Mixing ground beef 50:50 with ground venison

[HotdogWillie]

Will the addition of ice water (or perhaps canola oil) to ground beef/ground venison mixture take the stress off 44# Weston Mixer? Is the addition of a binder and water desirable for the mixture? Have had the paddles rebuilt twice and feel I’m doing something wrong!

[Jonathon]

HotdogWillie I would not add canola oil, ice cold water will help though for sure. What product are you trying to make? If you are making a cured sausage then I recommend a binder like Super Bind, Sure Gel, or Carrot Fiber. If you are making a fresh product then you don’t need it necessarily, I still add carrot fiber sometimes though but as you dont use a lot of water when making Brats you dont really need to use much carrot fiber.

[HotdogWillie]

Actually we were just mixing beef with the venison to add some fat to the lean venison; so adding ice water to the mixture is desirable so the 44#mixer does not get stressed?

[Jonathon]

HotdogWillie Yes, if you are just making ground meat out of then adding ice cold water would probably be the best bet, especially since when you cook that in a pan or pot the extra water will cook out rapidly.

[WIJIM]

HotdogWillie When I make ground venison I just add straight beef fat to it and mix by hand to distribute the fat throughout the venison. You can control the lean to fat ratio easily by weighing the venison and adding the fat to give you what you want. I usually go with 85:15 lean to fat. I don’t see any need for mixing in a mixer unless I am making sausage where I want extraction to occur.