Just trolling for opinions here...I learned how to process my own deer/ elk as a teenager. My maternal grandfather owned a butcher shop and my mother taught me. We always de-boned though. I have continued to process our family kills ever since I found a mushroomed bullet, bloodshot, with a bonus Quakie leaf in a steak packaged at a local processor. This isn't posted to offend professional processors who earn an honest living. There are thugs in every profession- I have seen unskinned cow elk unceremoniously dumped in the alley behind the butcher plant in 60° weather. Sad treatment of meat, not to mention dis-respect of a fine game animal. Some thoughts to add:

1) Bone is heavy and bulky. Yes, a true T-bone has to have a bone in it. But when they saw your deer rather than deboning, they "artificially" add weight to the total, and there are more packages as a result.

2) Bone chips in my steak don't turn me on, so I debone. I exercise MUCH closer QC than I have seen, and accordingly, it takes longer. How much time do you expend trimming upon opening the thawed packages each time?

3) Most "burger" scraps in a processing plant don't differ much from what I give the dog as scraps. My burger starts with clean, gristle free meat that is too small for steaks. I add pork roast in a 20/100 ratio for cooking fat content.

Anyone else do their own work in this area?

I always do my own & debone all of it.

Yes, I butcher all my game and some friends now & then. I remove all bones for flavor reasons as they impart a distasteful flavor (gamey) to the meat after two or three months in the freezer. Most sinew & all fat is removed and steaks & roasts are vacume sealed. The only grind that I add beef or pork to is sausage, the burger is kept xtra lean with nothing added.

It takes some effort to be able to put quality game on the table, but the pay off comes when I get to eat a savory game stew or roast and not have a foul taste or chomp on gristle & bone.

-Ron

I do all my own deer but doing an elk in the "dining room" of my on-campus apartment is simply a logistical nightmare......

I agree the quality can be better but the butcher up here in Moscow that has done 3 elk for us in the last 2 1/2 months has done a great job.

IV

Cutting your own is the only way to go!! However, after the month of november I am extremly tired of cutting game! I like it because I know how my cuts will turn out, and I know that I am getting my own animal!

I'm with you guys. I do it all myself, from pulling the trigger to lifting the fork. I too debone everything and remove all fat, gristle, sinew, and tendons. Like you say, it reduces the volume in your freezer and improves taste. The biggest benefit that I've found to deboning is the increased freezer life. In my experience, bone-in cuts are pretty much shot after 4-6 monthts. I've eaten deboned, double-wrapped cuts that are more than two years old and detected no signs of freezer burn. I also grind all my own burger and make my own sausage and hams. Nothing gets outsourced at our place. I think my wife gets tired of butchering, especially when we're lucky in the draw and do it four or five times per year. Processing your own game is a big investment in money and time, but it's well worth it in my opinion.

I have a nice electric butchers saw in my workshop. If the animal can be brought back and hung to set, makes it nice and easy.

If it isn't possible - eg when shot too far away and needs to be cooled for the journey home then boning out is the only way.

Paying someone else to butcher gets expensive. I haven't really had a place to do my own until my mother in law recently got her own house. She has tons of room for me to do it. So far I've done all my kills myself this year. It takes me awhile but the meat that goes in the bag is CLEAN with no fascia or fat. I like it that way. In fact I'm going to Lowes soon to buy some 4x4's and rig up a hoist in her huge backyard just so I can start processing the game easier.

However, there is a meat cutter right down from our office that does excellent work. We've know them personally for years. I have no problem using them if I have to.

A friend of mine showed me how he processed a deer he shot years ago. I got a video at the public library on deer processing, with a little help from a friend and what I could pickup from the video I have been able to do all of my own processing. That was about 20years ago and about 26 deer later not counting the ones I did for my father and friends. My father generally helps me get them hung up in my Garage, skinned quartered and soaking in salt water in the refrigerator in the garage. The salt helps to remove the blood in the meat especially if it was blood shot. I always make a few slits in any blood shot area so the salt can draw out the blood. The wife and I take the meat in the house and process it a piece at a time. We freeze it and then use the vacuum sealer that I bought at Sams. She likes to eat deer as much as I do and appreciates when it is ready to cook without worrying about anything on the meat that might make it taste bad.

One of my friend likes to deer hunt but his wife don’t like the taste of deer so he gives me his, it helps when the paycheck is short.

My father got lazy one year and decided to take what was left of his deer to the processor and about $80.00 he brought back about 30lbs of meat. He said he would never do it again he felt the butcher kept part of his meat. I told him I didn’t think so since I had processed many deer and know that there is a lot of waste when you get rid of the bones and anything that is not eatable.

I enjoy deer hunting with my father and friends. I believe that taking the time to process my own meat makes the hunt more meaningful and the meat more appreciated.

Anyone got a good venison sausage recipe that they would care to share.

I skinned and butchered a whole cow bison by myself last year. Even with the top shelf commercial butchery facilities that were available to me at the time, I am in no hurry to repeat the experience. That said, it cost me nothing, I wasted nothing, and my cuts were just as I wanted them. There is a lot to be said for that!

Best,

John

I, too, grew up cutting the meat my family shot (though back then we didn't always have any to cut.) Most years I'll shoot 3-4 larger animals (deer, elk, antelope) and bone it all out, removing gristle and fat, packaging it myself. I don't vacuum seal, but wrap tightly in a layer or two of Saran Wrap, and then a layer of butcher paper, except for chunks of stew meat which I put in 1 1/23 lots in freezer-weight ziplocs. It takes me about a Packer game to do a whitetail, including clean-up. I started to let my kids help as soon as I thought they were able to handle a paring knife (about age four) by trimming fat off some little chunk. We're down to about three band-aids per session now.

I derive a great deal of pleasure from handling the whole process, as someone put it, from bullet (or arrow) to fork. I get the cuts I want, the way I want them, and I know the meat is fresh and clean.

wihntr:
Vacuum sealers are nice but I did loose 2 packages of deer steak because the seal broke. I do find that over a years time that I lost a lot more to freezer burn trying to wrap them in butchers paper.

I guess my problem was I just don't eat it fast enough but ground sure is good in venison chile.

I ordered a jerky slicer to go with my Cabelas 1hp grinder that I havent got to try yet.

Come on deer season I can hardly wait.

I do all my own butchering as well as some for friends. I have a fairly well set out little butchery now and have got it down to a pretty tight shop now.

I, however do not debone all of the meat I proccess at my home butchery. Some roast, like a crown roast have bone and you can't beat steak with the bone! I have gotten into the habbit of tieing and seasoning raosts with rosmary, sage garlic or whatever you like. Add salt and papper after cooking. Then I vacum pack and freeze.

I have a few tips (and personal quirks) regarding the treatment of game meat;

Water is very bad for meat! Keep it to a minumum if you really have to hose down a bloodied part, if possible use a damp rag to clean up blood. I sometimes like to use the hose to wash off mud and grime from the animal before skinning it and the water will quickly cool the carcass.

What makes the biggests differnce I believe is that meat animals be head shot to start with. I cannot stress this enough. Stress, adrenalin and contamination from gut content ruin meat. Young animals make the best eating. No exeptions. Do we send our steer or swing to the slaughter when they are old? Nor do we go smashing holes in them.

I like to bleed them but normally it't not really necessary since the heart pumps most of the blood to the brain and well. You shoot the brains out and the blood leaks out of the skull.

Hang the animals to bleed better. Skin and gut, then leave hanging whole before you proceed to make cuts. Chilled, firm meat is easier to work with.

When you cook an animal that has been processed like this; no unneccessary wine, vinegar, milk no marniating or other crap like that. I don't treat it any differently to beef or pork when I'm cooking it and you know what? EVERYONE who eat at my place is amazed. (Locally they use all sorts of vudu rubbish to get the "gamey" flavour out)

Obvously these are all best case scenarious, you can't always take the shot you'd like, nor can you always butcher the animal in a nice organized room but you will notice a great difference if you can follow these steps in your preparation.

3584Elk, couldn't have said it better myself.
Not only do you get what you want and how you want it but there is also a little more "satisfaction" when you pull it out of the freezer 6mths later

I pack it myself because I know how it was handled the whole way from death to table.

I pack it myself because that way I know that what we are eating is MY deer and all of it made it home!

I always cut it bone free and except for cutting off the legs cut it without ever using a saw.

I used to do it differently, but "Fur Fish and Game" had a really good article long time back on another bone free method and I have mostly adopted the technique they espoused.

Wrapped in the commercial plastic wrap(available in the big box stores) then placed in freezer quality sealing plastic bags the meat will keep for 2-3 years.

Oh boy it all starts Saturday and goes till Mid January.

Only 3 does per day though and 3 bucks per season . . . Oh well I guess that will work <LOL>.

Good luck to all on their hunts.


To have hunted is success enough . . . to kill is to carry the hunt over time with each meal!

My Dad was a butcher for fifteen years so I grew up helping him processing our deer along with all the kin folks deer. It takes some time to do it right and get most of the facia, gristle, and fat trimmed. A processor would go broke taking that much time. Had an elk processed in Colorado before I came home once and the chili tasted good until you bit down on a ball of gristle with every spoonful. One thing I do with whitetail quarters before deboning is to let them set in ice water a couple days and keep pouring off the blood.

I absolutely process all of my wild game. That way I know exactly what I am eating and how it was taken care of from field to table.

In the last couple of years I have gotten into making sausages.

It is absolutely a no brainer for me.

Thanks everybody, here I am on a Saturday STILL processing meat, and there is a Tanner Gunshow going on. Oh well, 1 elk down, 1 1/2 deer to go...

We used to look at the piles of deer outside the butchers cooking in the sun when I was a kid in MN. Dad would ask if they really did seperate everyone's ground vennison and when they'd swear they did he'd laugh. He told us they probably weighed the meat going into the hopper and wieghed it coming out. Good meat was blended in with the rancid crap that hung in a tree for a week.

We learned out lesson when we brought home sausages the dogs wouldn't even eat- $25 worth of meat layed on the lawn all winter.

We butcher our meat.

I cut and package my own!

I separate the major muscle groups while the deer is hanging, then once it's on the kitchen table, I separate each muscle and trim each one!

I then vacuum seal! When I take it out of the freezer, I don't have to trim anything, it's ready to slice and fry or go into a roasting pan!

For me, part of the satisfaction of the hunt is butchering the meat. We double wrap the meat in plastic bags and butcher paper, then freeze it solid and bring it home on the plane in a cooler. These days I only keep the backstraps and tenderloins intact. The rest gets made into sausages and burger meat (50/50 with chuck roast for the proper fat content) at a local deli after I get the meat home.

I have always cut up my own meat. Makes me feel self sufficient! I de-bone and anything that won't make a good steak or good roast is ground up or, occasionally, cut up for stew meat. I remove most fat from whitetail deer because I find it too waxy but am less concerned about fat on mule deer or elk. Regards, Bill

Knowing that buthchers usually do things in batches I would absolutely never take mine in and have it mixed with someone elses meat. Mine is clean as can be from start to finish. I could add other opinions here but everyone has covered pretty much of everything.

Sanitation is more important than anything when doing your meat.

the chef

quote:

Thanks everybody, here I am on a Saturday STILL processing meat, and there is a Tanner Gunshow going on. Oh well, 1 elk down, 1 1/2 deer to go...

I feel your pain, um satisfaction. I have been in on three elk, two antelope, and five deer so far this season and I have five more tags to go.

I joke about my garage being turned into a butcher shop every fall. Truth be known, it is a labor of love, and the completion of the hunt.

The greatest satisfaction comes at the dinner table. In fact, I believe elk steaks are the menu for tomorrow.

I do everything from the trigger pull to the freezing package of cut meat. My dad was not a hunter, but I was fortunate enough to run into a buddy who taught me an easy way to get great food to the table. He did me a great service indeed.

Venison is field dressed and gotten home to the barn as soon as possible. It is skinned and quartered. Every effort is keep the meat clean and hair free. The tenderloin and backstraps are removed. Each quarter is put into new white plastic garbage can bags and then into a cold refrigerator. I check it every day ... making sure that it continues to be dry and is not spoiling. Bags are changed no less often than every other day. (Never have had to throw anything away at this point.)

Meat from the neck and hocks is cut away from the bone and boiled for soup, tacos, and burritos.

After 7 to 10 days in the refrigerator I butcher the quarters removing all of the bone, gristle and cartilage. The cut is simple ... A steak, B steak, flank, cubes (for kabobs and to be sliced for curries, stir fries, and so on). All of the other scrap is cut into thin slices for jerky and/or popped into the grind pile.

All of the meat is triple wrapped in heavy duty plastic wrap and hard frozen.

At the end of the season I do all of the grind meat at once. About 3/4 of it usually goes to hamburger and the rest to sausage.

Never had gamey meat. Meat is always tender and tasty. We make lots of things from the simple cuts. We don't miss beef.

Takes a little while and by the end of the season I'm glad the job is done. Saves a lot of money over time. I figure I've bought 3 or 4 good rifles with what I saved doing it myself.

My wife and I do all of our own meat processing. I am looking for plans for a homemade meat cuber. Let me know if you have seen or made one. Thanks

Game animals we sell to restaurants we just skin and quarter. The animals we keep for our own consumption we process ourselves. No problem with a little roe deer weighting 40 lbs. gutted. However, when doing those wild boars it can become more tiresome and might request 2 persons, unless you have a winch.

Wihntr - I liked your description:

I started to let my kids help as soon as I thought they were able to handle a paring knife (about age four) by trimming fat off some little chunk. We're down to about three band-aids per session now.

That shows thought and care to help your kids be a success. That is a benefit not available with store-bought. Congratulations and good eating.

I am also a do-it yourselfer on meat. I was always sort of embarrassed since it was home-made, until I realized that store-bought is not necessarily better.

I think every good hunter should be able to do there own processing but sometimes it is not practical living in a condo or apartment or in a neighborhood with lots of restictions. About 20 years ago a guy down the road from me shot his first deer and got his wife's dish washing gloves to start cutting on the deer so he would not get blood on his hands. What a laugh. At least he was trying.

I put my self through college as a butcher, and was doing that as a job before I changed occupations 30 years ago.
My wife and I process all of our game meat. I have a grinder and can make breakfast sausage, chili meat etc. I take my meat to Kubys in Dallas to have salami and links made. They do good work.
We bone out all of our meat even cutting the rear hams into steaks.
I am very fortunate in that my wife loves to eat game meat. As do I.

quote:

Originally posted by Dwight:
I think every good hunter should be able to do there own processing but sometimes it is not practical living in a condo or apartment or in a neighborhood with lots of restictions.

I have processed pheasants in a bathroom of my one bedroom flat in Kensington, London.

I know people who have butchered deer in motel bathrooms in Australia.

I was a butcher for 8 years so I have no problem doing my own. I don't know how processors operate because I've never hired one, but the key in my opinion, is aging the meat in a temperature controlled environment. I'm not sure if processors have the time or resources to do this. When you buy a t-bone at the market it was aged at the packer, sent to a distributor to sit in a wharehouse until it was delivered to your butcher and may have sit in his cooler for days before he actually made the cut. You may have bougth it two days after it was cut and it may sit in your refrigerator for a couple of days prior to hitting the grill.

I debone mine and put it in a fridge in my shop. I wash and remove as much blood as possible once per day for four days and then process the meat.

quote:

About 20 years ago a guy down the road from me shot his first deer and got his wife's dish washing gloves to start cutting on the deer so he would not get blood on his hands. What a laugh. At least he was trying.

Sounds like a smart man. Do you know what kind of disease you can catch from cleaning game with a open wound? Call me a sissy but I always wear gloves when cleaning game. I clean around 30 or so deer a year and without gloves the skin on my hands crack and bleed like hell.

Well, I finished my processing on Thursday. A buddy of mine brought three mule deer and a small bull elk home on Wednesday. He was telling my wife how he had not skinned the animals yet. I don't know how warm (or cool) it was where he was camped. I DO know that when I went over to help him butcher yesterday that those deer were smelling really rank- sort of sweet- sickly type of smell. So, let's do the math: His party shot those deer a week ago today, Nov. 5. They hung in their hides until at least Thursday morning. Since he arrived home, it has been incredibly warm in Denver- 74° daytime. His animals hung in his garage.

By comparison, I shot a bull elk, skinned him that evening, and he was transported after freezing overnight to an air- conditioned room (50°F) where he hung for 10 days. Upon processing it, there were spots of mold on the outer "casing" that forms on game meat. That bull never once smelled bad or even like he was in the rut.

Whose meat will taste better and does temperature matter???

Just one more advantage of butchering yourself, JERKY -- I've never had good jerky done from the local game processor.
I started butchering myself many years ago, but occasionaly had to use the butcher, what a mistake. We love jerky and after a little trial and error I found several receipes that make great jerky. In fact on several occasions I've taken the time to jerk the whole deer. Funny, but it still doesn't last long. It's a lot of work but the results are worth the effort.

AI,

I agree with you, but...for some reason, I can't bring myself to turn an entire deer to jerky right off the bat. I don't hesitate when it is an antelope though- they always remind me of hooves and sagebrush.

I usually end up waiting until the following summer to finish the jerky, it gives me something for hunting season, and renews the drive to hunt for me.

Except for the "Backstraps", sorry. Never Jerk those.

3584Elk,

Thats a shame about your friends animals. That is clearly a case of ignorance in action. I consider getting the hides off as quickly as possible to be possibly the single most important thing. When you see all of the steam exiting the carcass it is a no brainer that you are doing the meat a big favor. I also agree about the importance of temprature controlled curing.

I have always done my own butchering but in all honesty I would sometimes like to find a "good" local butcher, the quality of the service is the catch. Unfortunatley Ive heard nothinbg but sour reports from friends who have gone that route, but Im sure there are some good ones out there somewhere. Time is money, and doing a good job at cutting up an Elk sized critter can be quite time consuming.

for a change of pace, try adding beef brisket (beef bacon some call it) to your deer hamburger. 1/3 brisket to 2/3 deer. make sure and mix well. its a little fatty, but it mostly cooks out and leaves a really good tasting hamburger!!!!

While we are talking about game,let me ask you gentlemen a question,do you feel its necessary to age game meat?Just curious.I read an article one time in a hunting magazine that stated game meat didnt need to be aged to tast good because the something about the tissue or moleculor breakdown is not the same or required like with beef.Is this true??just curious.Ive always heard that you had to age game meat to get good taste.So whose right or wrong here?