Butchers
- Thread starter Creeker
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Ian
Notorious member
Backstraps and tenderloins typically are eaten before they spoil. The quarters are aged for 7-10 days at 38⁰ or until they start to stink, then deboned and cut into small steaks or roast meat and frozen. The rest is chunked up for stew meat and the sinewy stuff thrown away. I thought I was wasting a lot if meat by not grinding all the trimmings and tough shank bits but I did that one year and came up with two pounds of ground, not worth the effort. Sometimes I jerk the neck and shoulder meat, it depends on the size of the deer, where the wound is, and how much meat is on the carcass.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
Just as an aside. My wife wanted to make me a batch of venison stew. That is one of my all time favorite meals and goes back to hard times as a child. I'd never tell my Mom, but Sue's V-stew is the best I have ever eaten. Just a little more complex than my Mom's. A splash of red wine, some rutabagas, a bay leaf, some good garlic, in addition to the traditional potatoes, carrots, onions and celery.
So rummaging through the freezer yesterday Sue pulls out a package of stew meat. I looked at the date, November 2010! Well this oughta be interesting. She cooked it up today for my lunch and it was splendid. No off taste at all and I really paid attention.
Now we trim all, and I do mean all of the fat, wrap in plastic then in coated freezer paper. But that surprised, and pleased me.
My how things change. I flash back to the early to mid 60's. We always ran out of venison by Easter. My tiny little Mom would be leaning over the old chest freezer and would pull out a package and say, "Well that's the last package of deer." I wanted to cry.
So rummaging through the freezer yesterday Sue pulls out a package of stew meat. I looked at the date, November 2010! Well this oughta be interesting. She cooked it up today for my lunch and it was splendid. No off taste at all and I really paid attention.
Now we trim all, and I do mean all of the fat, wrap in plastic then in coated freezer paper. But that surprised, and pleased me.
My how things change. I flash back to the early to mid 60's. We always ran out of venison by Easter. My tiny little Mom would be leaning over the old chest freezer and would pull out a package and say, "Well that's the last package of deer." I wanted to cry.
RBHarter
West Central AR
Mulies are bigger than whitetail .... Having now butchered 3-4 of the latter and 20ish of the first . I strive for 2-4 roasts from the hams , steak up the the back strap and hams if they won't make 5-6# roasts . Neck roast if it will go 8# otherwise it gets halved and bagged for a beer tips gravy thing . We always kept heart , liver , skirts , diaphragm and rib meat . Save for the liver and heart all of that and the front quarters were ground . If the heart was wrecked it was ground also . Everything off the bones and as much of the fat as could be reasonably removed . The whitetails made me work for a rolled roast out of both hams and aside from the backstraps they were ground . It stays too warm here in the green with ticks still on them almost until Christmas for me to be interested in heart or liver .
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
We have a guy down the road that does butchering and vacuum packing. If one goes down this year, it's going to be large cuts and hamburg. I've got 2 hogs ready to do and we're working our way through 40 some Cornish Cross Rocks that are 7-10 lb bird ourselves. Most of the birds will be canned, a first on a large scale for us. Beef is hard to come by here unless you want to pay big $$$. Later this winter the price will likely fall as people get short on hay...and everyone is short on hay this year.
Rockydoc
Well-Known Member
Steak from the backstraps. I like to make jerky. I used to slice strips from muscle groups to cure then dry. That is labor intensive. Instead, I now grind the meat, cure it and load it into a jerky injector(for lack of a better term) and express flat strips onto the screens of my dehydrator.
Some of the coarse ground uncured meat is vacuum packed for chili.
I don’t save the internal organs. The tenderloins on these small Florida deer aren’t worth the trouble of handling the guts, for no more meat than you get. I don’t open the body cavity at all.
The Florida deer season is long, Thanksgiving weekend then from the first Saturday of December to the end of February, and the bag limit is very generous, so there is a lot of meat available.
Some of the coarse ground uncured meat is vacuum packed for chili.
I don’t save the internal organs. The tenderloins on these small Florida deer aren’t worth the trouble of handling the guts, for no more meat than you get. I don’t open the body cavity at all.
The Florida deer season is long, Thanksgiving weekend then from the first Saturday of December to the end of February, and the bag limit is very generous, so there is a lot of meat available.
oscarflytyer
Well-Known Member
I have always done my own. Until this year (last year's deer). I had a small buck and a yearling and son had a fat doe. Been cut up and vaccum sealed and frozen. Finally got it all to the processor. 1/3 sausage/ground/baloney. I like the processor's baloney and sausage. And just seem to run out of time to process my own these days.
Ian
Notorious member
I tend to cut the loins in half, wrap and freeze. Wife can make up her mind what she wants when thawed, chops or roast. Hinds get cut into 3-4 roasts, same deal decide whether steak of roast later. The larger packages keep better than cut up meat and it's faster to get the job done. All the rest goes into the grinder. We eat mostly hamburger type stuff anyway, chilly lasagne (sp) ect. Some years I'll go ahead and make up some summer sausage.
Tomme boy
Well-Known Member
You must not have seen the deer here in Iowa or Minnesota. Most does here avg 180lbs dressed. Big bucks go 275lbs dressed. Avg 200lbs.
I take out the tenderloins for my mother. Then the whole deer gets cut up for scrap. We have a place about 120 miles north of us that does an amazing job making sticks and sausage. Edgewood Meat Locker. They have over 50 kinds of brats you can have made. They are the biggest processor in Iowa, Ill, Wis area.
JWFilips
Well-Known Member
When I was hunting I never let a Butcher chop up my deer....I do not know anything about butchering except you do not need a butcher to cut up good meat! I always was told "you need a butcher or you will ruin the meat" ( Yeah Right!) I de-boned all my deer and saved every part of it as good meat .. and the bones for broth, And the sinews for sewing threads! Do not think I ever had any meat that needed grinding up in to ground meat and I saved all of the fat for Suet or tallow...Birds got the former & I got the latter for lube! nothing was wasted and I bark tanned the hides and Put the legs up for Gun Racks.... I called all of this "the pleasure" after the hunt. Oh yes I did grind some meat to make sausage every so often.... & I would have used the brains except I never bought it to that so called "brain Tan " Leather ! Which was only an oily dressed hide that was smoked! I alwasy preferred the English leather (and so did the native Americans or should I dare say Indians!)
fiver
Well-Known Member
tenderloins are either eaten in camp that night or if going back to the house maybe the next night.
the deer are skinned and hung for 10-14 days then pulled down and cut up.
back straps come out to make bacon wrapped rounds and frozen, those scraps are cut into strips to make fajita's.
a few steaks are cut off the back legs, and the rest is ground and mixed with beef fat at a 5-1 ratio.
if it's a bigger buck then we might do a couple of neck roasts.
I will usually go drop the skeletons off in a couple of places in the canyons for the magpies and raven's to pick over when I head up bird hunting, it doesn't take them long.
the deer are skinned and hung for 10-14 days then pulled down and cut up.
back straps come out to make bacon wrapped rounds and frozen, those scraps are cut into strips to make fajita's.
a few steaks are cut off the back legs, and the rest is ground and mixed with beef fat at a 5-1 ratio.
if it's a bigger buck then we might do a couple of neck roasts.
I will usually go drop the skeletons off in a couple of places in the canyons for the magpies and raven's to pick over when I head up bird hunting, it doesn't take them long.
Tomme boy
Well-Known Member
One thing I see a lot is people not getting the glands out of the hind legs. Most do not know they are even there and wonder why the meat taste funny sometimes.
Here is a good article on cutting up the hind quarters and shows the gland and where it is. https://www.tasteofthewoods.com/blog/diy-easy-butchering-deer-hind-quarter/2018
Here is a good article on cutting up the hind quarters and shows the gland and where it is. https://www.tasteofthewoods.com/blog/diy-easy-butchering-deer-hind-quarter/2018
fiver
Well-Known Member
larger animals are more efficient at retaining heat.
it isn't a coincidence that deer are bigger in the North and smaller in the south it works like that for other animals like rabbits and Birds too.
about the only thing it doesn't work for is large mouth Bass, and Black Bears they just keep on eating and not hibernating.
it isn't a coincidence that deer are bigger in the North and smaller in the south it works like that for other animals like rabbits and Birds too.
about the only thing it doesn't work for is large mouth Bass, and Black Bears they just keep on eating and not hibernating.
Rally
NC Minnesota
We make at least two roasts out of the front shoulders, then as many small steaks as we can get. The reason is I like to nuke small steaks in the microwave for ?Traveling Sandwiches". I take small frozen steaks, put them in a shallow bowl then cover them with water. Nuke them for 3 minutes, pour off the water, and nuke a couple more minutes. Flavor to taste, just salt and pepper for me, then put between a wheat English muffin. I usually put a couple in my pocket in a ziploc bag and eat whatever time I feel like it. If I'm on the snowmobile I wrap them in aluminum foil and put them on the exhaust manifold of the snowmobile to warm them up some. Yep they are tough, and dry, but they are not messy and last several days in a coat pocket. Some times I put jelly on them if I'm eating them in the truck on a long drive to my traps.
Last year a buddy of mine gave me about a half pound of a concoction he came up with. It's not really jerky, nor Pemican, but in small round pieces about 3" in diameter. It's ground venison, walnuts, oatmeal and several types of dried fruit. It's all mixed together then pressed into the round discs, and breaks apart fairly easily. He makes two kinds one done in a dehydrator, one in a small smoker. Both are very good, and I intend to make a bunch this year if time allows. We have quite a few Apples this year I'd like to try in the recipe.
I usually hang at least one spine with ribs intact, for the birds to pick at over winter, and the rest of the bones are trapping bait.
Last year a buddy of mine gave me about a half pound of a concoction he came up with. It's not really jerky, nor Pemican, but in small round pieces about 3" in diameter. It's ground venison, walnuts, oatmeal and several types of dried fruit. It's all mixed together then pressed into the round discs, and breaks apart fairly easily. He makes two kinds one done in a dehydrator, one in a small smoker. Both are very good, and I intend to make a bunch this year if time allows. We have quite a few Apples this year I'd like to try in the recipe.
I usually hang at least one spine with ribs intact, for the birds to pick at over winter, and the rest of the bones are trapping bait.
I have everything I need to butcher and wrap my venison.
The meat is boned out.
Steaks for pan fry is the first order.
Then comes stew/fajita meat that won`t make steaks.
The rest is ground.
I have one more deer to cut tonight.
I have cut 8 deer total this year. 1 for a friend and the rest for the family.
I have them wrap their own.
I have 50+ lbs. of grind meat have ground and packaged.
I will have 5# of pork fat added.
The meat is boned out.
Steaks for pan fry is the first order.
Then comes stew/fajita meat that won`t make steaks.
The rest is ground.
I have one more deer to cut tonight.
I have cut 8 deer total this year. 1 for a friend and the rest for the family.
I have them wrap their own.
I have 50+ lbs. of grind meat have ground and packaged.
I will have 5# of pork fat added.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
Very interesting to hear what other hunters do with their venison.
I'll share one little thing. When we make back loin chops, we marinate them over night in the fridge with 1 part soy sauce to 3 parts Italian dressing. Pan seared or on the grill, cooked fast and a little on the rare side of medium rare.
We can quite a bit of our venison and grind a lot of burger with no fatty added domestic meat. It's the fat that limits storage life. We notice that in our sausage making. Best to eat up the sausage in 6 months if you can.
I'll share one little thing. When we make back loin chops, we marinate them over night in the fridge with 1 part soy sauce to 3 parts Italian dressing. Pan seared or on the grill, cooked fast and a little on the rare side of medium rare.
We can quite a bit of our venison and grind a lot of burger with no fatty added domestic meat. It's the fat that limits storage life. We notice that in our sausage making. Best to eat up the sausage in 6 months if you can.