How Many Process Their Own Game?

[shane a gress]

Yep, butcher my own. Most of my deer get stuffed in jars and processed in the pressure canner. My mom taught me how to do it and has kept the pantry shelves stocked for over 20 years.

 

[Black Hand]

Most of my deer get stuffed in jars and processed in the pressure canner.

Recipe please....

 

[Tb54]

Well I had to read this, and yes, I’ve always processed my deer. Some day when I grow up I’ll learn to be faster at it, but I don’t hang my meat any longer than I have to as a general rule. A couple years ago I did hang it for a week, and half the kids wouldn’t eat it. This year, the wife’s already used some of the first deer in recipies and no one could tell.

Speaking of which, gotta get to cutting up a doe tonight.

Shane, wanna share your pressure canning process and elaborate on recipes you use the meat for?

BTW, my favorite knife to process my deer, is my fish fillet knife.

 

[Tb54]

So, it took me, my 16 yr old, 11 yr old, and wife wrapping, about 3 hrs. No steaks, just roasts, and stew meat. My previous post I wrote before I started but I didn’t realize it didn’t post.

 

[Darkhorse]

In 1975 our deer herd was just getting huntable numbers and a kill was big news in our small towns. There were no processors in my rural area so a neighbor with a cooler taught me how to bone out and cut up a deer. Since then I've processed uncounted numbers of deer, hogs and a couple of elk. My hunting family kept me busy.
With age how I do things change as I change. Such as, I can no longer drag a heavy buck for several hours due to joint disease and age.
I have a new process now when I make a kill. I retrieve the animal with my ATV then drive right up on the trailer pulling the deer behind me. When I get home I hoist it off the trailer with my tractor that's hooked to a long rope through a pulley hung on a pecan limb. Quarters go into a large cooler and are iced down.
I have six horses and I could use one of them to drag a deer out as some who are critical of me have suggested. But I'm too old and wise to do something that stupid.
I do have a processor I've known for a long time who is completely trustworthy, a country gentlemen, we still have a few of them out here in the piney woods, who occasionally gets the nod when I don't feel like doing it myself. But all he gets is a cooler full of meat as I still do all the skinning myself.

 

[BrownBear]

...good butchers knives....

You nailed it right there! I'm fortunate to have exceptional knives and steels passed down through the family for something like 100 years. Two career butchers contributed their treasured knives to the array.

For me picking up those particular knives and cutting is as good as hunting with my granddad's gun. I've used modern knives and they're okay, but nothing like slipping my hand onto the grips held by my ancestors.

 

[DJH]

Another thing I have taken to doing the last few years is cooler aging my deer. When I finish skinning and deboning, I put the meat in a cooler and cover with ice. A couple times a day I check to make sure I still have plenty of ice and I also drain off any liquid in the bottom. I have left deer meat in a cooler like this for up to two weeks with absolutely no issues. Plus, if I kill another deer during that week, I just add it to the cooler. If anything, I think it improves the meat by getting all the blood out and letting things tenderize a bit. After a day of hunting, if I make a kill, by the time I get done skinning and deboning I'm usually wore out. This system gives me a little bit of a break and allows me to do the final processing and packaging when I get the time. Last night I did the final processing on two deer that had been in the cooler for 10 days. Everything was A OK.

Jeff H

 

[excess650]

I haven't used a processor in 20 years. The last time I did, I had a serious upper respiratory infection that had me down for a week. The meat I got back stunk, so never again!

In 2016 I shot the biggest bodied WT I had ever seen, and knew he was OLD. I bought a commercial meat grinder and ground it ALL using the 10mm plate. The coarse grind was perfect for chili, in spaghetti sauce, or just with onions in the skillet. I swear that was the BEST venison I've ever had. IMO, the sooner the hide is off and the meat can cool, the better.

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Same as Brown Bear here.
Great Granddad was a butcher and farmer, (we're still farmers) and I have some of his knives and steel... plus his individual "Pork Pie" tins!
For a start when we came over here, I borrowed a friends band /meat saw, but it made such a mess with all the 'sawdust', that I went on to doing it by hand, and mainly bone out as I go now.
Chops, steaks, joints, (roasts ) and some thin slices for flash frying....All very good!
Can't see why some use up tons of Pepperoni flavouring and make sausages of the whole thing,.....unless you let the dog sleep on the carcass for a week before skinning it!
We have to skin right away up here, as a froze on jacket is a nightmare.

 

[preventec47]

I am not sure what I do is "butcher" but I have a few different knives and I have seen a few beef and pork roasts from the meat dept at grocery store and I figured I knew the difference between meat, fat, bone, skin and guts.

I dump the guts in the field, chop off the legs and head
so as to make it all lighter to carry or drag home after wrapping in a heavy tarp to keep clean. Once home I need a table out back and a water hose and I have a few clean 5 gal paint buckets that I fill with water. As I carve out pieces of meat I toss them into the buckets to soak the blood out until I have processed the whole carcass.
I try to keep the big pieces in the same bucket figuring those might be roasts or steaks. All the other smaller pieces go into other buckets and those are for grinding.
So far, I have always stored the meat in gallon size zip lock baggies and plastic tupperware. I've never wrapped any of it in paper.

The first time I did not know the backstrap was special
and blended the meat in with all the rest. Now I know to keep it separate. The first time I also did not remove all the bones ... now I feel it is worth it to debone all the meat. I also have never hung the carcass while getting the meat and am not sure how it would make my job easier. Sitting at the picnic table (or standing at the end) and carving the meat seems like the lowest effort technique to me. I also like to use a large solid piece of plywood for use as a cutting board.

Is this what yall mean by "Process" ?

PS. I always feel bad about throwing away the skin as I feel someone would want it to make leather ( or I should but am just to lazy/busy to bother )

 

[Jfoster]

My very first deer i had processed. I was 8 and my dad didnt feel confident in his abilities to efficiently clean and process one as it had been 20 some odd years since he had taken one. We realized pretty quick the cost wasnt worth it. So we had a neighbor whos whole family are big in hunting teach us. Now i have taught my wife, sister in laws, father in law, and nephew. I plan to teach my son and daughter as well. To me its only right and natural as an ethical hunter to do it all myself.

 

[juancho]

I do all my game, sometimes where it fell , sometimes in my shop. To me is just as much part of the hunt, as it is enjoying cooking it for my family and friends. It kind of completes the cycle of life.

 

[Eterry]

Recipe please....

I use pint jars as there are just 2 of us. I cut up the roast in 1 inch chunks and stuff them in the jars with some seasoned salt and lemon pepper. I like to leave as much deer "juice" in the jars as i like the flavor. Then you fill with water or tomato juice (V8 is best), use spoon to get out air bubbles and seal.
You pressure cook at 60lbs (iirc) for 90 mins.
It taste like roast beef, we both really like it but it's labor intensive. You can't wander off while it's cooking under that much pressure.
I googled mom's pressure cooker and got the free owner's manual, has recipes for fish, meat, veggies.

 

[appalichian hunter]

Have always processed our own game to include deer. The original butcher shop was in my dads basement after he passed I built a building in the back of my house and moved the shop. All stainless steel and plenty of working area. Make all my own sausage and jerky. Use a homemade smoker he and I built, hobart grinder and all else needed was either bought at yard sales or hand made. As stated in previous posts never did like local processing. I cannot count the number of deer or the amount of sausage,jerky and bologna that was done by he and I. For me every time I pick up his or my grandfathers knives there is a flood of memories and great times. It is also for me a great part of being a hunter to have the knowledge and ability to properly butcher the animal. AN APPALICHIAN HUNTER

 

[jackley]

Do all of my own too, neighbor showed me how when I was 14 and been doing it on my own since. Elk any more is a 2 day job.
Jerry

 

[Billy Boy]

Have butchered our own for generations, too old now, i"'m the last one left. All I can do now is roll in the gut pile...

 

[hanshi]

Long ago I use to do some of my own processing but one can only do so much. With me killing up to nine deer a season and often killing as many as three in a morning; I couldn't very well continue. I started taking them to a processor I knew, after field dressing them, of course. My non-hunting friends liked venison, so I "took orders" and had them processed per their preference.

 

[tenngun]

Never have used a butcher. I have bought1/2s and 1/4s of beef or hog, as I never raised them. I have raised rabbits lots of fowl sheep and goats and butchered them all myself. I guess the sprit of muzzelloading has lead me to dress every animal I’ve ever hunted.

 

[tenngun]

Lived some years without electricity and I canned a lot. All the veggies from my garden chicken turkey goat deer tree rat duck goose and turkey all went in the jar.

 

[Black Hand]

I use pint jars as there are just 2 of us. I cut up the roast in 1 inch chunks and stuff them in the jars with some seasoned salt and lemon pepper. I like to leave as much deer "juice" in the jars as i like the flavor. Then you fill with water or tomato juice (V8 is best), use spoon to get out air bubbles and seal.
You pressure cook at 60lbs (iirc) for 90 mins.
It taste like roast beef, we both really like it but it's labor intensive. You can't wander off while it's cooking under that much pressure.
I googled mom's pressure cooker and got the free owner's manual, has recipes for fish, meat, veggies.

Thank you!