Home Butchering Kit (Contents?)

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Chuck R.

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So, lets pretend that regardless of choosing the wrong; gun/caliber, optic, camouflage, stand location, etc. you manage to tag out. You're also one of those DIY, self sufficient types, that process their own game (note did not mention cheap/frugal)

What's in your kit?

Over the years I've accumulated:

Victorinox knife set (butchering), sharp, neat tool roll, and flexible boning knifes
Game shears (squirrels and birds)
Wyoming saw
Gambrel & pully (2)
Cabela's Grinder, got it on sale, will probably look at upgrading...someday
Meat slicer
Dehydrator
Vacuum Sealer and bag rolls
Skinning tongs, really not needed, but they work pretty well
Meat tubs
Big honking cutting board

Normally I dress on site to save the drag...unless it's on my place then I use the tractor bucket to hang and dress. Tenderloins come out then and there. I then hang them in my barn (temps permitting) for a few days, Then skin and quarter in the the barn and do my cutting on my "dog wash station" in the garage. Basically a raised shower platform with hot/cold running water.

Any other cool ideas/gadgets???
 
Your kit is more advanced than mine. I have the same boning set. Those Victorinox knives (one of mine is still the old Austrian Forschner make) are all business and low cost! Always my first recommendation. I have also an Ontario butcher/breaking knife, and a Wustoff slicing/carving knife that gets borrowed from the kitchen specifically for slicing steaks and chops. A Solingen upswept skinning blade and Mora field knife for general cutting/skinning and quartering round out the cutlery. I've never used shears. I get by with a small folding all purpose field knife. I use a Henckles butcher steel and if an edge gets really bad, an antique sandstone/water bath hand wheel.

For a grinder I use the kitchenaid accessory that runs off the PTO.

I do not use a slicer, vacuum sealer or dehydrator. Rather butcher paper. Done properly, I find it superior. I have an antique paper dispenser and the LEM tape dispenser. My wife is an artist with the wrapping, I suck.

I set up my table with sawhorses and plywood in the garage. The plywood (OSB would work cheaper, but had the plywood) is covered with some old buthcher paper I have that the shine has worn off of. This is stapled to the plywood for a general working surface. I use 2x10ish roughsawn pine board scraps for rough cutting, boning out quarters etc. I have a home sawmill, and these are plentiful. I consider them disposable, and they are used once then tossed in the wood stove. Sanitized prior to use with Vinegar and water after a pressure wash. I also have a couple of old pull-out cutting boards scrounged at yard sales that are used for more refined cutting such as processing trim, loins, and steaks.

About the only "gadget" I have is an old stainless surgeon/medics probe. It is used to "map" the location of bones in quarters I am about to bone out. You can do the same with the tip of your boning knife, but the probe is more efficient.
 
My game processing kit consists of a pack of cheap hunting knives backed by a couple of good ones, and a Costco box a gallon ziplocs........

Of the stuff you've got listed the only thing I would probably add would be a sausage stuffing press, I generally found them to be easier to use than the grinders but that I suppose is personal preference.

Large scale smoker would be nice.... I still need to build one of those.
 
(note did not mention cheap/frugal)

What's in your kit?

Over the years I've accumulated:

Victorinox knife set (butchering), sharp, neat tool roll, and flexible boning knifes
Game shears (squirrels and birds)
Wyoming saw
Gambrel & pully (2)
Cabela's Grinder, got it on sale, will probably look at upgrading...someday
Meat slicer
Dehydrator
Vacuum Sealer and bag rolls
Skinning tongs, really not needed, but they work pretty well
Meat tubs
Big honking cutting board

Our processing “kit” is pretty much the same except we don’t exactly have a designated “set” of knives for butchering. Over the years, we’ve just accumulated different knives - some that work very well for cutting up game meat, and some that we know don’t work well at all for that task, so they get left in the “knife drawer” when we're butchering big game animals. Admittedly, we have not found the “perfect,” or even a “real good” fillet knife yet.
As slightly skilled woodworker, I’ve built a good many hardwood cutting boards (they make swell gifts, and people seem to appreciate getting them), so we always have one or two of them around. And for years, we’ve used my wife’s big KitchenAid mixer with the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for those jobs.
BTW, we like “frugal.”;) But “cheap” was the hand grinder that clamped to the table we tried to grind venison with one year. What a mess! We ended up taking our deer meat to a local butcher. Then we had to pay him for grinding it up - while we had an almost new, “cheap” hand grinder at home in the original box.:mad:
 
It’s about the same as what I have. But add a big commercial roll of butcher paper a few meat tubs & a large cutting board. I have processed all of my deer after the place I had do one of my deer messed it up bad.
 
Man, im slacking.
Vacuum sealer
Old hickory butcher knife
Hunting and fillet knives
Butcher paper
Plastic tubs

We are fortunate to have a generations old butcher shop just 10 miles away. They make great venison products and custom grind venison and pkg it. I cut the steaks and roasts that I want in the freezer, the rest goes to the butcher shop and gets ground and pkg or made into slim jims or venison summer sausage.
 
Man, im slacking.
Vacuum sealer
Old hickory butcher knife
Hunting and fillet knives
Butcher paper
Plastic tubs

We are fortunate to have a generations old butcher shop just 10 miles away. They make great venison products and custom grind venison and pkg it. I cut the steaks and roasts that I want in the freezer, the rest goes to the butcher shop and gets ground and pkg or made into slim jims or venison summer sausage.

I was feeling pretty good about my setup, right up until Rembrandt posted....

About the only "gadget" I have is an old stainless surgeon/medics probe. It is used to "map" the location of bones in quarters I am about to bone out. You can do the same with the tip of your boning knife, but the probe is more efficient.

I figured you guys would have some excellent kits and ideas!

A friend of mine has gotten into the sausage making, it goes well with his beer brewing hobby. He's 100% retired, so has the time. I've not ventured into it..yet. We'll see.
 
A friend of mine has gotten into the sausage making, it goes well with his beer brewing hobby. He's 100% retired, so has the time. I've not ventured into it..yet. We'll see.
Yea, he would be my friend too. Beer and sausage!
That reminds me of some important things that I forgot when listing my butchering tools....
20191124_135818.jpg a sawzall and a celebratory beer.
FYI...a hookblade utility knife is great for zipping the hide.
 
It seems EVERY good skinning, carving, cleaning knife I get, ends up in the kitchen drawer, because Wif likes them better than the fancy, smancy 24 PC kitchen knife, in the custom wooden block, that she HAD TO HAVE.


There are 2 things I use, that haven t been mentioned;
1 is a cleaver. Besides deer, we butcher our own hogs and cattle. Want to have some fun? Have a 2300# Angus Bull break a leg. Decided the best course of action was a freezer FULL of hamburger, except the tenderloins and ribeye.
2 is what has been the absolute best boning knife EVER. Go to a large pharmacy / drug store and buy scalpels. Relatively inexpensive, good quality steel and SHARP. Use them a few times and throw them away.
 
Over the years I've accumulated:...... Skinning tongs, really not needed, but they work pretty well

Help me out Chuck, you're one up on me....not sure I've ever heard of Skinning tongs? What are they an how do they work?
 
I'm pretty sure it was the west coast tribes, around what's currently CA, OR, and WA.

Probably due to a lack of ski ropes, the plains Indians, at least in KS, used skinning tongs fashioned from buffalo bones.
 
Made use of the processing kit yesterday on this:

myrWfSul.jpg

Shot him Sunday, quartered him out and made the banzai run home (11hrs). Got some sleep and then butchered him up yesterday morning. The other guys in the group took theirs to a processor, then hung around till tis morning to pick the meat up (2d day turn). Sometimes the DIY really pays off.

I did end up ordering a LEM "Jerky Gun" to add to the kit since there's a bit of burger.
 
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