Wild game processing...

[RP]

You can use a truck ATV winch and a golfball to skin your deer. Not a big trick to it if your using a lets say truck. I would have some plastic its clean well when new. Tie the deer to your truck around its neck cut around the neck and I cut down the back which seems to work better .Start the skin by pulling out and use your knife to help to get enough hide to place the GB in. To place the GB place it on the hair side then loop what ever you are using around the GB on the meat side of the hide then add some tension. I use what they call mule tape that is used for pulling wire its thin but strong. If you got it right it get tighter the more you pull I would think it would be harder to control tension with a truck like you can with a winch If all goes as planned you can pull the hide off the deer without much effort. I am lucky I have a old crane with three gear speeds if I had to make one I use a good boat winch maybe adding a pulley like in a block and tackle set up. You can make it with some post all you need is two points one to pull one to anchor. The stronger the winch the easier it will be if you use a hand winch that is.

[gbrown]

My dad taught me to skin deer. Only one of our deer ever went to a processor. My first deer and I didn't know any better. By the time my dad got thru with me, I did. Hang 'em by the neck and take your time. As said by others, use a good, sharp knife. I have several of them in my back pack when I hunt. Take your time is the key. I've seen people jerk the hide off taking a lot of good meat with the skin. My deer may have some hair on it, but minimal. It can be picked off or taken off during the processing of the deer. The only thing saved whole is backstrap and tenderloin. Everything else goes in the bucket for sausage and ground venison. I have a 1 HP Thunderbird grinder and it takes care of it in short order. It usually takes me 3 days to process a deer, but by the time I'm thru, buzzards wouldn't even find a snack on what's thrown out. I'm retired and have the time. Before, I would do it in the evenings after work. A lot of work, but as my quote says, how I was raised.

[gkainz]

Do you take the time to separate all the silver skin from between the muscle groups or just from between the major groups? I grind venison and antelope for sausage and jerky and spend way too much time trimming, I think, especially the lower legs.

[gbrown]

I don't know whether your question is directed at me or everyone on this thread. I remove all the tendon/ligament tissue I can. If it is heavy silver skin, as you call it, (it's actually the ligament sheath attaching muscle to bone) I run a filet knife under it. If it is a thin film, I don't worry about it, for ground stuff, except on the loin (backstrap). It's all a trade-off, whether you want to take the time to save every bit of meat you can. In Texas, the loins, and quarters are considered the deer--you can toss everything else, which I have seen. What a waste, IMHO. Neck, spine, ribs & pelvic area can produce a lot of scraps with a thorough going over.

[horsesoldier]

If I grind it, I dont really trim it at all.We butchered 2 elk and 4 deer this year. The meat taste so much better once we age it and cut it ourselves.I am going to can it next year.

[Lloyd Smale]

I bone deer out. Im not crazy about bone in my venison cuts. I hang from the rear legs. Couple tools i wouldnt be without are for sure a couple good knives. I put an electric winch in the garage and wouldnt be without it. I also bought a black and decker battery powered chains saw. I use it only for meat and put veggy oil in the oiler. I do alot of deer so i dont want to clean it every time to keep the flys off of it so i just stick it in the freezer when im done for the day and the next day when i go out to get started i take it out and by the time ive got the deer skinned its thawed out enough to work. It saves time with cutting the necks and heads and even saves time taking the hind quarters off vs cutting open the ball with a knife. I also bought one of those air needles that inflates the hide to make it easier to get off. Its not needed when its warm out but when its cold and the hide stiffens it helps alot and will even make a frozen deer skin fairly easily. I do between 50-100 deer a year and sometimes as many as 4 in a day and have it down to from being on the floor to being in the freezer a few minutes less then an hour. Ill add that the best thing i ever bought for processing is my 1hp weston grinder. I stuggled with small grinders for years and this big sucker takes all of the work out of it. It will grind as fast as i can possible feed it. biggest job with it is picking it up and putting it on the counter. Thing must weight 80lbs! I feel stupid every time i use it thinking to how i struggled with those smaller units. I should have sold a gun years ago if needed to get one!! Another good investment is a good vaccum packer. Id usualy get two years max out of one of those foodsavers. I bought a semi comercial unit from cabelas (its a weston) and its been going strong for 4 years and still works like new. one last tool i really have come to like is my power cubber. It goes on my grinder and I do alot of cube steaks with it. Its my wifes favorite way to eat venison. I used to borrow my hunting partners hand crank unit and this power unit will do what took 2 hours in 15 minutes.

[PoppaJohn]

I'm relatively new to this site, and just found this thread, and still a major novice when it comes to processing deer. I can get my deer skinned and quartered decently enough, and I know enough to cut out the back straps and inner "fish" as my late father in law called them, but thats about as far as my knowledge goes. I hang my deer from the back legs and hand pull everything, once its quartered I try to rinse with cold water, then bag it and take it to the processor. I would like to learn how to do more of the processing myself, and was wondering if anyone could give me a few pointers on tools needed. I don't mind using a hacksaw or bone saw for the lower leg parts and to separate the head, but I would like to get an actual good set of knives. I'm not looking for super professional grade stuff, but the game processing kit from Gander Mountain just doesn't seem to cut it (pun intended). the group I hunt with gets maybe 2-3 a year, so I want good stuff to use, but don't want to break the bank. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

[Jal5]

will definitely try this one thanks

[olafhardt]

My standard smart Alec answer when people ask me how to clean almost any animal is: Get a knife and a bucket and a place to pile up stuff. Take the knife and cut off what you want and throw it into the bucket. Leave what you don't want in the pile.
Truthfully I am not that much on venison steaks, sausage, burgers or roasts but I love stews and soups. I just bag all the chunks up and put them in the freezer and use them up. If I get a hankering for steak or roast the store has beef ribeyes and pork butts.

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

God I wish I would have read this 2 weeks ago

[Hawgsquatch]

I hunt black-tails so there is not a lot to work with or waste. the biggest buck I have ever killed was only 150 lbs dressed. our success rates are low but if I hunt hard I may get a deer every other year. the we have years like this one where I got two.

I skin with the deer hanging from the horns. I try to get the skin and lower legs off in the field as our season here in Kalifornia often has 100 plus degree weather. I then cut through the pelvis and the breastbone and detach the front and rear hams almost completely. I stick a stick in the body cavity to get complete air circulation and put two ice blocks in the body cavity. When I get home I process the deer immediately or hang it overnight if the temps are in the fifties. I wipe the carcass before hanging with a microfiber car wash cloth and plain white vinegar. The microfiber cloths suck hair off like crazy.

After a glaze has set I start by removing the back-straps, inner loins and flank steaks. If I have left the diaphragm in good shape I cut it out as a hanger steak. These I trim of all silver-skin with a filet knife, cut across the grain into steaks, and vacuum seal in bags. Next, I remove the front legs one at a time. I remove the larger muscles individually, filet off the silver skin and then cut across the grain. I beat these to a uniform flatness with an abalone hammer, and vacuum seal. I then go over the bones with a sharpened table spoon. I can usually save a half pound or more of meat off the front legs. I take the shanks, split them and use the sharpened spoon to scrape out the meat there for grind. The back legs are the same with all large muscles converted into trimmed silver-skin free steaks and all small muscles going into the grind as fat free and silver skin free as possible.

Then, I filet the meat from over the ribs and cut out the meat from between the ribs, this gets cubed and put in a pot with some salt and pepper and browned. after browning completely, I add enough water to float the fat and this is skimmed off completely. Even the residue is blotted off the pot with a microfiber cloth. I can these chunks by placing them in pint jars over a clove of garlic a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt and some black pepper; add broth or water to fill and can at 15 lbs. for 90 minutes.

Finally I filet a roast from the neck cutting from just behind the ears all around and down to the start of the front shoulders. I remove the glands from the neck, trim as much fat as I can off it and then roll it and tie it with butcher string. I cut this into two or three medium roasts. The roasts go in the crock-pot with a 12 ounce dark beer, a 12 ounce bottle of ketchup, and a pack of onion soup mix. (substitute Dr Pepper for beer if you wish) cook on low for six hours. I now go over the skeleton with that sharpened tablespoon and scrape every last bit of meat off that I can get. I usually only end up making five or six pounds of burger off a deer. I mix the deer burger trim with el-cheapo bacon 80/20 and grind it myself. I make patties, pre-freeze them, then vacuum seal them.

[poacherjo]

Take one whole hind quarter to a meat smoker and have them cure it into a ham. When done have them cut it in half and vacuum pack. After you taste a smoked deer ham you will probably do both hind quarters the next time....

[Jim22]

I dunno about deer. I have only processed a couple of them since I lived in interior Alaska and there are no deer there. For deer you need to go to southeast or part of the Kodiak archepelago. I have mostly killed moose and caribou. Alaska moose are big enough that wife and I would devote an evening of cutting for each quarter. I cut a few special things like roasts, backstrap, and tenderloins and the rest went into hamburger. The roasts mostly came from hind quarters but I loved to peel the meat off of the shoulder bones, scapula, and roll and tie into rolled roasts. I only made the mistake of using moose fat in the burger one time. After that we ground the lean meat with beef tallow. The local meat cutters would trim the tallow and save it for moose season. Deer fat tastes rancid and moose are deer. Don't throw away the innards. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner with a roasted moose heart with the voids filled with good bread dressing. Make gravy with the drippings. Usually the moose heart was the first thing consumed in camp. It's wonderful.

As my dad used to say Moose have a bushel basket of liver.

Even with all that we still ran out of burger first.

Jim

[chambers]

Butchered many deer over the years, usually waited until Friday after Thanksviging to clean deer after they hung in cooler for about 4-5 days. Two of us would skin deer using an overhead hoist to hang deer by head, used electric aligator style chain saw to saw off all legs, hard ball under hide by neck, pull hide down to concrete, used torch to clean all hair up. One morning I think we did over a dozen deer. Majority of backstraps and steak hinds we would run through electric meat tenderizer twice( criss cross) after we removed all silver skin. Vacuum sealed. Saved trimmings for sausage and froze in large bags. Have grinder, tenderizer, walk in cooler as we have processed our own meat from deer and elk. Lately we have been cutting hinds in 1.5" x 1.5" chunks for stew or elk tips( slow cook these and all you need is a fork. We also save roast to cook on grille( sear on high and then move away from heat to cook medium rare) they are also a favorate.

[Jim22]

I would love it if someone could explain step by step on how to prepare all the cuts the way butchers display them in the store.
So far I have skinned, gutted and divided my catches, but they are really a hack job that mostly gave me roast pieces, or hunks of meat.
For example, how to properly get the sirloin? Where and how to cut a proper T-bone steak? How to get rib-eye?

As reported above you'd need a bandsaw to do that. I have never had a bandsaw but I have cut lots of game meat. For deeer it's easier if you cut the animal into four pieces. Two hams and two front quarters. You'll need some kind of saw to do that but not too much. Start breaking away muscles at their natural points of separation. Backstraps run along the backbone on the outside of the carcass. Tenderloin run along the backbone on the inside of the carcase. You don't need to saw these. Cut Hind quarters, backstrap, and tenderloin into steaks and roasts. Cut them the size you will use. All trimmings go into a pile for burger. On larger animals I like to cut the thin shoulder meat away from the scapula to roll and tie into a rolled roast.

I don't use any deer fat for burger grinding. I find it makes the meat taste rancid. Instead I use beef tallow or pork fat.

When we lived in Alaska and put up moose we used to kid, "You can cut steaks and roasts and grind the rest and you'll still run out of burger first".

Jim

[M-Tecs]

When I learned to process deer as a kid I was taught to hang them from the hind legs with a gambrel. Did maybe 300 to 400 that way. I thought that was the best way until some friends introduced be to "the Claw" https://www.amazon.com/HME-Products-...6ZYXMKT1&psc=1 and hanging from the head.

This method work best with two people with claws. Basically the same as using tennis ball but easier and more leverage. Othe than the initial cut around the neck and down the throat the hide is degloved. Almost zero hair method skinning.

[Omega]

When I learned to process deer as a kid I was taught to hang them from the hind leg with a gambrel. Did maybe 300 to 400 hundred that way. I thought that was the best way until some friends introduced be to "the Claw" https://www.amazon.com/HME-Products-...6ZYXMKT1&psc=1 and hanging from the head.

This method work best with two people with claws. Basically the same as using tennis ball but easier and more leverage. Othe than the initial cut around the neck and down the throat the hide is degloved. Almost zero hair method skinning.

I have the claw, and it works just fine head down. I have very few hairs on the meat, and once it dries a little, it can be wiped off with your hand.