Meat Processing

[Atom Smasher]

Where do you guys go for processing your game? Local butcher? Do it yourself? I'm hoping to get my first deer this season in the Austin, TX area and I've never had to process game before. Do you all just quarter it and keep it on ice?

I'm a big fan of deer jerky myself, is it costly to get deer processed into jerky? I miss being a kid and not having to worry about any of this.

 

[newfalguy101]

I do my own cutting. My "system" is as follows:

Kill Bambi
hang field dressed Bambi ( 2-3 days depending on temp)
skin Bambi ( let hang 1 more day, depending on temp of course)
Quarter Bambi ( put in fridge in trash bags )
spend the next three evenings processing the quarters into steaks/roasts/burger then vacpack steaks and roasts
grind burger and vacpack

Around here, having jerky made is IMO rather expensive, making it yourself with a dehydrator, cheap!!

 

[horsemen61]

I do it all my self . One time my dad paid someone and the deer we had very meticulously field dressed came back dirty and he cut in a laarge amount of hamburger which was real greasy :banghead: So ever since ive done it myself I am my own qc

 

[wyohome]

I hang them up, cut out the tenderloins, then cut them up when we have time. I usually wait until we have a few warm days, as they are generally frozen. We make a few roasts, cut the backstraps into 8 inch pieces, grind the rest. Some is mixed with pork and turned into summer sausage which I smoke with applewood.

 

[rondog]

There's actually some good videos on YouTube about processing deer. Watch 'em and save 'em.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

I do my own cutting. My "system" is as follows:

Kill Bambi
hang field dressed Bambi ( 2-3 days depending on temp)
skin Bambi ( let hang 1 more day, depending on temp of course)
Quarter Bambi ( put in fridge in trash bags )
spend the next three evenings processing the quarters into steaks/roasts/burger then vacpack steaks and roasts
grind burger and vacpack

Around here, having jerky made is IMO rather expensive, making it yourself with a dehydrator, cheap!!

What he said with one exception. Garbage bags are often treated with a chemical to make them unatractive to dogs. I transport in mutton/cheese cloth.

It is intimidating to process your own for the first time. Once quartered you can do the following;

1. Remove backstraps, makes the best jerky but I prefer them as cooking meat. I cut them into cutlets and weight them out into meal sized packs for my wife and I. If you want to get exotic and you have a meatsaw then you can leave the backstraps in place and convert this portion into venison chops or a saddle of venison.
2. Shoulders can be kept whole as roasts or there is meat to be had for jerky, the balance gets ground.
3. Neck, can be deboned and you can make a stuffed roll from it or use the meat for grinding or cut with a bandsaw for use in a dutch oven or as a stew etc.
4. Ribs and flank, I trim the meat between the ribs and then the rest of the carcass is trimmed for ground meat.
5. The legs can be kept as roasts or deboned and cut into jerky. Normally turn the legs into jerky.

All the offcuts are kept and used for ground meat, burgers, sausage etc.

Good luck, watch these video's to get and idea.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tudPGNL9LK0

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j1rsP0VRfw

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODKNpzBe1e4

They talk of there being 4th part but there are not. Hope you can understand the broad Scottish accent, kinda like Braveheart Butchering. Very good instructional videos.

My DIY jerky maker.



with the lid on and the two 80mm PC fans.



Generally takes 3/4 days depending on how thick you cut the jerky. We don't like ours bone dry and try remove about 40% of the moisture throught natural dry by the fans. Note that the fans have since had a fine meash shield fitted on to stop flies from entering in the event of a power outage. My fans are also 12V for use when in the field as well.

My mincer, Treespan No 22, it is perfect if not a little expensive. Busy making a sausage stuffer.



You will need some good sharp knives, the most important being a deboning knife and a nice very large cutting board.

Good luck.

 

[Bobson]

Great thread.

Unfortunately I've never yet harvested anything bigger than rabbits as an adult, so I haven't had to decide how to do it. That said, it's an easy decision for me - DIY. I grew up butchering pigs in the winter at home, and we always did everything ourselves. It was a long day of all of us pitching in as a family. Last year my in-laws butchered a pig themselves. I live much closer to them than to my own folks these days, and I went by and got my hands dirty. It can be overwhelming at first but it certainly isn't rocket science - just time consuming. I bet those videos would help out a lot for a first-timer.

Good luck.

 

[RyanM]

For making jerky, I'd recommend watching this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYS_SJV0XVk

Buy some dehydrator tray liners and stick that in between the furnace filters, per this later episode: http://youtu.be/wLCmxKs4oXU?t=1m13s

Infinitely cheaper and better tasting than buying a dehydrator, since most of those things get hot enough to partially cook the meat. Yuck. Though if you do it ALton Brown's way, there's a very real risk of making your curtains, carpet, and furniture permanently smell like meat if you do it indoors. Have the fan facing out through a window, and keep an eye out for raccoons trying to climb up to it. You may also drive every dog within a 5 mile radius completely insane.

Andrew's rig looks like a much less aromatic alternative, though it'd be much slower.

 

[Patocazador]

I do mine but don't grind any into burger. I tried it a few times and had too much gristle, fat etc. in it. I cut steaks and roasts and use the decent leftovers as stew meat for chili.

 

[CDW4ME]

After more than 20 years of taking deer to a butcher, I'm doing it myself this year.
Last year my son shot a deer on a Sunday evening and I couldn't get a butcher to open and put it in the cooler for me; fortunately it was just above freezing that night.
I had been lucky for a long time, this year I'm taking luck out.

 

[buck460XVR]

I've been processing my own deer for over 40 years. Lots of videos, Google and YouTube instructions available. You'll learn as you go along. Even if you mess up, you still have plenty of stew/stir-fry meat and meat to grind. The cost of a good meat grinder is about what it costs to get one or two deer processed. Makin' jerky and sausage is the easy part.

 

[Bobson]

So what's with hanging the meat for a couple days? I mean, I assume that helps make the meat tender? How low does the temperature need to be for this to be safe?

Also, why is this not necessary for cultivated animals? Like I said, we butchered a few pigs on the farm in my teens, but never hung any. We just killed em and went straight to processing the meat the same day, and everything was always great.

 

[tnxdshooter]

So what's with hanging the meat for a couple days? I mean, I assume that helps make the meat tender? How low does the temperature need to be for this to be safe?

Also, why is this not necessary for cultivated animals? Like I said, we butchered a few pigs on the farm in my teens, but never hung any. We just killed em and went straight to processing the meat the same day, and everything was always great.

The longer you let the meat hang/age the more tender, juicy, and flavorful it becomes. For example when we have freezer beefs killed for our customers and our selves they let the carcass hang 14 days minimum before cutting.

Sent from my mind using ninja telepathy.

 

[wyohome]

Beef is usually hung for a couple of weeks at 35F or so. My deer sometimes hang for a month or so in the shop...but it is cold.

 

[der Teufel]

So what's with hanging the meat for a couple days? I mean, I assume that helps make the meat tender? How low does the temperature need to be for this to be safe?

Also, why is this not necessary for cultivated animals? Like I said, we butchered a few pigs on the farm in my teens, but never hung any. We just killed em and went straight to processing the meat the same day, and everything was always great.

You should not 'hang' hogs. The fat in the meat tends to go rancid quickly. For ungulates however (deer, cows, elk, etc.) keeping the meat at around 35°F for about a week tends to make the meat more tender, although I don't really know the mechanism that's at work. I don't shoot deer, only hogs, so I've never looked into this topic very closely.

 

[Bobson]

Interesting. Guess that explains why I've never seen it practiced though. Thanks.

 

[fragout]

I have always done it myself, and also for other family members, but the one who shot it must help, as my plan is to teach all of them how.

Very interesting thread.

 

[Doc7]

Does hanging it outside work? I can't imagine a way to get a few straight days of 35F, in my NJ and PA homes a 7 day span that included 35 F would probably also have a 20F and a 50F period.

 

[hipoint]

you can age meat in a big cooler as well. Not quite as good as dry aging it, but if you keep the drain open and keep putting bags of ice through it for a few days, it'll do a pretty decent job of washing the blood out too.

Butcher that thing yourself, it's a skill everyone should learn and add to that, if you take it to a deer processor, most of them just weigh the deer and then give you x amount of meat in return. It may or may not be from the deer you shot... Meaning if you make a nice clean kill and it dies quickly, the meat is usually alot better than a gutshot deer that has been tracked for 6 hours...

Get one of those "hooked" skinning knives, the first deer I ever killed, I put a knife right into it's stomach and deer vomit exploded all into my face and mouth... NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE.. thank god it was in the back yard so I had a hose ready! The next bit of advice I can give is this, bleed the deer out first, then skin the deer. Remove ALL the meat you possibly can by removing muscle groups (very little knife work if done properly), THEN when you have pretty much a skeleton and a torso, gut it and get the rest of the meat. That way if you puncture the bladder or kidneys, you will not spoil the meat with urine... This is a GREAT method for cleaning a deer... Don't waste the belly meat or the rib meat, get every little scrap. I saved all the little tiny scraps once and got 15 pounds of ground meat from it. Oh, and those cheapie little meat grinders work just fine for the money.

**edit**
have to add one thing, inflamatory or not... You killed that thing, show it the respect it deserves by getting your hands dirty, otherwise you might as well shoot something on a video game and then go to a grocery store.

 

[flipajig]

I cut and grind all my own and have done for several years in Texas you have one thing going agenst you and that is heat.
After you make your shot you start the prosessing. We just moved from Texas just up the road from you in Belton after making the shot I gutted the animal and skinned it as soon as possible and get it washed down as soon as you can.
I had a old refrigerator that I hung all my meat in all my trim meat went in a non sented garbage bags the hind quarters and sholders were hung by hooks or by pices of cord.
Be shoure to wash or cut out all blood shot meat.
Another way to cool your meat is in Ice chests raise them so that they are able to drain you don't want your meat just sitting in water
I would let it hang for about 3 days then debone and cut my steaks ,roasts grind my burger
For Venison burger I mixed beef fat in it at a 10 to 15%.
So one to one and a half lbs of fat to ten lbs so venison.
For sausage I mixed it at 50-50 with pork but roasts work very well
I also spiced every thing before I grind you get a better mix with your spice.
For Jerkey I use a mix of spice that I get from Temple Tx. And add Shoure cure or Pink Cure you have to be careful useing this to much and you can burn your meat it's basically soudim nitrate. I cut my strips about 3/16 thick season and smoke with Misquite chips or dust off my band saw 30 min of smoke is all you need small pices of meat don't need a lot of smoke you can over smoke it with much more than that.
I kept my smoker right at 170 to 180 degrees until done.
For summersausage snack Styx you need to cook it at the same temp until you reach a internal temp of 160'
I hope that I've helped.
Flip

 

[RyanM]

Dunno how fast deer dry ages, but beef needs to age a minimum of 2 weeks to become more tender. About 2-4 weeks is the age the vast majority of steakhouses use. Over 4 weeks and the flavor starts to change considerably. Under 2 weeks and nothing happens except the outer layers of the meat dry out and need to be cut off.

Just hanging a deer for a few days is probably doing nothing for the meat.

 

[jack44]

I do all my processing don't trust butchers to give me the same deer I brought in and besides I know just how clean my place and me are.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I do the vast majority of mine. I quarter and put in an icechest there at camp. The backstraps generally get eaten there at camp. Once home, most of the hams get cut into steaks.

The shoulders get de-boned and cubed up. At the end of season, all of the shoulder meat and the parts of the hams that don't get made into steaks go to the butcher to be turned into jalepeno/cheddar summer sausage and breakfast sausage. That's the only part that someone else does.

 

[brainwake]

1. Kill deer
2. Hang deer 2-3 days if temp allows. (4 ideal) (less than 40 degrees)
3. Skin
4. quarter, cut loins, shoulders
5. Toss into ice chest and carry to kitchen.
6. Wife and mother in-law butcher into meal size chunks
7. run vacuum sealer and toss into freezer.

It helps to have a country girl for a wife.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

I cut up probably 50-100 deer a year. For one thing i dont have time to hang them. they get cut up the next morning. IVe heard all the wives tales. Hang them by the neck, hang them upside down, Skin them and hang them, let them age for 3 days, 3 weeks ect. Bottom line is ive seen none of this help a thing. A deer shot cleanly and not gut shot and chased will taste just as good if you cut the back strap out of it warm and cook it as it will if it hangs for any ammount of time. Hanging and aging beef is done to break down the fats marbled in the meat. Also beef is aged under stricted regulated conditions and not many have a walk in cooler. Hanging it from a tree in the back yard isnt controled aging. Its rotting. Venison has to fat marbled in the meat. Do what you want and argue it if you want but this isnt my first rodeo and ive tried it all and anymore dont like rotting (ageing) my venison.