Ground Bear Blend ratio

Hi Gang, I harvested two black bears this spring. I've done an initial freeze for 30 days and am starting to consider making my ground bear. I will be sending out to a butcher for pepperoni's, garlic sausage and perhaps another pre cooked sausage, however, besides utilizing the roasts I want to make a supply of ground bear. The wife likes bear so we are trying to utilize it in our everyday cooking where we would normally use beef etc. My question to the experts is, what do you add to the bear for the ground blend. i.e. quality pork, or pork fat, or fatty pork etc. and to what ratio. I'd appreciate any advice on how to turn out the best product.
thanks
Montec

I don't add anything to Bear. It has enough intermuscular fat that it doesn't require additional fats. If on the off chance that a particular dish requires a bit more fat, then I'll add it at that time.

What to add to bear meat, is bear meat. To cut it with anything but more bear is heresy and sacrilege. Pretty sure folks used to get hanged for such a slight.

Jokes aside, bear is already so fatty you don’t need to add anything to it. Perfectly fine on its own.
However, if you’re gonna do burgers, I would suggest a 50/50 bear and whitetail if you got it. I almost cried the first time I bit into one of those.

I add nothing.

Bear doesn’t need anything at all.

what you do, is add bear meat into your mule deer to make it taste better.

Depends what I’m using the ground meat for.

I do:
- sausage and burger meat at between an 80:20 and 75:25 ratio; and,
- ground for pasta, tacos, etc., with no added fat during the grind (add it as needed for the final dish).

Right on! That’s great info. Should make for a tasty grind on its own then.
montec

50/50 with regular beef hamburger at the time of cooking.

We haven't used anything but bear for our burger needs in the last 20 years or so. For regular use ground, we trim all surface fat and any silver skin, then grind. Nothing added.

If I'm pre-making hamburger patties I will mix 30% beef and another 15% beef fat....taco meat doesn't need to be juicy...but my hamburger does!!!

For sausages, I generally just add varying amounts of pork or beef fat depending on what we're making. A breakfast/dinner sausage that will be cooked will get more fat than say a pepperoni stick.

No hard and fast rules...a lot of it is experimenting and personal preference

Chris

I save my bacon fat and freeze it in ice cube trays...pop a cube out and throw it in the pan before frying up some ground bear keeps it from tasting dry...if Im out of bacon fat I throw in a tablespoon of butter....bear burgers on the grill get a teaspoon of butter on top to melt in..

Adding fat and freezing has never worked out for me long term, always tastes a bit funky after a couple months in the freezer..