Here's my husband with the Cabela's meat grinder. We add fat to the moose when we grind it for burger. Moose has virtually no fat in it and will just crumble if you try to cook it as burger by itself. The white stuff you see below is beef fat that was added to the moose.
We also made 150 pounds of sausage. We bought the seasoning packet from a local business. The mix is okay but we've made better. This time though we didn't have the supplies on hand to mix up our own batch of seasonings.
Here's the grinder set-up. It's right next to the gun case. Can't have one without the other, eh?
We have an old ping pong table that we use for a makeshift table. We put it on sawhorses. The black bucket is trash and the white bucket is for scraps that will be ground into burger.
I thought this was pretty cool. My husband made this magnetic knife holder. He bought the magnets at Ace Hardware.
I'm hoping things are about to get more relaxed . . .
33 comments:
So, how much meat did it end up being? How many pounds?
Beautiful! Doesn't feel great to be done??? We are going out this afternoon to shoot my new shotgun and maybe find a dumb deer! Not as labor intensive to process as a moose, but will help fill the freezer! Waiting on elk season!
So all that hanging is just one (large) moose? Wow.
I would make a terrible Alaskan. My freezer (the one attached to the fridge) is never more than 1/4 full. And most of that is ice trays. Have fun eating your moose!
Thanks. I like reading your Alaskan posts.
Hello, I have been reading your blog for a while now, but this is my first comment (obviously). Growing up we had two freezers in our garage too. One had "normal" things in it and the other was reserved for elk and salmon. Mostly elk.
What would make that sausage mix perfect is adding some brown sugar to it. Yum!
Gosh, it's a whole nother world up there, isn't it? Adding fat and grinders and making one's own seasoning... It sure has been interesting reading your blog lately. I've learned a lot!
Wait, Alaskans often have more than one freezer? Why? It's ALASKA! Isn't it supposed to be below freezing 3/4 of the year? I'd figure you'd use cellars or just stick meat in a building outside. LOL.
Interesting reading!
We have been buying meat, pork and beef, grinding it ourselves and making our own saugages............. we see the difference in what comes from the supermaket, we grind and mix our own spices as well. A friend has just bought me some moose, I look forward to tasting it.
Best.
Esther beat me to the comment I had. LOL! I'm in Florida and we have 4 freezers. One attached to the fridge in the kitchen. One stand-alone in the laundry room that moved here with us. One stand-alone in the garage that came with the house and another attached to a second fridge in the garage that came with the house. Only 2-1/2 are full. And no moose. ;-)
I'm so amazed at all of your moose posts. I feel like I'm learning a lot! I'm glad that you're finally seeing the light at the end of the meat-packing tunnel.
Thanks for the post, I really enjoy reading about the Alaskan life!
Ooh, I second lsaspacey's idea of putting brown sugar in the sausage, though we normally use maple syrup in ours. Mmmmm, sausage...
Are you related to Sarah Palin per chance? Maybe its my city sensibility but I find the idea of shooting a moose utterly repulsive.
Impressive! After seeing the movie food Inc. I'm jealous - not only of your fabric stash but now your meat stash.
Good work
Your blog is better than any book or TV show! The closest I've ever come to this hunting stuff is when my husband used to go up to Vermont with the guys deer hunting. We'd all get together for a game dinner later in the season. He loved to hunt deer, but is a fussy eater so we never took any of the meat! I love the pics of your operation.
Interesting posts. We ate Reindeer and Moose meat while in Finland last year. They weren't too bad but the restaraunt we had the reindeer meal in had a Reindeer head on the wall and its glassy eyes staring at me made me feel really guilty!
Wow! I was wondering how you were doing with the moose! I appreciate the update, accompanied by pictures. Question: in one of the pictures, there are white bags hanging in the background--is that more moose? Yeesh, if it is, I can see how it would take a long time to process. In any case, it looks like a lot of work, and I'm glad that you worked your way through it.
Rose in Sv
Wow! I'm so impressed. You amaze me!
I also love the posts about your moose! Fascinating! I have never eaten moose but I have eaten horse - we lived in Holland for a while and horsemeat was cheaper from the butcher than beef, it was delicious too!
Although I have never had the chance to hunt/process meat of any kind, I love reading about how you do it, so thanks for the insight :-)
I hope you get some sewing time soon!! Hunting season begins down here before long. We just have deer, though. My husband loves to hunt. I have said it on other posts, but he would be extremely jealous of the moose hunting!!
Wow. An entire freezer of moose meat. Wow...
I hope life slows down and you get some time in the sewing room soon. Sounds like you've earned it!
Jeez I so wish I had a new shotgun so I could go shoot a "dumb deer"!
I am impressed with this whole process.
you keep on talking about meat just as long as you want. It's fascinating. lots of hunting here, but no moose in New Zealand.
i am reading your hunting/butchering posts with great interest! Thanks for sharing. On one picture i can see white things hanging. Is that meat waiting to get proceeded?
Hey jules --
How 'bout I give you that new shotgun you're achin' for and send you off into the White Mountain Forest for a month or two? I think you'll come to terms reeeeal quick.
I'm so jealous of your freezers full of meat. We have two freezers, but they are full of blueberries and apple cider...too bad we don't live closer to each other, & could trade some berries for moosemeat!
I live in Alberta and grew up on wild meat. We always saved the bones and scraps for our dogs to eat. We had two freezers, and kept the pet food in one of them. It was always fun to freak out my friends by showing them the wrapped packages marked "dog" in one freezer, and the packages marked "moose" in the other. LOL
Finally catching up on blog posts reading. We always add beef fat to our ground-up deer meat. I lurves me some deer chili on a cold night.
Hopefully, my husband will have the entire month of December off to hunt, hunt and hunt some more.
Grats on your moose. I grew up in Anchorage and we had 2 freezers full of moose, halibut, and salmon.
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