Lots of work

[Skylinewatcher]

:thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[hoochiepapa]

That's what I'm doing from now on. Then I can load my pack lighter, maybe make more trips, but I can no longer haul out a quarter of an elk by myself.
It was fun being young and strong, though, I could carry a hindquarter with the ribs, up and down the mountain. So many memories!

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have never processed an Elk, but have done deer and wild boar, as well as smaller game.

I bone the meat - ie. remove the meat from the bones. I don't want to use up my freezer space storing bones! I do NOT saw bones. I do not want bone fragments and chips and dust taking bacteria into the meat, to aid in spoiling it. That is the single biggest reason I won't let commercial butchers touch my deer. ( I learned this the hard way when hunting wild boar.)

I cover a kitchen table made of oak, First with newspapers, then with Alum. foil, then with plastic wrap. I put newspaper on the floor around and under the table, too, to catch any blood or scraps.

Tools involve several VERY SHARP Knives. The only reason I use more than one is so I don't have to stop to sharpen a knife in the middle of something. I have been sharpening knives by hand since 1959. My knife blades are all razor sharp.

I cut off ALL SINEW, LIGAMENTS, AND CONNECTING TISSUE from the meat, but this is a secondary trimming operation that I do AFTER I first cut away the muscles from the bones. The Sirloins, on the top of the back, running alongside both sides of the spine, will be covered with tissues that appear Blue in good light. If this is not removed, you get bitter, tough meat, instead of the tender loins that make the best eating. The tenderloins run UNDER the spine, and run parallel to the spine. Both are the best cuts of meat. I remove them first to get them out of the way for boning out the ribs, and the rest of the meat.

Bones and Wild Game fat, and "white" tissues contain enzymes that continue to affect the meat even during storage in a freezer. The sooner you remove those tissues, the better tasting your meat will be at the table.

I soak my venison/boar, etc. in a sink filled with water and salt, or if salt isn't available, then vinegar, to pull the blood out of the meat. This takes a couple of 1 hour soakings, and I drain the water after the first hour, clean out the sink, than use CLEAN water to take the Salt out of the meat with the second soak. Add Ice to the water if the water is not cold enough to prevent spoilage. I cut the large muscles in the hid legs off by separating the muscles from the sinews that hold the muscles to bones. The largest muscles will become "roasts". Some of the medium muscle will become steaks. The rest will be cut up into 1" cubes to use for making Stroganoff, or venison chili. The scrapes go into a bowl and will be ground for either sausage or burgers.

I buy extra Beef or port suet- whatever I can get. I want enough suet by weight to be about 25% fat to ground meat in ration. That means I have to weigh the scraps when I finish my boning work, to determine how much suet to use. I usually buy 5 lbs. of suet, but that is for Eastern Whitetails. If I were working on larger deer, or Elk, I would increase that amount accordingly.

I use an old-fashioned, Hand-crank, Meat Grinder. Its attached to a 2 x 4, then the 2 x 4 is clamped down to my table top. I first grind the scraps with a coarse cutting wheel in the grinder. I do the same with the suet. Then I mix the two together, in a huge mixing bowl, by hand, and then grind them together using a finer cutting wheel in the grinder. Yes, its work, but its worth the effort.

I have a Venison Sausage recipe on this forum, down at the bottom of the index page, which lets you make sausage without a sausage press, or fetal pigs intestines. You can use any spices or recipe you like for your sausage. The recipe shown makes a mild summer sausage.

Because I separate the legs from the body of the deer, its a bit easier to work with these parts on the table or counter tops. you can keep the rest of the deer under ice while working on the parts.

My first deer took almost 4 hours, working with my mother-in-law to get to the stage where the muscles were dried, checked for dirt, fur, and debris, which we removed, and then placed into pots and container, covered, and placed in my refrigerator to AGE. I noticed this last time That I now can process my deer in under 2 hours, doing the work myself.

I notice that no one talks about eating fresh liver when they have a deer "in camp". This is the best part of any deer, as the liver contains lots of sugars, and is a tender as Prime Rib when cooked fresh.

I cut the liver into steaks, about 5/8" thick. I dust them with flour, salt and pepper, then seal the meat by frying the liver steaks in hot fat in a cast iron skillet. About 1 minute a side.

Then the steaks are laid out in another roasting pan, with water, and sometimes apple juice in the bottom to keep the meat moist,then cover the liver with strips of bacon, and slices of white onion. Foil over the entire mess, and into an oven at about 300-325 degrees for an hour. The liver comes out medium rare, and so tender you can cut it with the side of a fork. And SWEET TASTING! I have served liver to young kids, who thought they were eating prime rib- not liver. Fresh liver cooked properly, is one of the Great SECRETS about eating wild game.

In camp over an open fire, simply let the liver "cook" in a separate skillet, covered in bacon strips and white onions, with some kind of lid over it.

Take that skillet off the direct heat, so that it cooks slowly. Medium Rare is as "hard" a level of cooking wild game as you want, if you want tender meat, with flavor. "Medium", "med. well", and "well done" simply turn good meat into shoe leather, that is bitter. Some people like that, I know. With fresh liver, cooking the meat too much burns the sugar.

Anyone who has eaten Burned Cinnamon Raisin toast will instantly recognize the bitter taste of the burned sugars. UGH!

This what those cooks did to liver when I was in Grammar School in the 50s,when the government sent out liver to schools to improve our diets. The liver was cut in very thin strips, and you could not help cook it too much, with it that thin. It was bitter tasting, and tough, and most of it went into the garbage can.

Until I had a good liver steak in a deer camp one year, I hated liver, like the rest of us. Now, I throw a party for friends who like fresh liver, when I get a deer. Friends invite other friends, and we all sit around the dining table devouring fresh liver. You never have seen a quieter table of diners than when that liver is served. We all laugh about it and at ourselves.

 

[KyFlintlock]

I only got to hunt elk once and bowkilled a big cow about 3 miles from camp. She slid into a depression/sinkhole when she died with nobody to help. I skinned her one leg at a time and used a timber/lever to roll her over, then packed the meat out in 3 trips, thinking I was gonna DIE!

After that ordeal I was never bothered by taking care of a deer! My preference is to debone in the woods (like some of y'all do) and just pack the coolers out. Nothing to get rid of later and a LOT easier than dragging something 1/2 mile.

:hatsoff:
Good luck!

 

[BrownBear]

My wife would like to start cutting up our own, it's a pain waiting a month or so after you turn your meat in and the cost of an elk is hard to swallow. Getting started what kind of equipment should we be looking for? I know cabelas sells a ton of everything, and they are no help most the time since they are wanting to sell everything. Any pointers for a newbie? Growing up we always spent a weekend out in my old pops garage cutting, but it's been quite awhile since them good old days. Any help would be great.

The very best advice is to do your first butchering with folks that have been doing it a long time, if at all possible. "Old guys know stuff," as someone here has in their signature line. There are a few easy ways to do things and lots of hard ways. And overall, the one you choose will depend on your setup and what you're looking for as end products.

Back in the days of kids at home with big appetites and 7-deer limits, a group of seven of us used to get together for an annual boat hunt to remote regions. It was a 50 foot boat, and we'd anchor in a remote bay, skiff to shore, hunt like crazy and sleep on the boat at night while keeping the deer away from the bears.

We all learned from each other on everything from field dressing to packing, and skinning back on the boat each evening. Lots of us would get together to butcher back at home too. I learned a 3-minute field dressing so you could get moving quick while leaving the gut pile for the approaching bears. I can skin a deer in around 10 minutes. All lessons from wise old guys.

I'm here to tell you that 49 deer will fill three pickup trucks heaping full, even skinned. Quite a sight and acceptable driving through our town, but not something you want to try in many other places. :shocked2:

Butchering kinda followed the same pattern with each of us learning from each other. If it was cold the deer would freeze while hanging, and really slowed butchering. We had to bring them one at a time into the house and lay them on a tarp overnight to thaw before butchering. If they weren't frozen you went to butchering and didn't stop till it was all done.

With me cutting and my wife wrapping, we can completely cut and wrap a deer in an hour now. Lots of experience and a setup that matches our methods. A couple of things help. We don't grind burger or hack stew meat up into bite sized pieces. We label it all "stew" and grind it as we need it later (grinding attachment on our electric mixer). The benefit is that we're not mixing in fat or stirring in a whole bunch of air like when we grind it all ahead of time.

Now thankfully the kids are gone and the deer limit is down to three. I'm getting old, and packing out 7 deer in as little as 2 days isn't part of my fun package now, any more than butchering 7 or more deer in a day. We can still butcher a deer in an hour, and do so before we run out of steam. Old guys are still smart. :grin:

 

[Browning_68]

Thanks, for the info. Like I said i've done it all before, it's just been a few years and my memory is shot. Don't have many old people to hang out with now days either. Elk are great animals, they make you appreciate small things like rabbits. That being so i'll never stop hunting them. Such tasty meat and plenty of pounds of it. I just with we still had bison around, beats cattle hand down.