Deer butchering, who does their own?

[Winelover]

Traditionally, we marinate and grill the inner loins for X-mass Eve dinner, along with a grilled extra large shrimp............like 6-8 per pound.

Taste is dependent on how careful you are in field dressing your deer. As is, what you shot the deer with and where. If you contaminate them with guts, stomach material and or urine...................I would expect them to be nasty. Most of mine are archery killed with heart or lung shots. Best case scenario is to remove them, as soon as possible, cause they have a tendence to dry out.

 

[RBHarter]

We always treated the tender loins the same as back strap .

We used to strip out all of the sinew but it was because it balled up in the grinder blades . I had "better" aka sharper grinders for the last 4-5 . I steak everything I don't grind for burger . Roasts are hard to do from deer for 6 and more .

 

[Ian]

Aging quarters on ice is pretty near ideal if you can't hang the intact, skinned carcass in a locker or stand the quarters cut-end-down on wire racks in a refrigerator. Ice in an ice chest works best when you can keep the water drained off (leave the tap open) and add fresh ice/flip the meat once a day, but I've eaten a lot of waterlogged venison too and it's fine.

Exotics, particularly the antelope varieties, benefit greatly from an even longer age under controlled conditions. By "even longer" I mean a crazy amount of time like 30-45 days at 36⁰F. The meat is basically rotten by then but safe to eat if done right and the effects of the microbes having gone through several evolutions in the decomposition process leaves some really fine eating left for humans.

 

[JustJim]

I'd be interested in hearing more about how you tan the hides when you get a minute.

Pretty much normal old-fashioned braintanning. If you like I can point you to some good references, with options to using brains (thanks to prion disease, rational folks are a bit cautious about that).

 

[JWFilips]

When I think of aged meat I always remember the movie "Shogun" with Richard Chamberlin An English guy that went to Japan to be a Ninja warrior! Shot a pheasant and hung it on his shack to age! It was hanging for about a week when a Japanese women buried it! and he was very angry!

Am I showing my age here?

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

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?

Your not supposed to marinate them in the stomach juices...

We call them belly loins and Ill often remove them after gutting and bag along with the Heart. Other wise as soon as Im back to camp/home and settled. They are shooters delight with AM eggs!! Yes, they dry out and shrivel to uselessness in a few days. They are fork tender and succulent.

I have never ever found distaste with a belly loin ever out of hundreds eaten. You gotta be doing something wrong. I defineately DEFINITELY find a difference between a corn fed SUMMER DEER and mountain, rutting November Buck! As well as a yearling to any ol timer Buck or Doe. But all
Of them are enjoyed.

CW

 

[Ian]

Slice thin, salt and pepper, light pan sear in bacon fat, yum! I have no experience with deer tenderloins outside of Texas so there could be regional forage that affect taste of which I'm unaware. As was said, field dressing probably has a lot to with foul tenderloins.

 

[L Ross]

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?

Oh, no, the inner tenders are, are, whaaah, the most precious bites of the deer. Back home we would wash up from butchering up to our wrists. Mom would pan fry tenderloin, I ate it with ketchup and buttered white bread, and thought I died and went to Heaven. My Uncle Bub would magically show up just in time to get a plater full. I think he smelled it from his house 7 miles away the hound.

My wife deals with them in a little more sophisticated manner, but I'd be plenty happy to have a half a plate full of tenderloin, a puddle of Hunts, and a slice of Wonder bread. My sarcastic response would be if they tasted like exploded acorns perhaps they were contaminated while gutting? Marinated in rutting buck piss wouldn't be that great either. Or if the knife blade touched the hocks. That used to happen back in the old days of slitting the hind leg to insert the locking metal tags Conservation Depts. loved decades ago.

 

[Dimner]

Well I guess I'll try them again, just for you guys. All my deer are lung/heart shots with an occasional oddly quartering away magic bullet that gets in the neck. I've never gut shot a deer, so nothing is getting contaminated. I mostly hunt with 30 cals. 30wcf, 308 and 30-06.

As for field dressing, I use the split pelvis method. Nothing is punctured. No stomac, intestines, or anything ruptured when using this method. Fingertip rides/guards the point of the drop point blade that is used to make the cut from stem to stern. When the pelvis is split correctly all the innards just kind of 'bloop' right on out once you have severed the connecting tissue to the chest/gut cavity.

I've tried tenderloins from does and bucks and even on small does, taste is just not right. All my deer have been Northern Michigan woods deer. I don't generally hunt on land that close to large amounts of farming. Every single other bit of the deer meat is tasty as can be.

You all have had the same reaction as everyone I have talked to in person about this. But me and my hunting partner and anyone I serve venison to just have never thought they were all that special. Knowing the rave reviews on tenderloins, we even made a special effort to cook them up on a particularly nice buck I got about 4 years. Cooked them 2-3 hours after I shot the buck. Tenderloins were ..meh. The heart was excellent!

I'll see what I can do this weekend with muzzle loading season and perhaps show some pics if I can land a nice size deer. It's a bit hard to find decent sized opportunities this time of the year, at least where I hunt. They have been running scared for their lives for a good month now with all these weird humans shooting at them. Many will no longer move around in anything but thick foliage this late in the season. Add no snow to be able to stalk, and it makes for an unhappy hunter.

 

[Winelover]

I hunted Michigan's thumb area and just northwest of Midland (Beaverton) area. Couldn't tell the difference between the taste/quality of the venison.

 

[Dimner]

No luck tonight. Woods was very drippy, for lack of a better term. Nary a mammal in sight. All I saw were the pair of a10s (cobra) flying overhead doing training maneuvers. No mini guns this time. I do enjoy a good mini gun brrrrrrtttt. I don't know why, but it always makes me chipper.

 

[RicinYakima]

No luck tonight. Woods was very drippy, for lack of a better term. Nary a mammal in sight. All I saw were the pair of a10s (cobra) flying overhead doing training maneuvers. No mini guns this time. I do enjoy a good mini gun brrrrrrtttt. I don't know why, but it always makes me chipper.

Red fire out the front of a Cobra meant you might live till morning.

 

[L Ross]

No luck tonight. Woods was very drippy, for lack of a better term. Nary a mammal in sight. All I saw were the pair of a10s (cobra) flying overhead doing training maneuvers. No mini guns this time. I do enjoy a good mini gun brrrrrrtttt. I don't know why, but it always makes me chipper.

I thought A10s were t Wart Hogs. One day late last Summer my buddy Jimmy and I were trolling on Castle Rock Lake. We were between Truax Field, Volk Field, and Fort McCoy and there were planes in the air everywhere. Even a couple of enormous sonic booms. But the coolest thing I have seen since I saw two Corsairs over the Wisconsin River headed to EAA in Oshkosh, was a small formation of A10 Wart Hogs at low elevation that flew right over us as we fished. We were both just in awe.

 

[richhodg66]

The A-10 is a wonderful airplane. If you read about all the crazy stuff the Air Force tried for CAS in Vietnam, then afterwards, they sat down and really thought it through and solved all the problems and we have the A-10. After years in the military with things which were fielded that had inherent problems we had to figure out work arounds for, it's pleasing that someone really thought one through and got it right.

I was an artillery officer my 24 years which means also a fire support/targeting guy, and the word we got a few years ago when the Air Force was really trying to stream line to as few platforms as possible, figuring the F-16 could do it all and they planned to mothball the A-10, I was told the powers that be in the Army said "play around if you want, but if you do this, the Army will procure those A-10s, start training pilots and take over the CAS mission". Wouldn't surprise me if it's true.

That said, smart bomb guidance systems have about made it obsolete, at least in the kind of warfare we're in now. It's usually done from real high altitude with precision stuff and the bad guys have no idea there's an airplane in the area until they're dying.

 

[Dimner]

The A-10 is a wonderful airplane. If you read about all the crazy stuff the Air Force tried for CAS in Vietnam, then afterwards, they sat down and really thought it through and solved all the problems and we have the A-10. After years in the military with things which were fielded that had inherent problems we had to figure out work arounds for, it's pleasing that someone really thought one through and got it right.

I was an artillery officer my 24 years which means also a fire support/targeting guy, and the word we got a few years ago when the Air Force was really trying to stream line to as few platforms as possible, figuring the F-16 could do it all and they planned to mothball the A-10, I was told the powers that be in the Army said "play around if you want, but if you do this, the Army will procure those A-10s, start training pilots and take over the CAS mission". Wouldn't surprise me if it's true.

That said, smart bomb guidance systems have about made it obsolete, at least in the kind of warfare we're in now. It's usually done from real high altitude with precision stuff and the bad guys have no idea there's an airplane in the area until they're dying.

An artillary and air gunnery range is where I do most of my hunting, thus the A10's (cobra) dancing around.

Just a clarification though, I don't think of them as A10 warthogs anymore. Me and my friends always comment something like 'oh look, cobra is up there doing their training'

We are kids from the 80s. Gi Joe flew F14's Cobra flew A10's



I didn't end up getting anything during muzzle loader season. My normal blinds and setups had been hunted pretty hard this year. 8 deer taken from one area alone (that me and my friends know of), so pressure was pretty high. Friday/Saturday wind started really going crazy 20mph with 30+ gusts. That will cut through almost any reasonable hunting gear. Especially when one is trying to sit statue still for 4+ hours. So after a while later in the week I decided to call it quits. Still the late archery season happening until the 30th. However, if I had gotten another deer last week, what excuse would I have had to go out during christmas break?

 

[ScottM65]

 

[Missionary]

Our 1st orientation with the A-10 in Germany came in the fall of 73. We were at Baumholder for annual tank Gunnery. Was at "between ranges" maintanence day. Was at the motor pool when we were all loaded on trucks and driven out to some field.
Some Air Force pilot had been testing a new A-10. Was doing a loop and never got it pulled out before impact.
We were there to pick up any metal pieces and "other remains" larger than a sugar cube. Walked a circle 50 meters from the impact. 63 men, 2 feet apart in line. So the end of the line was at about 100 meters from impact. Our platoon was in the middle part of the line.
Found several metal parts that got "flagged" and left in place. Any metal with a number on it was special flagged, recorded, bagged and given to an Air Force person tailing our line. Took several hours to do the complete circle with random stops to keep the line "in line".

 

[smokeywolf]

Hope the pilot punched out in time.

OOPs. Just noticed this... and "other remains"

 

[blancoarch]

I butcher my own deer because i’m very particular about its final outcome. BTW, I treat my elk the same way. First, I hang them for at least two weeks on the deer and four weeks for the elk. I trim off the ribs and flanks after two to three days two keep them from getting too dry. I prefer to trim all the meat to separate the fat from it. I take the neck off to mix if I want to grind the trimmings for sausage. After the meat is aged, I cut the meat and separate all the muscle groups. I trim all the gristle, fat and silver skin off the muscles. Then all I have left are roasts and fillets. I don’t really care for roasts, so I cut them into steaks and chops. The trimmings and less desirable cuts go into the grind for sausage and burger. I mix about 15% beef fat for burger. I mix about 25% pork shoulder a 10% pork fat for sausage. I’ll roast some bones in the oven and then simmer them in a stock pot for broth. The shanks have a lot of sinew and gristle, so I’ll cut them about 1 1/2 inches thick and use them to make Osso Bucco. They are excellent and tender when cooked that way. It’s a bit of work, but the quality of the meat makes it worth while.

 

[dale2242]

I have always butchered my own game.
I was taught how at a young age.