Ever have your ground meat smell bad/strong when cooking?

Recently took out some venision bacon burger and when cooking it smells terrible. Taste is fine,, but the smell over powering- like a wild hog. The processor says by law they have to use domestic pork not wild pork. Have you run into smell like this?

The other venision buger (mixed with beef) smells fine. The steaks are a little more gamey than most in the bast but not bad.

I'm wondering what could be the cause?

In the full interest of disclosure this is the first deer I've had that didn't go bang flop. But it died within 20 minutes and was quickly and properly processed. Could adrenaline account for the smell?I would think it would taste bad if a gland or something like that got ground in.

Thoughts?

Adrenaline, improper cleaning, or just a really old deer? No clue, but I've heard people make these claims before

I have not encountered this problem with venison burger. If there were a significant amount of venison tallow in the grind it could explain the smell when cooking.

Does your processor guarantee you get your deer back?

As mentioned, fear, stress, and adrenaline can also taint the meat flavor. You always want animals to be calm before slaughtering them.

yeah, they only process 1 deer at a time and only give you your deer.

I encountered a similar problem with a really old buck who was clearly on the decline once. I marked it up to him being so old.

I've used a processor where the deer meat had a slightly smokey taste and a smell that wasn't pleasant. Don't want to knock the processor as they have some of the best venison BBQ and sausages.

I pretty much only harvest does and have them at the processor within an hour or so of harvesting. Majority drop on the spot so I don't think it's related to adrenaline. I have noticed a different taste with the ground meat depending on the processor. Always been curious why that is. Figured they ground something else up in the same grinder that caused the taste/smell difference. Maybe it depends on what they add too. That's something I should probably look into more

I've notice that pork fat does not last very long in the freezer. like 6 months. As for beef fat last a long time. just my 2 cents

Funny, I'd have said just the opposite. I was always under the impression that's why sausage was mainly pork, it held up better over time. Back in the 70s we had a deer ground with beef fat and it went south fast. Since then, we've never had anything ground into our venison.

Is that what they tell you or what they do? I have eaten some highly stressed deer that didn't taste or smell any different than ones that were head shot and on ice in 1/2 an hour.

If it smells like a rank wild hog then my guess is your processor is not being honest with you.

My guess would be the pork that was added. I killed a couple of Axis last year. One of them I had pork fat added to the ground, and the other I had beef fat. The pork fat ground venison has a distinctive smell that the beef fat added Venison does not. They both taste great, but I will never add pork fat to ground axis again.

I've been adding beef fat to ground venison the last couple of years, I have never noticed any fowl smells from it, some of it made it past the year mark in the freezer as well.

X2 on an Old deer Happen to me last year old buck and the meat was worthless

I have had that happen to me with 1 deer and 1 elk. The deer ( older cull buck ) was nasty all the way around.


The elk tasted semi-edible but the smell, both cooked and uncooked, was horrendous.


Both were mature post rut animals.


In both cases both were shot twice in the vitals, died very quickly and gutted. Hide was left on overnight and skinned the next day. Both were taken in cold weather

Many years ago I killed an old buck that apparently loved eating wild onions. He smelled like wild onions, as did his blood and meat. And by the time I got through processing him, I smelled like wild onions. And when the wife cooked the meat, the whole house smelled like wild onions. Finally gave the meat to somebody that didn’t mind the smell.

These days I’d debone the meat and put it in ice to drain for a few days, getting the blood and onion smell out of the meat.

My brother once shot an old muley in Montana and it stunk so bad when cooking it, his wife made him get rid of it. So I took it. Ate every piece, it tasted fine but it really did stink up the house, I was single so I wasn't complaining about free venison!

When they are like that, cook it outside

Venison ground I have been eating regularly smells same but tastes great. Only smells while cooking it though.

I shot a Blackbuck a few weeks ago and the meat had a little wang to it because they are rutting big time now.

After some communication with the processor and offering to bring the meat back to them, they have agreed to give me a credit for the portion in question. Based on some other horror stories I've heard on here about other processors that is a pretty stand up thing to do as far as I'm concerned.