Wild game is a really lean protein. So, if you plan on making sausage or burgers, you need to add extra fat to your game meat to act as a binder. Watch and learn as we partner with Discount Meats to explain what percentage of fat is needed when processing game.

Hi! I'm Ben with Discount Meats. I'm here with North 40 today. What I want to do today is help you guys out, figuring out the percentage of fat you want to put into your wild game meats. It doesn't matter, really, if you want to use beef or pork fat. Some people have health reasons that they're going to use one or the other, or preference on which ones last longer. There's also recipes or family traditions that are bound by one they don't want to switch it up, which is all good.

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I'm just going to show you a quick thing, get rid of the myth on the internet of, "Just times it by the weight to percent," and that's not true. I'm going to show you why you go to just do a little bit more of your homework and check your math to get what percent you really want.

Why would you add fat to your wild game? Well, if you're trying to make sausage or something like that, you're going to need a higher fat, due to wild game is a lean protein. It's a rich meat, like beef or pork, but it just doesn't have the fat to be a binder. So, that's where you want to get back to using what percent of fat in your wild game to make your salami, for instance, or burger patties. Particularly, you might find that something works better for taste.

But once again, getting back to the formula, that most are a myth. It'll say something like, "For 50 pounds, you want 15% fat in that batch." So, you'll times 50 times 15%, and they'll want you to put it in decimal form, so .15, and it'll be equal to 7.5 pounds of fat to add into your wild game. Well, then you add 7.5 pounds to that wild game batch and you think you have 15%. You're going to be off because you can take 57.5 pounds, that you added that 7.5 to your 50 pound batch, and you're going to find that 8.63 pounds is actually 15%, but you only added 7.5. So, how is that 15%?

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All right, so if I didn't confuse you guys enough, I'm going to show you why you're light on your formula, why that doesn't work. Just you got to double-check and do the homework. It's something you sit down, it might drive you a little nuts for a minute, but we're going to try nine pounds, adding that to that 50. We're going to have 50 pounds of our premium game meat, and we're going to add nine pounds of fat. So, 59 pounds total, and we're going to times that by 15%. You're going to find that it's going to be 8.85.

You'll find out that nine pounds is really close to that 15%, and you can add a little hair more if you want it, but I would go with that. That's where you got to sit down and double-check your homework, just due to the formula on the internet that you're going to find are going to end up leaving you light, and you're going to wonder why your burger patties or your salami doesn't taste quite the way you want to.

I hope this has been helpful to you guys. If you have any other questions, please go on north40.com, and thank you.

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