Home Game Processing

[waksupi]

Another consideration if you take your deer to a processor. Don't expect to get your own meat back. You can take in a nice clean carcass, and it will be mixed in with cuts from people's gut shot deer, that have been in the heat for days. They just split up the cuts when they are done cutting all of the deer, and who knows what you will get. This goes double for having sausage made.

[smoked turkey]

Saving money by doing your own is important but what waksupi said is also true around here and the number one reason to do your own IMO.

[rtracy2001]

The only time we ever had aged venison was when granddad came back home late one night with a nice buck and hung it up in the hay-barn (like he usually did). Well it got COLD that night, and by the time we got up the next morning to take care of it it was frozen solid. Not wanting to put a heater in the hay-barn (would have been kerosene and the risk of fire was too great) we had to wait until it warmed up enough to take care of it. It was April before it was completely cut up. I miss living in Maine.

Anyway I do not age venison at all. (temp in town is usually about 70 or so during hunting season, though this year has been cooler) Once a deer is down, it is dressed then taken back to the truck. We drive straight to the nearest service station and pack it full of ice, then head for home. If we get a deer in the A.M. then it is usually in the freezer by nightfall (I have left a quarter in the bottom drawer of the utility fridge overnight before.)

We mix the burger 2:1 venison to ground beef. It adds just enough fat to get the patties to hold together. We used to grind by hand, but last year I picked up an electric grinder at Harbor Freight, and it has been a lifesaver, or at least a limb saver.

I don't use a vacuum sealer. I wrap the meat in plastic wrap, then wrap that in good old fashioned freezer paper. The venison packaged October 12, 2011 showed no sign of freezer burn when we opened a package last week.

[Adam10mm]

62 deer butchered this year so far. If i had to pay someone to do it id have to sell my house!!! One hint ill give you guys is to not cut up steaks. Cut your meat like back straps into blocks and freeze it like that and when you want steaks take it out and cut them right before you cook. Doing it that way you will have less freezer burn if you store for a long time. Its especially important if you dont vacuum pack your meat.

Yup. Bone the meat into muscle groups is the fastest and best way to freeze meat.

It is my opinion, the fastest way to ruin venison is using a meat saw on the bones, and dragging the marrow through the meat. You need to get an animal as big as moose or bison before the marrow is good enough to not harm the meat.

Only time I ever use a saw when butchering is to remove the ribs from the spine. I cut one side, then the other. I lay the full rib cage on the table then press down with my hands and break the sternum. Rinse off and done.

Another consideration if you take your deer to a processor. Don't expect to get your own meat back. You can take in a nice clean carcass, and it will be mixed in with cuts from people's gut shot deer, that have been in the heat for days. They just split up the cuts when they are done cutting all of the deer, and who knows what you will get. This goes double for having sausage made.

I've heard a lot of caution about this, but the guys that process deer in my area keep the meat together. You get your deer back. The only blending they do is pork fat for sausage and burger meat. Eat deer is assigned a bin and the customer gets the bin number when they drop the deer off. They process one animal at a time start to finish and it stays with the bin.

[Ajax]

I've heard a lot of caution about this, but the guys that process deer in my area keep the meat together. You get your deer back. The only blending they do is pork fat for sausage and burger meat. Eat deer is assigned a bin and the customer gets the bin number when they drop the deer off. They process one animal at a time start to finish and it stays with the bin.

Same here. The processing is $100 buck for it to be processed which is not too bad if you dont know how or have someone to show you.


Andy

[Lloyd Smale]

I too wont cut deer bone. I bone all my meat off the bones. I also dont age deer. Ive tried it both ways and in my opinion aging deer makes it taste stronger. Deer doesnt have the fat and tissue that needs to be broken down to make it tender. When you bone out a deer you cut away all the conecting tissue and fat (at least you should) In my opinion all your doing is rotting your meat. My deer are in the freezer withing 24 hours of shooting them and ive yet to have someone say there tough or gammy tasting. The two butcher shops ive delt with for other meat (I dont bring deer to them) will give you back your own steaks and roasts but mix many customers meat together for sausage making and burger making. to me thats the scariest meat mixing as if anyone gets sloppy with clean sinue and deer hair its for making sausage and many customers bring in there own allready made up scraps to have ground. No thanks, Ill do my own!

[Lloyd Smale]

As you know i get alot of deer and like to fool around a bit with it. Next time your packaging your back straps in a vaccum sealer put the chucks in and pour in a little italian dressing or ranch dressing or garlic and erb dressing and seal it like that and freeze it. When you take it out youll have marinaded meat. Another tool i wouldnt be without anymore when processing is the steak cuber attachment for my grinder. It will make about any cut of meat a decent steak. Ill do the same marinade trick for my cube steaks. Some would flip over backwards at it but ill even cube up a number of back straps. You can cut them with a fork! Want a great meal. take some cube steaks and sprinkle flour on them and pound it in lightly. Season with salt pepper and garlic powder and fry. Also fry some sliced up potatoe and onion. When its all cooked put it on a plate and pour homemaded sausage gravy over all of it. its a meal fit for a king!!

Best tip!
That is what I have always done.
Then with back straps in chunks you can butterfly and stuff them.

[waksupi]

I've heard a lot of caution about this, but the guys that process deer in my area keep the meat together. You get your deer back. The only blending they do is pork fat for sausage and burger meat. Eat deer is assigned a bin and the customer gets the bin number when they drop the deer off. They process one animal at a time start to finish and it stays with the bin.

Lots of luck on that one. Ever seen a commercial grinder? They don't grind one deer at a time, I will guarantee you.

[41 mag fan]

Next time your packaging your back straps in a vaccum sealer put the chucks in and pour in a little italian dressing or ranch dressing or garlic and erb dressing and seal it like that and freeze it. When you take it out youll have marinaded meat.

Now that's a trick i'm going to try!

I put down deer hunting 4 seasons ago, due to no time off with working in the coal mines.

Well since obama doesn't like my career field, i've got weekends free, i'm not drug down tired like I was working nonstop 6 day work weeks, so this yr I've got the itch back and will be going.

[Lloyd Smale]

keep in mind that freekshow lives in a small rural area. Not a big city and most butchers around here will keep your meat seperate with the exception of ground meat. If your getting your ground meat done seperately your either paying extra or are real good friends with the processor. hardly worth turning the switch on on a comercial grinder for the little bit of ground meat you get off of one deer.

Lots of luck on that one. Ever seen a commercial grinder? They don't grind one deer at a time, I will guarantee you.

[reloader28]

We can hang 6 deer at a time in my cool room after they get hosed off. In the fall my tool room becomes the cool room with an air conditioner in the window. If we babysit it part of the afternoon, it will stay around 45* in there.

Depending on how many deer are coming in (friends bring them too so we run out of room), we skin them out in 2 or 3 days, quarter them and cut them up on a covered ping pong table in the man cave. Everyone that hangs a critter there comes to help cut and we do 3 deer in about 3 hours every night.

We have a 1 horse grinder and the hamburger tube bags that was already mentioned by someone, vaccuum sealer, smoker, Excaliber dehydrator, and we can some meat. Oh, and an indoor grill and 2 kegs of Heffenwiesen on tap in the fridge.

The last 2 years we've done 12-13 deer, 2 antalope, and 2 elk every year. We figure to double that this year with everyones extra tags.
We always make jerky, but this year I'm going to try summer sausage too. I would do a couple pics, but the wife aint here to do it for me.

[Adam10mm]

You can cut them with a fork! Want a great meal. take some cube steaks and sprinkle flour on them and pound it in lightly. Season with salt pepper and garlic powder and fry.

Wife and I make something similar. I'll cut some medallion size chunks and "bread" them with flour, egg, and parmesan cheese then season with salt, pepper, Lawry's, and garlic. Fry them in olive oil until the outside gets a touch crispy. We call it venison popcorn. Slightly crunchy outside and soft in the inside. Almost like popcorn chicken, only with venison instead.

Lots of luck on that one. Ever seen a commercial grinder? They don't grind one deer at a time, I will guarantee you.

In my area, yes I have. That's the standard. I've been thinking real hard about starting to process deer for others as extra income, so a few local guys that do it let me watch a few times to see how the standard is in the area. They skin it, bone out neck and quarters for steaks and roasts. The trimmings and rib meat get ground up. Burger meat is included in the price, but sausage is charged extra due to casings and labor with seasoning and stuffing.

If you want sausage and burger meat off your deer you get your deer back. The trimmings and scraps get tossed in the grinder hopper as they are processing the other meat. It gets run through once like that, then collected and ground a second time. They process one animal start to finish, put the meat in its own bin separate from others. The standard charge in my area is $60 for the above and sausage is $2 per pound.

keep in mind that freekshow lives in a small rural area. Not a big city and most butchers around here will keep your meat seperate with the exception of ground meat. If your getting your ground meat done seperately your either paying extra or are real good friends with the processor. hardly worth turning the switch on on a comercial grinder for the little bit of ground meat you get off of one deer.

Yeah, my village 2,200 people and to be in the woods I just have to drive 6 blocks away from home and I live in the center of the village. The processors around here do less than 60 deer each year. There's a dozen or so guys that do it. Small volume, personal attention.

[Adam10mm]

Oh, and an indoor grill and 2 kegs of Heffenwiesen on tap in the fridge.

Hefeweizen. I prefer the darker version, dunkelweizen. Keep the same grist but change a portion of the wheat from white wheat to dark wheat malt. Also keep the same 3068 or WLP300 yeast too. That's what drives the traditional Bavarian flavors.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I have found large chest freezers on craigs list for free they make great coolers and no ice is needed my brother found a thermostat control that the freezer plugs into to regulate the temp where you want it , he used the freezer i got him as a keg-orator now for his home brew.

we have found the taste of the meat just fine if cut up as soon as it is cold

we have a set up in my aunts garage , her house is deer camp , we bring in a poly folding table with leg extenders to get it to the right height , the leg extenders are sections of pvc pipe the slide over the table legs and give us the extra inches we need to make backs not hurt

we have a hook mounted to the ceiling , and a set of wash tubs with a hose running in under the garage door and the waste hose running out

i have a come along with a gameberell , i drag them in form outside on a tarp , then leave the tarp below the deer as i skin an quarter it , as the quarters come off they go on the table and are de-boned and put in buckets the bone and fat go in a bucket to get put out with the compost

the meat is rinsed and put in 2 gallon zip lock bags in a cooler for the trip home , the same coolers we brought food up in brings deer home in

part of this is because Wisconsin has rules about transporting hole carcases , do to CWD you may drive into but not out of certain counties with a hole deer , it is just a lot more cost effective to cut them ourselves and bring them home in coolers

i leave the hams to be sliced for jerky some times , but we mostly grind all but the tenderloins and back straps , we use more ground than anything , also make some sausage , we make brat patties and save the step of packing into casings

our family of 5 will eat about 3-4 deer a year , the kids thought it was the only meat for a while , they preferred it to beef because it was all they knew besides chicken

also i have taken the little Saturn hunting got 34mpg for the 400 mile round trip , my gear fit in the trunk and the coolers across the back seat , the newer cars unless you have a truck are more difficult to tie a deer to , my van is heated so unless I pull a trailer it was a pain to put deer into and the van gets 12mpg , and i get much more help at camp , my dad, brother and cousins will help , we do everyone's deer who wants it done.

i go up to see family and get some good deer hunting in , not break the bank on gas

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

the first time i cut up a deer i had shot a doe i had to get back to school i was in college , i couldn't find any place still accepting deer , so for a case for beer a class mate showed me how in the garage at his rental house , we bagged up the quarters and i finished it in my apartment took me till about 1 in the morning after going to school in the morning and working all day but it was done.

I have gotten things much more efficient since then

found there are good books and videos , and if you are willing you can certainly learn and do it yourself

[M-Tecs]

Early on I had been taught that aging venison was the way to go so that’s what I always did for the deer taken during gun season as the temperatures generally allowed for aging. For archery deer it was generally too warm to allow for aging. I remembered that the archery deer tasted better than the gun season deer, but at the time, I thought this was due to the firearms season deer where more mature Bucks and or the archery deer bleed out better.

As my archery and hunting skills improved I started taking more mature Bucks in early season so I purchase a fridge just for aging but due to travel issues some would get cut up without aging. I couldn’t tell the difference so one year I halved one. I aged one side and cut the other without aging. I aged the one half at 42 degrees for seven days but I took sample cuts starting at three days. At three and four days I could not tell any difference when compared to the un-aged cuts. Started at day five the aged cuts started tasting stronger. Worse on days six and seven. Also the cuts seemed to be drier and possibly even tougher.

I have had formal meat cutting classes so I am aware of and understand the bacterial process of how aging benefits something like beef but I no longer see a benefit for something as lean a venison. I believe the drying of the lean venison offsets any benefit of tenderization from the bacterial break down of the meat.

When I purchase a ¼ or ½ of beef I still have it dry-aged but my venison get cut as soon as possible.

Surprisingly good info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging

[waksupi]

Something that can affect the taste of venison, is the season change. About the time of the fall equinox, deer and elk start changing their diet from grass, to more browse. You can see the change in their droppings, as their systems adjust to the diet change. They are what they eat!

[MT Gianni]

Took me over an hour to get him dressed. Got him home and let it sit in the garage overnight. I couldn't hang it since there isn't anything in the garage to hang him from and he was too heavy to hang from the garage door tracks.

You can run a 4'-5' 2x4 through the rafters and drop a couple of eye bolts off of it. Bolt two together if you need to hang and elk. If the garage is sheetrocked you can still slide it through your access panel and run the eye bolts into it. Probably not a good idea on a rental.

[Jailer]

Long ago I wanted to see what deer fat would do for a boolit lube. It was like candle wax.
I had huge hunks rendered so I put them out for birds. Best thing I ever did for the feathered friends. I never seen anything go so fast.
Strip off the fat and hang it for the birds.

It makes excellent soap too.

I have aged deer and not aged deer and in my case i have noticed no difference. Really important thing is to field dress the deer well at once to keep meat from being ruined.

I have tried aging as well and didn't notice any difference in the taste.

Saving money by doing your own is important but what waksupi said is also true around here and the number one reason to do your own IMO.

When processing hit $60 here I started doing my own. The only things I cut out are the backstraps and tenderloins, the rest gets ground into burger ot chunked up and canned. It just didn't make sense to pay someone $60 to grind a deer up when I could do that myself.

Something that can affect the taste of venison, is the season change. About the time of the fall equinox, deer and elk start changing their diet from grass, to more browse. You can see the change in their droppings, as their systems adjust to the diet change. They are what they eat!

Very true. I don't know how the Yoopers can stand to eat their deer. These corn/soybean fed southern deer are fantastic eating.

[TXGunNut]

Good point about getting your own meat back, around here it's hard to say but I know mixing happens at most local processors, especially when grinding. I love sausage and I like knowing what's in it. Only way to do that is to make your own or watch someone do it. Some of the best money I ever spent was on a commercial grinder. Had a smaller one that didn't hold up long and was more difficult to clean.