CWLONGSHOT
Well-Known Member
I have done many road kills too. Couple local troopers have my number and call when they have no other. Nothingbis wasted in nature. WE ARE part of NATURE!
Deer butchering, who does their own?
- Thread starter Dimner
- Start date
Thumbcocker
Active Member
Did our own for years. Now live 15 minutes from a family owned place that does great work and vacuum seals the meat in heavy plastic for $130. They also tenderize all the cuts. If you want sticks and sausage and stuff you can spend a lot more money but we just get steaks, chops, and extra lean burger.
Dimner
Named Man
I'll be the first to say it. I'd take take a head/neck hit doe any day of the week even if I made 900k per year!.
I think I have told this before... The first deer I killed was a 6 point buck. Well, to be fair.... He killed himself. He ran into my car. No front end damage on my Pontiac. He was playing frogger through 8 lanes of traffic in oakland county. Actually right about a mile or so north up the road where Jimmy Hoffa disappeared(decades before). It was dark and I never even saw him until his face hit my car.
This was back before I hunted or was into shooting or anything. I wanted to keep the deer, wife gave that the kibosh. Officer said he had three other officers in line for that venison if I was going to decline. Knowing that one of them would put it to good use made the wife inflicted sour medicine taste a little better. Nowadays, I always tell her: If you let me keep that buck that suicided on my car, maybe I'd never taken up hunting. Because after that, it put a bee in my bonnet to go and get a deer.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
I'm weird. I enjoy every aspect from field dressing to grinding the fat for the birds. Many of my friends and my BIL and I take great pride in doing a thorough and clean job, with little waste. My wife used to help cut but spends so much of her time up in the kitchen canning venison she no longer cuts much. She told me this year, that since her brother started coming down here to hunt and helps cut meat her days are not nearly as exhausting as they used to be.
I skin all of the deer within an hour from the time it hits the ground and I used the forks on my Kubota. I have a bracket that clamps on a fork tip with a grab hook on it. I wrap a light chain just under the ears. Skin down the neck, split the leg skin, saw all four legs off below the shanks, and tuck a rock or a golf ball under the loose neck hide. Tie a rope around the golf ball over the hide and tie the other end to the ball hitch on a convenient pick up truck. Lift the forks and peel the hide off like a glove. I lower the deer so it just clears under the lean to roof on the shed. There I have 4 chains prepositioned and a step ladder. I drive under the rafter, raise the deer. My BIL is up on the ladder and hooks a neck chain onto a rafter chain and I lower the forks and disconnect. So fast, so very fast. Then we prop open the chest with a stick to help the heat escape. The next morning after breakfast we start cutting. One before lunch, one after lunch. By the time I'm done with the second one my back is complaining. We put cutting boards on an old school lunch table that has risers under the legs to bring it to a better work height. We have a spare fridge, a spare freezer, a big old Toledo Scale Co. grinder, a sausage stuffer, a tape machine, bags for burger and sausage, a sausage mixer, large stainless bowls, a roll of plastic wrap that we have had since the 1980's, a roll of freezer paper on a dispenser, even a swiss steak tenderizer. I touch up our knives every few minutes and now my BIL has picked up the touch up technique and does a nice job on his blades.
Depending on how many deer we have to do, (three this year, my brother hauled two more to his house), It is a couple of days of pretty continuous work, but so rewarding.
I skin all of the deer within an hour from the time it hits the ground and I used the forks on my Kubota. I have a bracket that clamps on a fork tip with a grab hook on it. I wrap a light chain just under the ears. Skin down the neck, split the leg skin, saw all four legs off below the shanks, and tuck a rock or a golf ball under the loose neck hide. Tie a rope around the golf ball over the hide and tie the other end to the ball hitch on a convenient pick up truck. Lift the forks and peel the hide off like a glove. I lower the deer so it just clears under the lean to roof on the shed. There I have 4 chains prepositioned and a step ladder. I drive under the rafter, raise the deer. My BIL is up on the ladder and hooks a neck chain onto a rafter chain and I lower the forks and disconnect. So fast, so very fast. Then we prop open the chest with a stick to help the heat escape. The next morning after breakfast we start cutting. One before lunch, one after lunch. By the time I'm done with the second one my back is complaining. We put cutting boards on an old school lunch table that has risers under the legs to bring it to a better work height. We have a spare fridge, a spare freezer, a big old Toledo Scale Co. grinder, a sausage stuffer, a tape machine, bags for burger and sausage, a sausage mixer, large stainless bowls, a roll of plastic wrap that we have had since the 1980's, a roll of freezer paper on a dispenser, even a swiss steak tenderizer. I touch up our knives every few minutes and now my BIL has picked up the touch up technique and does a nice job on his blades.
Depending on how many deer we have to do, (three this year, my brother hauled two more to his house), It is a couple of days of pretty continuous work, but so rewarding.
Rockydoc
Well-Known Member
@L Ross, that is a very professional job of butchery. That comes from a former professional butcher.
I have a Kubota as well. I am interested in that "bracket that clamps a fork tip with a grab hook on it". Tell us where to get one. A photo would be immensely helpful.
Thanks, Rocky
Rockydoc
Well-Known Member
That is because all of the deer meat that is going to be ground is pooled together, ground and then divided up by weight among all the customers in that pool.
Your deer is not individually processed when it comes to that which is ground, made into sausage etc. The steaks, roasts, etc. probably are individually processed.
Rockydoc
Well-Known Member
I would add an item to your must have tools: a steel for keeping the edge sharp on your knives.
Winelover
North Central Arkansas
If that was the case, I wouldn't use that particular butcher. I've had deer done by multiple processors. The only time the meat is pooled is if you request sausage...............and they tell you up front. I like every cut of venison, so I never have sausage made.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
I had an idea for putting a grab hook on a fork. I talked to one of my buddies who is a good welder and fabricator, he made up his idea of what it should be like. I find it to be a little over engineered, but never look a gift horse....... The second grab hook got clamped beneath the ball hitch when I needed to lift something heavy in a straight line. The one off the side of the bracket is the one I typically use. Of course the ball hitch is handy if you have to maneuver a trailer into a really tight space.
Dimner
Named Man
Glad to see all the comments in this thread. Good to see people butcher their own, or know how but choose to use a processor. When I got that $$$ amount from my friend, I was worried that there were a bunch out there that had to rely solely on a processor. To be honest, if I were one of the latter, I would only get one deer a year. However, as it is, I enjoy taking multiple deer and providing for family and friends at the sportsmans club who are too old anymore to go out and hunt. One of my friends is 83, lost his wife this year. I dropped off about 25lbs to him and he admitted it would be the first venison he has had in 15 years.
Anyway, let's talk HAIR.
I have friends growing up who would complain that during deer season, their whole job was picking hair out of deer meat being butchered. These were the jobs relegated to the non-hunters. Non-hunters by choice or by age (or in some backwards families, by gender). When i first butchered, I was expecting to have to spend a bunch of time doing the same. However, the way my mentor taught me (oddly, a younger fella than myself (me mid to late thirties at the time) in a way that must really negate hair.
First thing he told me when skinning: "We are not a hair picking family. When your meat gets to the table, it better not have any hair."
He then showed ght me how he skins the deer. Following those instructions, I really don't have any problem with hair once all the quarters and cutoffs get to the table. His method is never using the knife more than once. Deer hangs by the head/top of neck. The one cut that is made is a radius cut around the neck making sure that the cut is at a slight upward angle. This angle is so that the grain of the hair can be parted in a way to get to the skin, and the very least amount of hair is severed during the radius cut. The whole skin is then peeled off. Even if the deer is cold a few days, it's really not that hard. A nice curved skinning knife and occasionally some vice grips/channel locks is all thats needed. For stubborn hides, I'll lower the deer so I can step on the already peeled portion of the hide, and raise it back up to add tension to the hide. 9/10 this isn't needed though. Hides take, maybe 10 minutes to remove.
The only other cut on the hide would have been in the field during field dressing. So all that hair would be gone during transport and handling before it gets hanging and if any is still around, it's in the inner carcass where the guts used to be.
Anyway, let's talk HAIR.
I have friends growing up who would complain that during deer season, their whole job was picking hair out of deer meat being butchered. These were the jobs relegated to the non-hunters. Non-hunters by choice or by age (or in some backwards families, by gender). When i first butchered, I was expecting to have to spend a bunch of time doing the same. However, the way my mentor taught me (oddly, a younger fella than myself (me mid to late thirties at the time) in a way that must really negate hair.
First thing he told me when skinning: "We are not a hair picking family. When your meat gets to the table, it better not have any hair."
He then showed ght me how he skins the deer. Following those instructions, I really don't have any problem with hair once all the quarters and cutoffs get to the table. His method is never using the knife more than once. Deer hangs by the head/top of neck. The one cut that is made is a radius cut around the neck making sure that the cut is at a slight upward angle. This angle is so that the grain of the hair can be parted in a way to get to the skin, and the very least amount of hair is severed during the radius cut. The whole skin is then peeled off. Even if the deer is cold a few days, it's really not that hard. A nice curved skinning knife and occasionally some vice grips/channel locks is all thats needed. For stubborn hides, I'll lower the deer so I can step on the already peeled portion of the hide, and raise it back up to add tension to the hide. 9/10 this isn't needed though. Hides take, maybe 10 minutes to remove.
The only other cut on the hide would have been in the field during field dressing. So all that hair would be gone during transport and handling before it gets hanging and if any is still around, it's in the inner carcass where the guts used to be.
Ian
Notorious member
Good method. I was taught to always slit the hide from the back side, running two fingers under the hide and the blade of a drop-point knife between them. Only works when the hide is still fresh. split up the legs and peel down around the head. Works on the ground as well as hanging by the rear hocks if you keep the carcass on the clean side of the hide. Also, I age the quarters in a refrigerator and when processing the first thing to do is carve/peel the dried, smelly outer layer of silver off, so any stray hairs get gone with that.
CWLONGSHOT
Well-Known Member
I remember a propane torch to singe errant hairs off the carcass. It simply a non issue now guess it was a learning curve but we really rarely have that problem.
I normally tan the hides, so once the initial cuts are made I punch or pull the hide off. Hair is never a problem, and the knife edge lasts longer.
One time we were going to convert 6 pigs to sausage. I went over early and got a head start. When the others showed up, I was skinning the last one and the father of one of my friends started laughing. He said in all his years of on-farm butchering, he'd never seen anyone field dress and fillet a pig. But it was good sausage!
One time we were going to convert 6 pigs to sausage. I went over early and got a head start. When the others showed up, I was skinning the last one and the father of one of my friends started laughing. He said in all his years of on-farm butchering, he'd never seen anyone field dress and fillet a pig. But it was good sausage!
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richhodg66
Well-Known Member
I'd be interested in hearing more about how you tan the hides when you get a minute.
richhodg66
Well-Known Member
For you guys who hang them for a week like I hear about, I've been wondering. My usual routine when I do this is to get it dressed, back to the house, skinned, quartered and in a big ice chest I have, then ice it all down and get to cutting and packaging, usually takes a few days of working in the evenings between work and when I get sleepy. I have one in the ice chest now, it got up to about 50 yesterday, but still everything ewas covered in ice. That has to be colder than a refrigerator, but not frozen, obviously. Seems like this would be accomplishing the same thing as hanging the deer if I understand it correctly?
Dimner
Named Man
I was about to try tounge once.... then when I found directions I realized how much time and prep it takes. In the past humans used everthing we could from our animals, even if the effort and prep was extensive. Nowadays, in my urban life it just doesn't make sense. Tripe was another one of those dishes that just took too much time/effort vs reward.
Deer heart however... thats well worth the time. Thread from backstrap sinew, also worth it. Brains for tanning, check.
Oh and so, a quick question for all you tenderloin lovers. I'm talking about the ones on the gut cavity side of the animal. Why does everyone love those? Perhaps it's a thing where I hunt, but they taste like exploded acorns and what not. I always feed that meat to my dog. I have had so many people gasp when I say I don't eat the tenderloin. I get that it's Uber tender, but so are brains?
Deer heart however... thats well worth the time. Thread from backstrap sinew, also worth it. Brains for tanning, check.
Oh and so, a quick question for all you tenderloin lovers. I'm talking about the ones on the gut cavity side of the animal. Why does everyone love those? Perhaps it's a thing where I hunt, but they taste like exploded acorns and what not. I always feed that meat to my dog. I have had so many people gasp when I say I don't eat the tenderloin. I get that it's Uber tender, but so are brains?
Dimner
Named Man
I think the only difference between what I do and the ice chest might be air circulation? I have no idea if that matters. But Nov 15 (gun season in MI) through the 30th, there is always good weather for hanging for 5 days. I do it in my garage.
We have an early antlerless weekend that is somewhere around Sept 10th. Over the summer, I always get excited thinking about hunting that weekend. But 2 days before the weekend in Sept I always give up on the notion. Deer hunting in 75 degrees is just not my kind of fun. I feel for you guys that are always racing a timer once that deer drops in the woods.