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Golfsierra

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
First time processing Deer- Ive processed my chickens & Turkeys... This was much more fun,
it was very cool :)
still lots to learn, but did the best I could-
sharp knives... Its def a must!
still have a couple of bowls left to cut up in chunks...but left for work the weekend so will finish it up Sun or Monday ... Also N need a meat grinder for grounding...
some pics;
 

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Discussion starter · #6 ·
Get a table and break down each leg separately instead of leaving it hang. Seems like a lot of extra chasing and decreases the possibility of cutting yourself. IMO
get a vacuum machine.
Yup that makes sense... My impatience got the best of me-turning into edward scissor hands as the deer was swinging all over the place... Got a bit annoying after awhile... Lol
grinder n vacuum sealer is on the list!
 
There are a few ways to butcher a deer and as mentioned plenty of videos on youtube to help you out. I skin and quarter then break down the quarters on a stainless table I have just for that purpose. I will skin the deer and remove the head and hide, then take the front shoulders and neck meat off. If you pull out on the front leg/shoulder and start your knife in along the rib cage you will see how the shoulder will just peel away from the body. After the shoulder is coming loose I continue down the neck with the knife removing as much meat as possible (I skin down the neck quite a bit farther than you did on those deer). After the shoulders and neck are off I pull out the back straps and inner loins. If I plan on keeping ribs I will cut out the ribs at this point, most times I don't keep ribs. Then I will cut off the ribcage and spine just below the hind quarters so I don't have all the extra weight to work against. Then I take the knife and work in along the pelvis to the hip socket, cut the tendons holding the ball and socket together and work the tip of the knife around the pelvis to get the hind quarter loose. The first couple you do you will learn the bone structure of the pelvis and it gets easier as you become more familiar. I also use a gambrel or hooks that will hold the hind quarters so when I pull the first one off the pelvis I don't have to worry about the other one falling on the ground. After the first quarter is off I remove the pelvis from the other, cut off the lower leg sections with a meat saw then take everything to the table to break down into my cuts. You can also strip quite a bit of meat off the rib cage for grinding prior to taking it off as well if you don't plan on keeping the ribs.
 
very nice. as someone already mentioned i'd lay em down and quarter them. the quarters your not working on can be put into a cooler on ice. the process can as simple or not simple as you want. for me. backstraps and loins get fileted off. shoulders and rear legs removed. in my house we don't eat venison steaks...we prefer marbling and deer don't doesn't have it. so the large muscles are kept whole. I trim them up. they will be used for roasts(crockpot), jerky, bbq- pulled bbq version used venison instead of pork. couple of the large rear muscles I cut into cutlets. my boys favorite is fried cutlets. the rest is cubed for stew and the whats left is ground up. wife got me a grinder from kohls a few years ago it works great. the groundmeat is used for chili, sloppy joe, hamburger helper, and if I make snacks with the jerky gun. down here in the pines there aint much on the ribs and neck of these poine deer I don't mess with those parts too much. lol. good job and best of luck. Nick
 
Vacuum sealer is really not needed. Wrap the meat in saran wrap rolling it to push the air out.
Then wrap in the freezer paper. since there is no air it doesnt ever freezer burn.

WAY cheaper than vacuum bags.

As said much easier to work the legs seperate from the body.
Keep stew meat from the same areas of the animal instead of putting all stew meat from different spots together, as it cooks at different rates and has different toughness.
If you do that each pack will be more consistant and you wont end up with chewy pieces.

also IF you break the deer down to legs , loins and srap meat, then chill them in a fridge for 2-3 days you will find the meat is alot less bloody when you cut it.
venison blood is like chicken blood and is very rancid.
The less blood you have, and the less it sits in its own the blood the less gamey the meat will be.

Looks like you did a great job of removing the silver skin on most of the meat, That also makes a big difference in the end result

looks good for a first time cut [up]



.
 
We hang them by the head, skin down to the tail, then pull off both shoulders as beaverman described. To make this a little easier, I cut the lower legs off at the knee on all four legs. You could use a saw for this or just use a sturdy knife in the knee joint and apply a little pressure in the right direction. I prefer, and usually use, a knife. Once the shoulders are off, someone will start working on taking all the meat off the bone on a table specifically for this. We then take off the hams, again, as beaverman described. They go on the bench and get de-boned. I spend a lot of time taking off all the fat and silver skin I can, and it looks like you did that as well. That will make the meat taste much better.

After the meat is cleaned and de-boned, I take my knife and remove the backstraps. By this time, they should almost pull out with a little encouragement from your knife. Cut across the top, near the neck, then run your knife along the spine, right on the bones and "scrape" the loin off the bone. It should begin to pull down now towards the pelvis. Use you knife along the way but it should come out easily. Once at the pelvis, cut across and place on the table for cleaning. Again, all silver skin and fat removed.

While one of us is cleaning the straps, someone will be going over the carcass, removing the meat from the neck, and whatever else is left for the grinding pile. Vacuum sealers work nice but I found that wrapping the meat with cling wrap, then freezer paper actually holds it better in the freezer. The cling wrap will prevent air from getting to the surface of the meat, which is how you get freezer burn.

Get a few people together, tell some stories and have fun with it.
 
I've been a butcher most of my life. If you need any advice feel free to pm. I'm not on the site often but when I am, I'll respond. Always willing to show someone how to process if local.
 
I usually quarter the whole deer out .I start with tender loins ,than front shoulder ,loins in back , hind quarters , than neck and what ever I can trim off . I bag or wrap every thing in plastic and put in re fridge for 5 to 10 days at about 38 degrees and let age. I than take out and start cutting up my steaks mostly out of rear hinds and loins . The rest I grind with some chop meat or add beef fat. I use to make roasts and leave out for stew ,but we use a lot of chop meat so i grind a lot .
 
Looks like you did a decent job for a first timer. A lot of people are completely lost on the first time stuff.

I know I'm in the minority with how I work with deer when I'm lucky enough to get one, and it's been a few years but my simplified process is this -

I don't field dress a deer unless it's an extremely massive animal that I know I can't haul out of the woods by myself without trouble, or if I am too far into the woods and don't feel like adding dead weight. Anything under 140lbs or so does not get gutted. I do this because I feel it keeps the meat cleaner and you don't accumulate dirt, debris, rocks, etc on your drag out inside the carcass. Remember, that warm, moist body cavity is a fertile ground for bacteria, and when you have gunk from the woods falling into it, you are just adding fuel to the fire.

Once I get home, I hang the animal from a gambrel from the back hocks. I make a cut around the skin just above the hocks (don't cut the tendons, those tendons are what holds tension to keep the deer up.) and then make a cut from each hock down along the butt of the deer where the white hair meets the brown hair, down through the anus and back up the other leg. If you ever saw a trapper skin an animal, it's the same idea - "cased" cut. Cut through the tailbone and cut the genitals off UNDER the skin and start peeling the hide down. This is best done while the animal is still warm. The longer the animal sits, the harder it will be to skin.

Cut the forelegs off at the "elbow" joint with a hacksaw. If you are not saving the cape for a taxidermist, you can also cut the head off at the neck/skull junction with a saw at this point. If you are saving it, that's a whole 'nother ballgame for skinning and for the intent of this being a meat deer thread, I am not going to get into it.

Peel the skin down, and once you reach the belly area, be careful about your cuts, don't puncture the internal organs. Usually the skin will peel down off this area with no problems while it's warm. Continue working the hide down over the forelegs and then down over the neck. If you did it right you should have a deer skin that looks something like a tubesock.

Once the skin is off the deer, I put a trashcan underneath it with a heavy contractor bag inside of it and unzip the stomach cavity and let gravity do it's work with the guts. Saw open the ribcage so you have easier access to the chest organs. Immediately after all the guts are in the trashcan, I hose the entire deer down, top to bottom, paying particular attention to the body cavity. Spray off the hair, blood clots, gunk, and get it looking nice and clean. Any stray hairs remaining can be wiped off with a CLEAN rag (get a bag of cheap ones that you can toss afterward.)

I cut off the forelegs first at the body joint and then throw them in a cooler of ice. Then I remove the inner tenderloins "preacher's meat", and back straps and set them aside.

At this point, I then cut around the pelvis, using the bone as the guide, on the back legs and work my way down to the ball and socket joint and detach the hind legs from the main carcass. It helps to have two people at this point, someone to hold onto the main carcass so it doesn't hit the ground. Cut the remaining leg off at the hock and put the hams aside in an ice cooler.

Lay the carcass down on a table, at this point I remove the ribs and strip any big pieces of flesh still on the carcass for burger meat. It's up to your judgement on how picked clean you want to go, but I usually am one of those people who will make it look like vultures had at it and remove everything I think is useable.

I then wrap and freeze the back leg hams and take them to a processor to be sliced into steaks. I cut down the meat from the forelegs and neck and it all goes into the "burger meat/jerky meat buckets." I cut the backstraps in half for a total of 4 pieces and freeze them separately. The real work is in the separating the silverskin from meat you've removed and not the actually skinning/butchering itself. From this point on, over the next day or so, my focus is just to prepare everything I've separated for burger or jerky meat by doing just that.

I've gotten fancy in the past and cut steaks and chops and all other sorts of nonsense over the years out of the back legs, but at this point I'd just rather freeze them and have them sliced into ham steaks.

Also, when it comes to freezing, a vaccuum sealer is nice, but not necessary. Just wrap up the meat well in several good layers of plastic bags and keep the air out. It also helps to invest in a freezer that is NOT frost free. Frost free freezers basically act as a slow freeze dry machine and that's why you get freezer burnt food.
 
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