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Thread: Deer- What do you do with it?

  1. #21
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    We always processed ourselves and of we wanted sausage took the trim in and had summer sausage made.

  2. #22
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    I have always processed my own. Skinned and deboned takes about 1/2 hour or so. Then about 1.5-2 hours to process and vac seal. Got two in the ice chest right now to process.

  3. #23
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    [QUOTE=Elkins45
    I’m starting to worry that I might not have a reason to hunt much longer: I had a bad episode of gout last year. It was almost too painful to walk. Venison is among the very worst causes of gout.[/QUOTE]

    Talk to your DR. about Allopurnal (sp.) I have gout too and take it every day. Once he got the dose right I haven't has a bout for 5 years. Used to get it every time I had shrimps or crab, add beer and it was BAD.
    Steve,

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  4. #24
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    Speaking to the choir here I am sure but never cut deer bones to make chops or whatever. Debone the meat and cut into whatever you want. If you cut the bones you will get a gamey flavor you will never forget!

  5. #25
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    By the way do any of you use the front legs to make jerky as the amount of silverskin makes it hard to get any meat

  6. #26
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    I couldn’t afford to pay someone to butcher all the animals I kill so it’s a family affair. I cut, my 4 year old runs the grinder, my wife packages and vac seals. We pressure can a lot of it. We make all our own sausage, venison bacon, cured hams and jerky. My next elk I’ll be making bone broth out of the femurs and canning that as well.

    All of our red meat comes from animals I kill or acquire, at any given time there could be elk, antelope, deer, moose, or bear in our freezer or in jars in the pantry, along with any number of small game animals and wild caught fish.

    I cook a lot with the sous vide method, this year I cut backstraps from one of my deer in 6”chucks and seasoned them. It makes for an easy dinner when I can throw a preseasoned backstrap that’s frozen into my sous vide at 135 degrees before heading to work when I get home sear it in cast iron with some butter and than slice.

    So far this year we have put up two deer, two elk, and two antelope, I still have one elk and one antelope to go.

    Quote Originally Posted by Oily View Post
    By the way do any of you use the front legs to make jerky as the amount of silverskin makes it hard to get any meat
    Shanks get used for various things, most of the time I grind them into my burger meat. I use ground meat mostly for jerky when I’m using my dehydrator. I use to spend hours cutting meat from silver skin with the shank meat and realized I wasn’t gaining anything, so now I just chunk it and run it through the grinder.

    For those that don’t do much with game meats I suggest getting a copy of Hank Shaw’s book Buck Buck Moose. There’s so much more to game meat than pan frying and covering with cream of mushroom soup.

    I had a bad experience with pork fat going rancid in about 75 pounds of burger from a bull elk I killed a couple years ago. A lot of the burger ended up getting fed to the dog because I couldn’t eat it. I refuse to add anything to my burger meat now, sausage I use pork but for our normal burger it’s straight up ungulate. I grilled hamburgers yesterday with some normally it would fall apart because it’s so lean I just give the burger meat a shot of olive oil when I’m mixing in the seasoning and it binds together really nice.
    Last edited by dk17hmr; 11-07-2018 at 02:35 AM.
    Doug
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  7. #27
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    Doug, I never would have thought about the olive oil!
    I will sure give that a try. I have some olive oils I have seasoned with garlic, along with some that have herbs in them. Getting the whole family involved takes a lot of the task out. I think it also makes it taste better on the table.

    And DITTO that on cutting chops with the bone in them! They are pretty as a picture when cut and wrapping them, but they are terrible! Stink up the whole house. I even tried to cut the bone off and cook them. To late, saw drags all of that bone and marrow all across the meat and it is ruined. The year I did that was bad. A lot of deer hanging and temps were not the best. We thought we could save some time. Saved time all right, but threw a pile of prime meat out.
    I work hard to keep hair and venison far out of mine.
    I have boned out a whole hind quarter and cooked it real slow. There was a pile of people that didn't like venison. They all thought it was a prime rib. Most would not believe me and some were PO'd.

    Have often thought of trying to corn/pickle one like a corned beef. Also thought of curing one into somthing like beef bacon.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by JSH View Post
    Doug, I never would have thought about the olive oil!
    I will sure give that a try. I have some olive oils I have seasoned with garlic, along with some that have herbs in them. Getting the whole family involved takes a lot of the task out. I think it also makes it taste better on the table.

    And DITTO that on cutting chops with the bone in them! They are pretty as a picture when cut and wrapping them, but they are terrible! Stink up the whole house. I even tried to cut the bone off and cook them. To late, saw drags all of that bone and marrow all across the meat and it is ruined. The year I did that was bad. A lot of deer hanging and temps were not the best. We thought we could save some time. Saved time all right, but threw a pile of prime meat out.
    I work hard to keep hair and venison far out of mine.
    I have boned out a whole hind quarter and cooked it real slow. There was a pile of people that didn't like venison. They all thought it was a prime rib. Most would not believe me and some were PO'd.

    Have often thought of trying to corn/pickle one like a corned beef. Also thought of curing one into somthing like beef bacon.
    If you have a smoker look into making hams. Brine recipe is easy water, kosher salt, pink salt, black pepper, brown sugar and about 10 days worth of soaking.

    I use whole muscle groups from various animals, antelope and black bear are probably our favorite for making hams. Sliced thin it doesn't last long around here
    Doug
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    Sticks and stones may break my bones but hollow points expand on impact.

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  9. #29
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    75-100 bucks to cut up a deer and give you 40lbs of meat. No thanks. If I do it myself and waste 5 lbs of meat because im inept im willing to lose that small amount for a 100bucks. that and I shoot and or cut up 50 or more deer most years and would go broke having a butcher cut it up. Its not rocket science. take a sharp knife and cut out the muscle groups trim them up like you trim up your back strap. Meat that's to hard or two much work to trim up perfectly can go into a burger or sausage pile. I can take a deer from hanging gutted to the freezer in not much more then an hour, but then ive done MANY. I skin them cut the flank meat off of them and the inside loins. Cut the front shoulders off and bone them out and pack the meat in 5lb bags for burger or sausage. Hind quarters to to cube steak or roasts ect for the shanks which go in the burger pile. Necks are fairly easy to bone out if your looking for burger meat, a bit of a pain if your trying to break them down to pure red meat so they go either in the burger pile or many go to my dad that just loves neck roasts. He can have them. for the most part there just to much work and a hind quarter roast out of pure red meat doesn't have a bit of that nasty tallow taste. Back straps get cut into 6 inch chuncks for the grill. Spank me but the ribs and even a small amount of meat left on the bones are fed to the coyotes they have to eat too and its not worth my time to do anything with that MAYBE 2 lbs of burger meat. All my meat other then burger and sausage gets vaccum packed. Even if your a beginner and never did it before its mostly common sense and will never take you more then 3 or 4 hours to do it and at a 100 bucks that's a fair wage. It gets my craw that processors who are expenienced like me and have even better equiptment are charging basically 60-100 dollars an hour to process your deer. Add to that some are a bit fussy about hair ect on there deer and how long it hung ect and truth be told no matter what your butcher tells you theres no guarantee that ALL the venison you get is from you nice clean fresh deer. They do burger in batches of 100s of lbs at a time and everyones deer scraps are thrown in totes and ground together. Same with sausage. that and you have to clue how well the burger and sausage meat was trimmed if at all. Put the 100 bucks in your pocket and do it yourself. You don't go buy cast bullets or pay to have someone load your ammo do you? You didn't know how to do that the first time you did it either.

  10. #30
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    I do my own it runs $80-$125 depending on where you go here.

    http://www.malafysmeatprocessing.com...son-processing

  11. #31
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    Local butcher advertises "You get your own meat back" and he sticks to it. He is also swamped right now. I ran down today to get some of his homemade bacon and he had 100+ deer hanging in his intake cooler... he also makes some of the best summer sausage I have ever had.

    He has 2 lines to skin, wash down, it goes to the cutting lines where it gets broken down and ran thru 2 grinders if burger or vac bagged for steaks and roasts. He runs stale bread thru the grinder between batches to clean out the previous meat. They are cutting 4-6 deer an hour! He hires extra crew this time of year and I have helped in the past.

  12. #32
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    stick with him mary. Hes a rare bird today. I know butchers that claim to give you your meat back but that's your muscle meat. Burger and sausage are done in bulk. But he has some convinced you are getting your meat back. I chuckle at the people that use him. he charges more because he advertises you get your own meat back and a few years back he got caught stealing meat. Seems he has a boarding home for old people and he was skimming meat off everyones deer to feed the residents there burger. One employee turned him in and they sent a cop in with 30 lbs of boned venison they got from a dnr pinch and asked him to grind it into burger and add 10 percent fat to it and bag it. they weighted what they got back and got 28lbs of burger in 33 one lb packs. He tried to claim that some of the meat was bad and he had to toss it. All he got was a slap on the hand. Comical thing is he still has people lined up for butchering because they actually believe his claim to give back your own meat. Unless your right there watching its pretty hard to be sure. Back years ago I had two buffalo processed by him. One went about 1100 lbs gutted and one 900lbs. I looked at the meat pile for the 1100lb buffalo and swore it was less then I got back from the 900lb buffalo. the next year I shot a smaller cow that went about 800. Took it to a butcher and got back more meat then I got from either of those bigger animals. This "taking the butchers cut of the meat" happens a lot more then people think.
    Quote Originally Posted by MaryB View Post
    Local butcher advertises "You get your own meat back" and he sticks to it. He is also swamped right now. I ran down today to get some of his homemade bacon and he had 100+ deer hanging in his intake cooler... he also makes some of the best summer sausage I have ever had.

    He has 2 lines to skin, wash down, it goes to the cutting lines where it gets broken down and ran thru 2 grinders if burger or vac bagged for steaks and roasts. He runs stale bread thru the grinder between batches to clean out the previous meat. They are cutting 4-6 deer an hour! He hires extra crew this time of year and I have helped in the past.

  13. #33
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    My last couple of deer I cut myself. I would rather a pro do it but I am poor. My last deer hunt was in 1985. I quit for "a while" and now I am not in good enough health to go anymore. Still poor so, we get the venison that people have had in their freezer too long. I have eaten some pretty freezer burned stuff but most is just fine. Had some that was froze for 3 years a while back. It was perfect yet. My favorite is chops. I love em fried with onions in plenty of shortening or lard. Lately been broiling meat. Tried some venison liver broiled medium rare. Wow folks, just wow. I would have to rate it as the very best meat I have ever had.
    P.S. we used to have a butcher that would give you a very good deal if you helped him cut your deer up. You learn how to make the cuts, how to wrap the meat and know it's your own deer.

  14. #34
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    I usually do it myself, kinda depends how hard the recovery was and how late it is and what I have going on the next day, but I prefer to do it. I never cut any bones if I can help it. I grind and pack all my burger meat pure, don't mix anything in it. I use saran wrap and butcher paper to wrap up and have had it be fine a couple or three years later.

    One thing I am not is fast like some guys on here. It takes me a while, but I do get one skinned and broken down into quarters and into a chest of ice pretty fast, then I can take my time.

    I average two deer a year. Times have been we've had four a year when my boys were hunting, but two does it for me and the wife for the year.

  15. #35
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    I bone it and cut it myself. A friend who is a former meat cutter has drilled into my head that steaks are sawed, chops are cut. So I have a lot of chops from the hind quarters, butterfly the loins, cook the tenders as is and the front gets cubed for canning and sausage. I have made stuff with shanks, both osso bucco and venison carnitas. Both require cooking for long slow temperatures to break down the collagen and give things a good flavor.
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  16. #36
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    My 2 brothers, a friend and I will likely do 7 deer this Fall. Butterfly the loins, take a couple of roasts, pressure can about half of each, trim goes into ground jerky or summer sausage. We have a tv playing our favorite movies while butchering and making sausage. IE- The Mountain Men, Jeremiah Johnson, Last of the Mohicans etc. When we make sausage, my Mom makes a batch of rye bread. What meat is left in the stuffer, gets fried in an electric skillet for lunch with the bread, and some cold beer. My daughter's expect a supply of pressure canned venison at Christmas time.
    hc18flyer

  17. #37
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    I get the backstraps and tenderloins packaged whole, then have the rest ground into burger meat. My family & I eat about two deer a year; if we get more then I donate to Hunters for the Hungry. I've butchered many deer myself but our hot weather makes it a rush job most seasons. I trust my processor, I've had him butcher steers for us too.

  18. #38
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    one hint for those who don't is to not cut up your steaks when you butcher. Vaccum pack and freeze your meat in blocks and cut it or butterfly it when you thaw it to cook. Much less chance of freezer burn. Also don't pack your burger in baggies. Use ground meat bags and pack them tight. You need a stuffer to do it but your burger will last a lot longer in the freezer. Also do not store meat for long term in a self defrosting freezer. It will dry it out and burn it much faster then a standard freezer.

  19. #39
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    when grinding burger we put a large stuffing tube on the grinder. The catcher had the foot pedal to start and stop, the person feeding it was told to NEVER put your fingers in the grinder. Use the stomper! Slip a ground meat bag on the stuffing tube, turn grinder on until it has a pound of meat, twist bag and run thru the taper. Very fast and no separate stuffing step. Key is the person feeding the grinder MUST be safe!

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    buddy has one of those burger patty making attactments for his grinder and does a lot of burger pattys. I tried it one year and found I use bulk burger a lot more then pattys and vacuum packing the pattys kind of ruins the pattys anyway. Problem with doing it your way mary is the suffer packs them tighter for less chance of freezer burn (minor complaint) and I don't have as second set of hands. My wife runs and hides when im butchering or grinding.(major complaint) Only job ive ever conned her into do was to run the lem tape sealing thing to seal the bags.

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