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Thursday, November 14, 2013

Butcher Parties and the Big Burger Grind

Thomaso with an elk hind quarter to cut up

This past Sunday we had a party at our house and ground up 200 pounds of deer and elk meat into hamburger.  This was the annual burger grind party. The event is the culmination of a number of 'butcher parties'.  Every time we butcher an animal it is a 'butcher party'.  Usually we have some beer and someone brings something good to eat for after we finish cutting and packaging the meat.  These are social affairs, but they tend to be small and restricted to just the people who harvested the particular animal(s) getting cut up.

The meat scraps are put aside to be ground up into burger at a later date.  The later date being the 'Big Burger Grind'.  This year we ended up with almost 200 pounds of meat to grind into burger.  That is the scraps from 2 elk and 8 deer.  Everybody shows up for the burger grind, and there is always good food.  I remember fish tacos one year and this year we had barbecued deer and elk ribs.

The kids love to help.  This year Stuey washed his hands and helped Gregg feed 'the beast' and grind the burger.  Both kids also like to help label the meat packages.  We always like to make a drawing on every individual package of meat.  It is a sign of quality, and the kids love to draw the various animals that are represented inside the packages.

The burger grind also means the hunting season is coming to a close.  If any more animals are harvested the next grinding party will not be for burger but to create italian sausage.  That is if we are lucky enough to harvest a goat or a few does in the next month or so.

The elk crew cutting and packaging while Nora labels the packages

A Nora labelled package of elk scraps to be ground later

Prepping the semi frozen scraps for the burger grinder

Stuey helps Gregg grind scraps into burger

Packaging and labeling the burger

Every package gets some personal attention

Also I just noticed that this post is our 2000th since we started the blog a little over 7 years ago.  WOW that's a long time and a lot of posts!  Patrick

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