Keeping the sinew

[CWC]

I killed a young buck today and decided to try to do the butchering myself. I was pretty excited about keeping some sinew for future projects. I had read that the sinews were in a long sheet on each side of the backbone...sounds easy enough to get. Once I had him skinned I started looking around for the sinews. I saw what I though were sinew sheets attached to the back-straps. I decided to just cut out the back straps and then pull the sinews off at home. When I got home I went to work on them, but found that they were very well attached to the meat, and came off in pieces instead of in a sheet. By the time I finished getting them off I had a pile of scraps with some sinew attached and a pair of back-straps with half the meat missing. What'd i do wrong? If any one has pics of the sinew pulling process I'd love to see them. Thanks!

 

[boar]

I use a very,very sharp knife and start at one end and skin it off in one sheet. Then scrape any meat off, then hang up to dry. Dilly

 

[CWC]

Hmmm...so it sounds like I at least found the sinew. I started to doubt that it was even the right part when I saw what a pain it was. So the best way is to just "filet" it off.... I'll have to try that on my next deer. Thanks!

 

[BrownBear]

Ever use a sharp knife to skin a fish fillet? Same process.

 

[blackpowderscout]

I think it's easier to do it before removing the backstrap.

Adam

 

[kevthebassman]

I use a fillet knife to butcher my deer anyway. Taking the sinew off the backstraps is fairly easy if your a good hand with a knife.

 

[Tater John]

There are leg tenions you'll want to remove too. Dry them, then pound them into fine strands. Not as long as that taken from the back though.

Rusty

 

[CWC]

I had read an on-line article that made it sound pretty easy to just pull the sinews of the back-straps. I guess it's not quite as easy as the articel made it sound. It did get me wondering if the sinews bind harder to the meat the longer you let it set. The meat had spent a good 8-10 hours in an ice chest before I finally got to work on them. Here's the article if anyone's interested. [url] http://www.paleotechnics.com/Articles/PDFs/usesofdeer.PDF[/url]

 

[RICKYD]

I bet you'll be getting all the sinew you want when you go to eating them back hams :rotf:

 

[ronrryan]

I dont know if this is the same stuff, but we used to get the "silverskin" off of the backstrap by slowly working a knife in between "silver" and strap, turning the knife in a certain way at 90 degrees, and sort of jogging the blade back and forth, getting a bit more each jog, until able to separate the whole thing in sort of a sheet. It is hard for me to describe with exactitude, but it was fairly easy to do, once you got the hang of it. Hope this helps not hurts, ron in FL