How I Process Wild Game

[dvw86]

I'm not saying that this is the only way or even the "right" way to process game. It's just my way. My thought is that if we all share, I may learn something new.

We haven't had to buy red meat in almost 10 years. The vast majority have been whitetail deer. We do about 3 deer a year plus the odd bear and domestic duck, geese or sheep. So here is my preferred method for large game.

One thing that I have learned is that deer fat and connective tissue are nasty. It is not like pork or beef. I don't want any of that stuff in my food. So I use knives only (no saws) and am really picky about what goes into the freezer. This has paid off as I have never had "gamey" meat.

After gutting it is immediately hung and skinned.
The fat is all removed and saved. This is later rendered down and used to make soap.
The deer is taken down and placed on the butcher table.
The legs are removed and placed on baking sheets. Two per sheet.
They are covered with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator.
The body is de-boned and the meat is placed into large metal bowls.
The metal bowls are covered with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator.
This is all done immediately. The deer is not left to hang. I get it into the refrigerator (a constant 40 degrees) as soon as possible. Now I have up to 5 days to finish the butchering and packaging.

The legs are de-boned.
As the meat comes off the bone it gets cleaned, trimmed of fat, silver skin and other unwanted parts.
The meat then goes into metal bowls, covered with plastic wrap and put back into the refrigerator.
The bones are later cut in half with a saw and stewed with vegetables for two days to make bone broth.
The front leg meat all goes into the bowls.
The back leg meat goes into the bowls as well with the exception of the two largest muscles per leg. These are trimmed up well and individually vacuum packed and frozen. They will be used for things like fajita meat, jerky, etc...
The bowls that contain the body and neck meat are then gone through.
The meat is trimmed, cleaned, placed back into bowls, covered and put back into the refrigerator.
The exception is the tender loins and back straps. These are trimmed and cleaned.
Then they are cut into steaks. I like to make butterfly steaks out of the back traps.
The steaks are vacuum packed into family meal size groups and frozen. These are awesome on the BBQ.

Now I just have bowls of fully trimmed and cleaned meat.
This is all ground into burger. We have a 1 hp industrial grinder that makes quick work of this.
We do two grindings and then vacuum seal the meat into 1 and 2 pound packages that are frozen.

My wife uses the burger just like she would beef burger. If it does need some fat added to it she uses either pork or bear fat that we rendered down from a bear that I shot. No one has ever noticed that it was wild game in one of her meals.

We reserve about 10 pounds of burger that gets ground with pork jowls, seasoned and made into sausage.

[akuser47]

I like this idea nice thinking. I'm going to move this to the hunting section as its better served there.

[GasGuzzler]

I have no knowledge in the subject until now. We here at my house are becoming more self sufficient (six laying hens, garden, wool spinning all in town) so your post is helpful to at least this hunting newbie.

[Moon Tree]

dvw, I agree with venison the fat, silver skin and connective tissue must be removed from the meat. AND ABSOLUTELY NO BONE DUST. I like the way you process your deer. I would dine at your table any day. But I do process my deer a bit differently.

First I like my deer to hang as long as time and weather permits. If I had a walk in meat cooler, I let it hang for 5 to 7. But I don't have a meat cooler and it probably wouldn't work for my deer camp hunts anyway.

At deer camp if the outside temps get to freezing at night and not over 60 in the day, I have no problem letting the deer hang for 3 days. I take my best cooler, a cube Igloo, filled with Tropican OJ jugs of ice and open bags of ice to fill in the gaps. They'll maintain at least 80% frozen for a 5 day hunt at the above mention temps. I'll have more Tropican jugs at home in the freezer. The morning I leave from deer camp, I quarter my deer plus cutting out the inner and outer loins. I will have a layer of ice jugs on the bottom of the cooler and put more scattered through out the meat. The first store I come to, I'll top off my coolers with ice. When I get home I'll pull the drain plug of the coolers so the meat is not setting in bloody water. I add new ice jugs and maybe add another cooler if needed. I usually come home from deer camp with 2 deer.

Should deer season be unseasonably warm, I will skin and quarter the deer sooner and make multiple trips to town for ice to supplement my ice jugs,

The next day I'll start cutting up the meat. I'll pull a quarter from the cooler, trim and cut it up. Then I vacuum seal that quarter and take it to the freezer. Then I get a second quarter and do the same until I get one deer in the freezer. By then my back is screaming from bending over the chopping block and it's usually time to head to work. The second deer is cut up the next day using the same method. I will separate the second deer into 2 cooler and add more ice jugs.

Using this method each quarter is uncomfortably cold to hand when I first start cutting on it. But, it's not frozen.

Like you said, "there's more than one way to skin a cat; or process a deer." This is just the method that has worked for me with the way I hunt. I'm usually at deer camp for 3 to 5 days. This processing technique has produce non-gamy tasting meat enough so that my recovering, vegetarian wife now eats as much venison as I do. The girl needs to start shooting her own deer, REALLY.

[dvw86]

Moon Tree,
Do you have a link or model number for that cooler? If it is a good one, it would be nice to let people know exactly which one it is. I've been keeping an eye out for a nice one at the cabin as well.

Almost all of my hunting is done on my own property (either at home or at the cabin), so I don't have to worry about keeping it cold for days before getting home. Your method sounds like it would be great for those situations.

[dvw86]

A big part of wild game processing for us is the meat grinder, so I thought that I would share what we have learned. It may help others out who are just getting into it.

For years we used a cheap attachment on our Kitchen-Aid mixer. This actually worked quite well. It was slow though and put quite a load on the mixer. Our mixer is about 20 years old (back when Hobart made them) and was the heavy duty model. The new ones are not the same even though they look really similar. You will burn up a new Kitchen-Aid in no time flat if you do any serious meat grinding (or bread making too).

So we saved up all year to buy an LEM grinder and when we went to purchase it (just before hunting season) they substantially raised the price. This sent us back into research mode and we found this. It is the Weston 1 HP 08-2201-W Number 22 Commercial Meat Grinder. It is huge and extremely well built (65.5 pounds), but boy can it grind meat. I'm glad that we bought a commercial grade grinder as opposed to a large one targeted for home use (like the ones you find in Cabela's). To me (if you do a lot of grinding) it is an investment like a good tablesaw. It should last many years and be maintainable. I'm sure that there are smaller ones that are just as good, but I can personally vouch for this one.

meat grinder.jpg

[dvw86]

A good cutting board is relatively inexpensive but can make processing meat much easier. They don't have to be very thick (1/4" to 1/2") is fine. Personally I like it to have enough room to place an entire deer leg on it for "breaking down", but still fit it in my kitchen sink for easy washing. We use hot soapy water and a scotch bright pad to wash it. Then sterilize it with a cleaner (wife makers her own, but you can use Clorox or whatever else). Mine is 24" x 18" and I wouldn't want it any bigger for my sink. My first one was 18" x 12" and was too small. We use the white plastic kind. You can pick them up in many paces around the internet. We got our ours at the local restaurant supply store. It also helps to place one of those rubber anti-skid mats under it (like you use in kitchen drawers and cabinets).

[dvw86]

Other than my hunting knife, the only tool I take into the field is a saw. I have tried various gadgets that are supposed to make filed dressing easier. There are all kinds of things such as (gut hooks, sharpeners, rib spreaders, "butt out", Swingblade, replaceable blades, game shears, etc...). Some of them work and some don't. Bottom line though is all that I really need are a good knife and a small saw for the sternum and pelvis. A good knife won't need to be re-sharpened during field dressing and skinning, but you shouldn't use it to split bones. I also don't care for anything that folds or has removable blades. It just makes them harder to clean. My favorite saw is the small Gerber E-Z saw. Unfortunately they quit making them. You can still find them in some stores though and they do offer an "upgraded" version (the Vital Pack Saw). I've never used the new version, but the E-Z saw is just the right size, is light and is easy to clean. The blunt end works great to. I have never punctured a bladder with it. For about $20 it was a great purchase. Again, I just use this to open the sternum and pelvis in order to get the guts out. After that no saw is used until I cut the leg bones in half (for making bone broth after the meat is removed with knives).

gerber5.jpg

[akuser47]

Love the thread great info thanks guys. I'm always learning.

[dvw86]

When boning and butchering you will eventually have to sharpen your knives. After trying a slew of sharpeners over the years, I have settled on three different methods of doing so.

When I first make a knife, I sharpen it on my belt grinder. This is the same tool that is used to make the knife. It is shall I say..."overkill" for maintaining the edge on hunting and boning knives. Not to mention it takes up a lot of room and uses a 1HP motor. It's great though when someone brings me a kitchen knife that is so dull that it cuts just as well on the spine as it does on the edge.

For straight razors and similar tools that need to be truly razor sharp, I use water stones. These are not practical for hunting and boning knives either as they take up a fair amount of room and need frequent maintenance. And quite honestly, I don't need my hunting and boning knives to be that sharp. I also don't want to spend that much time sharpening them.

So for hunting, boning, kitchen, pocket and everyday knives I have found that these three items work well when used together. They are small, inexpensive, and last with years of use. If you don't know how to hold and maintain the knife at the proper angle, then this is not a good solution for you unless you are willing to practice and learn. But they will last for years and don't need any electricity to work.

The top item is a Smith's diamond sharpener. It has a coarse and a fine side. It actually works quite well. The only reason I like this one better than say a "DMT" brand is the handle. It holds the sharpeners very securely and they fit inside it for storage. It's very easy to clean as well. I've even used it to sharpen a very dull ax. Just let the diamonds do the work and keep a consistent angle. The new ones look a little different, but I think that they are basically the same thing. For about $20 it has served me well for a number of years.

Smiths Sharpener

The middle item is nothing more than a ceramic stick glued into a wooden handle, but it works really well. I purchased mine about 20 years ago and they still make them. Only now they have doubled in price. It's a whole $1.99 to get one these days. Mine looks like it's only a year old and it has sharpened hundreds if not thousands of blades. This is used after the "fine" grit on the Smith's sharpener. It polishes up the edge and removes any burrs that you may have. Also, I use this to "touch up" my blades between sharpening. It's better to keep them maintained with this than it is to let them get so dull that you have to go back to the diamonds. Using this between diamond sharpenings will allow your edge and blade to last longer.
Ceramic Sharpener

The last item is called a "rust eraser". I've never used it for that though. I use it to clean my ceramic stick. It was purchased at the same time I bought the stick. That was about 20 years ago, and by the looks of it, it should last another 40 years or so. It's an expensive item at $4
"Rust Eraser"

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