Grinding burger. Add fat or no fat?

[grundy53]

I'm going to be grinding up my elk burger soon. Do you personally add fat or not? I'm leaning towards not, mainly to keep it healthy. What say you?

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[Woodchuck]

I do not. If I want to make patties with it later I just cut in some beef.

[Mike450r]

I don't add anything to mine either.  Keep it healthy and keep it elk meat is my opinion.

[92xj]

I just ground up 60 pounds of elk.  I added 30% Boston Butt to 25 pounds strictly for grilled hamburgers.  I left the other not mixed for everything else.  If we run out of Hamburger mix, I will do another batch with added pork, which will happen.  We both love the good old grilled hamburger.

[tjthebest]

I dont. Never had any problems with my patties and them staying together. I also like to be able to use it for healthy tacos/spaghetti/chili, etc..

 If you do have problems, ive heard that adding an egg and some breadcrumbs will help.

[toyman2]

I did, I talked with the local butcher and she got me all set up. I believe I am about 10%, our elk/deer burger produces the same amount of fat as locker beef.
She did say that if the burger didn't hold together to add an egg.

[NRA4LIFE]

I do both.  I grind half of it with nothing added for chili, taco meat, etc.  The other half gets mixed with some cheap beef hamburger after grinding.  (Meat mixer comes in real handy here).  I'll mix about 4-5 lbs of the beef burger to 20 -25 lbs of venison or elk.  It then is only about 3-4% fat.  This mix is then used primarily for burgers.  What we did a few weeks ago was pre-form the burgers, then half freeze them on a cookie sheet.  Then vacuum seal 2 to a pack.  That is working very nicely for us.

[Rainier10]

We really clean our meat well and so we need a little added to it because it is so lean.  We generally add pork fat, 1 pound for every 10 pounds of elk or deer.

[bearhunter99]

We really clean our meat well and so we need a little added to it because it is so lean.  We generally add pork fat, 1 pound for every 10 pounds of elk or deer.

Ours is extremely lean too.  We keep some without anything added for burger dishes.  The rest we grind with 10% bacon ends and pieces, because bacon makes everything better!  With the actual meat in the bacon we end up at 3-5% fat from what we could figure out.

[JDHasty]

We do chili ground meat - this is for chili, tacos or things that use ground meat as part of a recipe.  We all like the texture better than finely ground meat.  There is o fat added. 

We do Italian sausage and add pork fat to it - this is for meatballs, hamburgers (we use this instead of plain ground meat for burgers because that is how everybody in the family likes hamburgers) and spaghetti sauce and for hamburger soup.

I used to have Stewarts grind five pounds of their bacon and  mix it with 20 lbs of ground venison for hamburgers.  Haven't done that in a while, it made one heck of a tasty bacon burger.  I'm going to have to do that again soon.     

[biggfish]

I only add pork fat for sausage making usually just ground bacon ends. I use bread crumbs and egg for burger patties.

[Rainier10]

We really clean our meat well and so we need a little added to it because it is so lean.  We generally add pork fat, 1 pound for every 10 pounds of elk or deer.

Ours is extremely lean too.  We keep some without anything added for burger dishes.  The rest we grind with 10% bacon ends and pieces, because bacon makes everything better!  With the actual meat in the bacon we end up at 3-5% fat from what we could figure out.

One year we couldn't get the pork fat and we used bacon ends instead.  It was good, everything is better with bacon. 

[lokidog]

We do not add anything.  No problems with burger staying together.   

[WSU]

I don't add anything.  We only use it for burger dishes like tacos, spaghetti, and anything else that uses ground meat.  We use beef, which we have way more than we need from our own beef, for hamburgers. 

After years of using only game in burger dishes, I have found I really don't like the way beef tastes in those dishes any more. 

[D-Rock425]

Try some both ways see what you like better.