistic, let alone 2 years

 

[Northwoods]

You mentioned that the burger is a little mushy looking as well. My guess is your meat kinda got ground to a pulp when it was being forced from the plate with the larger holes through the smaller holes all on one grind. Hopefully you stopped before you ground all of your burger. Does your grinder allow you to use just one plate, or at least two plates with the same sized holes?