Processing deer

[Gator]

For those that process your own deer. I used to quarter my deer and then take to the butcher but he's quit doing deer this year. So I bought a grinder and plan to do my own. My big question is, what all can be ground? I see reading internet and watching youtube that some want strictly meat while others are throwing meat that still has silver skin on it in the tub to be ground. I have no clue what my old butcher used to do, never paid that much attention.

I was hacking at my first hind quarter last night and it took me forever trying to get all the veins, tendons, silver skin etc off. Should I just be leaving it and grinding it all?

For the record, I grind almost everything except tenderloins and backstraps.

 

[PineSapJunky]

Gator,

You put enough silver skin in it and you'll have problems with it caking your grinder plates. Take the time and and trim has much as you can. Also what some people don't realize is that silver skin when ground into meat will cause the meat to "shrink" or "seize up". Think about hamburger patties that end up looking like meatballs after it's all done. If you follow the muscle lines when butchering the front and rear it will make it a whole lot easier to trim. Other than the roast and what you mentioned I grind the rest. Hope this helps

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[Gator]

I think I'm just confused on what should and what shouldn't be put in with the grind meat. I literally was trying to remove anything not red meat (basically anything white). So every time I made a cut I would find more white stuff that I was then trying to remove.

 

[Jeff H]

Gator I've been doing my own for 10+ years and I remove most of the silverskin. I don't get real anal about it but just do as much as I can within reason. It get easier the more you do it. Sometimes I hold the silverskin (facing down) with a fork (slice a small section to hold onto) and then hold a knife perpendicular to it and push the meat off the silverskin.
Also my old grinder would cake up as mentioned already. I now have a kitchen aid with a grinder attachment and it'll grind golf balls if I asked it too.
It also helps to have the meat partially frozen when grinding.
Good luck.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

Grant Woods made a butchering/breakdown video that I always thought was good. Breaking a deer down properly can save you some trimming time for grinding.

 

[swat1018]

I cut all of the surface fat. I cut everything off of the loins. I grind everything else. Take the rounds apart muscle by muscle, and I trim major silver skin, but plenty gets ground. My buddy use to take everything off that wasn't red, I couldn't tell any difference in the taste of his vs. mine.

 

[George]

I'll guarantee you that your butcher ran more crap through the grinder than any of us probably do.

Trim it up but don't feel that it has to be perfect.

Cubed up chunks will go through smaller grinders easier.

A couple of years back I ground up much of fat on the buck along with the meat. I was on the keto eat fat thing at the time and the fat and meat was very tasty in my opinion. However fat goes bad much quicker in the freezer than trimmed up meat. Trimmed up venison once thawed will likely still be good if you forget about it in the fridge for up to a week. My meat with all the fat in it would spoil in as few as a few days.

I freeze my meat for grind in cubed up form then pull out a gallon baggie thaw it and grind it. It lasts better in cubed form in the freezer than all ground up.

Make sure that you remove all of the glands and lymph nodes.

G

 

[Chainsaw]

Process a few deer as early in the season as possible to get the hang of separating them into muscle groups. Once learned there will be no "hacking" about it and it is very difficult if not impossible to learn it with deer shot later in the season when the hinds are completely covered in thick fat. Once you have done a dozen or so during early seasons it becomes easy even when covered in fat. AS Jeff says removing most of the silver skin is not too difficult doing as he described. It is very much the same action as filleting the skin off of a fish; the knife is held stationary and the meat is pulled thru. Try it a few times and like anything it becomes normal pretty quickly.

You are right George about most butchers not being as fussy as most of us are when doing our own deer; professional processing deer here is very competitive and I just can't see how they could possibly justify the extra time it would take for them to be so fussy. We seldom grind any meat and we sure can tell the difference between extra clean meat and that done leaving fat on it. Some people are more taste sensitive to the fat than others and my wife and I are two of them. That is not any better or worse than anyone else it is just how it is so we get all of the fat off and lots of the silver skin-not all of the silver skin but most of it.

 

[weekender21]

It certainly doesn't have to be perfect. I usually toss hocs in the crockpot now days but I put them in the grinder pile for years without issue. I do try to remove as much fat as possible and silver skin within reason. I'm much more critical about removing hair and dirt than fat or silver skin though.

 

[Gator]

I shot another doe on Saturday so I could practice more. I still think I'm being way to anal about it. GF showed me a package of meat from the processor and all the white it contained last night before she cooked it. I did find a good youtube video showing how to remove the meat from the hind quarter while the deer was hanging. That seemed much easier than my old method of removing the whole hind quarter.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Chainsaw]

I shot another doe on Saturday so I could practice more. I still think I'm being way to anal about it. GF showed me a package of meat from the processor and all the white it contained last night before she cooked it. I did find a good youtube video showing how to remove the meat from the hind quarter while the deer was hanging. That seemed much easier than my old method of removing the whole hind quarter.

Thanks everyone!

Absolutely Gator we do it while it is hanging and contrary to some we find it easier to hang it from the neck; there is no problem about blood draining into the hinds as deer are seldom left over night to hang. One of the keys to separating muscle groups is to use your hand to separate ahead of your knife blade once you have made an initial surface slit with the blade.

 

[Cap'n]

I have butchered my own for 30 or more years and I have a system down that suits me and it suits my schedule. When I get a deer home I take the tender loins out and either cook them right then or freeze them.Which ever time allows. Then I hang the deer in the shade for a couple of days. If it's hot i have the chest cavity full of frozen gatoraid bottles and a bag of ice on the hind quarters. I change those out as needed. After a couple of days I quarter it, taking the backstraps, both hind quarters, front shoulders and neck. I put them in large ice chests that the bottom is lined with frozen gatoraid bottles and the meat wrapped in plastic trashbags. I place a bag of ice, unopened on top of the meat. The bottles keep the meat up out of any water and it can stay in there for several days with no problem at all as long as the ice is changed as needed.
I keep 1 front shoulder for smoking and de bone the other for slow cooker or pressure cooker meals.
The Hind quarter I break down to individual cuts, Top round, bottom round, sirloin, & eye of round. any scraps that come off of that process go into the grind pile. The shanks all go into the slow cook / pressure cook pile along with the neck which I debone before cooking. All big cuts of meat are weighed and frozen whole and cut to steaks or roasts after thawing. It normally takes me 3 nights about an hour and a half a night to butcher the whole thing, weigh every bag and have the kitchen looking presentable for the wife for the next morning.
The main thing is learn how to separate the muscle groups on the hind quarters to get those awesome pieces of meat whole. Use the smaller cuts to grind or slow cook.
The top round and bottom round are my favorite pieces other than the straps. I cut off all the fat but if your going to slow cook it dont worry too much about all the silver skin and connective tissue in between all the small muscles, the cooking method breaks all that down. But if your cutting into steaks you do need to get it all off though. Roasts need to be cleaned up some too but they too can be cooked so that they don't need that much. Once you figure out which is better ground, which is a roast and which can be made into steaks you'll have it down.
The method of cooking determines a lot of how much you want to clean the meat up.
This is the process I use. It may not work for everyone but It does for me, There wasn't any internet when I first started shooting deer so most of this I came up with before then. There may be better ways to do it but I have never had any meat go bad or anything. It was in the upper 70"s when my daughter shot a doe last week and I did everything just as explained above. Grind as much as you like but there are some great cuts of meat you helped it grow for you. Enjoy a good steak off of that hind quarter.

 

[Jeff H]

I have butchered my own for 30 or more years and I have a system down that suits me and it suits my schedule. When I get a deer home I take the tender loins out and either cook them right then or freeze them.Which ever time allows. Then I hang the deer in the shade for a couple of days. If it's hot i have the chest cavity full of frozen gatoraid bottles and a bag of ice on the hind quarters. I change those out as needed. After a couple of days I quarter it, taking the backstraps, both hind quarters, front shoulders and neck. I put them in large ice chests that the bottom is lined with frozen gatoraid bottles and the meat wrapped in plastic trashbags. I place a bag of ice, unopened on top of the meat. The bottles keep the meat up out of any water and it can stay in there for several days with no problem at all as long as the ice is changed as needed.
I keep 1 front shoulder for smoking and de bone the other for slow cooker or pressure cooker meals.
The Hind quarter I break down to individual cuts, Top round, bottom round, sirloin, & eye of round. any scraps that come off of that process go into the grind pile. The shanks all go into the slow cook / pressure cook pile along with the neck which I debone before cooking. All big cuts of meat are weighed and frozen whole and cut to steaks or roasts after thawing. It normally takes me 3 nights about an hour and a half a night to butcher the whole thing, weigh every bag and have the kitchen looking presentable for the wife for the next morning.
The main thing is learn how to separate the muscle groups on the hind quarters to get those awesome pieces of meat whole. Use the smaller cuts to grind or slow cook.
The top round and bottom round are my favorite pieces other than the straps. I cut off all the fat but if your going to slow cook it dont worry too much about all the silver skin and connective tissue in between all the small muscles, the cooking method breaks all that down. But if your cutting into steaks you do need to get it all off though. Roasts need to be cleaned up some too but they too can be cooked so that they don't need that much. Once you figure out which is better ground, which is a roast and which can be made into steaks you'll have it down.
The method of cooking determines a lot of how much you want to clean the meat up.
This is the process I use. It may not work for everyone but It does for me, There wasn't any internet when I first started shooting deer so most of this I came up with before then. There may be better ways to do it but I have never had any meat go bad or anything. It was in the upper 70"s when my daughter shot a doe last week and I did everything just as explained above. Grind as much as you like but there are some great cuts of meat you helped it grow for you. Enjoy a good steak off of that hind quarter.

Cap'n I do much as you have described but my front shoulders usually go to stew meat and grind. I'm interested in your method of smoking a front shoulder. I built a drum smoker a couple years ago and have run a lot of meat through it but have never tried smoking venison.
Any chance I could get you to elaborate ?

 

[massey]

Gator, if you havent already, invest in a good gambrel hoist and a quality vaccum sealer. I've never in 40 years of hunting taken a deer to the butcher. it takes about 1 hour for me to skin and completly de-bone while hanging, and about half that to cut everything up and trim it.
the thing with silverskin is you dont want long strands of it. You can actually just leave it on for burger if you cut it up into small pieces first.

 

[Gator]

Gator, if you havent already, invest in a good gambrel hoist and a quality vaccum sealer. I've never in 40 years of hunting taken a deer to the butcher. it takes about 1 hour for me to skin and completly de-bone while hanging, and about half that to cut everything up and trim it.
the thing with silverskin is you dont want long strands of it. You can actually just leave it on for burger if you cut it up into small pieces first.

Yes I have both of those. I just bought the grinder and the wild game bags to put the ground meat in. Can you guys post up pics of your grind meat pile before and after you grind (visual goes a long way to help explain) just to show how little/much non meat is included?

 

[Cap'n]

Cap'n I do much as you have described but my front shoulders usually go to stew meat and grind. I'm interested in your method of smoking a front shoulder. I built a drum smoker a couple years ago and have run a lot of meat through it but have never tried smoking venison.
Any chance I could get you to elaborate ?

Normally I do a dry rub and then I put the shoulder on 2 sheets of heavy duty foil and leave them open on the smoker and let it smoke for an hour to hour and a half. Then I lay bacon across it and fold the foil closed and cook to an internal temp of at least 140. You can tell when it’s done normally because the meat pulls away from the bone. Then I remove the bone , pull the meat apart and add whatever BBQ sauce you prefer..
Sometimes I start them on a smoker or grill then put them in roasting pans with a qt. Of beef broth and potatoes and carrots

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[PineSapJunky]

To keep adding to the confusion. I will document as I go along in hopes it helps. These are the deer my son shot and I hit with the truck. They are currently hanging in a commercial reach in cooler aging. I have a pan of pink Himalayan salt absorbing excess moisture in the cooler (which is a diuretic anyways). I will dry age the backstraps and tenderloins for 5 days and let the hind and front shoulders go an additional 10-12 days.

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[Deadeye]

When back in Pa and it was cold we would let the deer hang after skinning for 4-5 days. Dad always said it tasted batter and now I know why. After doing some research I found that it takes 5 Days on average for Rigormortis to leave the body. So if you cut it up before that happens, the meat is stiffer and has a different taste IMO.

Down here I usually Quarter the meat and place it in a Large Cooler with Ice. I let that sit for 5 days with the plug open to let any water drain out. Then I cut up and package as wanted. However I have done the cut the meat while hanging trick and I think I'm going to do that the next time and see how it goes. Still will place the meat in Garbage Bags before placing in the Cooler.

I have found that if you let the meat touch the water or ice it takes to much of the blood out and leaves the meat looking grey.

I always take as much of the Silver Skin off as I can from Northern Deer, but the Southern Deer just do not have it and the meat looks more of a Pink Color than a Red Color. Taste is Sweeter too.

 

[Jeff H]

Actually rigor mortise will only last 8- 18 hours depending on some other variables, mainly temperature. What happens when you age meat (any meat) is the cell walls begin to break down in the muscle tissue creating a more tender texture. The more it ages, the more tender it is. Ageing meat is actually just controlled rotting.
Pinesap. If you're not applying the Himalayan salt directly to the meat you can use plain ole rock salt or driveway salt to pull the moisture from the air. I love dry aged meat!

 

[PineSapJunky]

Jeff H,

I guess you can call me snob (or connoisseur) but I find the Himalayan salt to impart a better flavor on the meat. I have also used "smoked salts" with good success. Like you I'm a huge fan of aged meats and love tinkering with them. I find the biggest problem people have with aged meats is not letting them age long enough to actually see the effects of aging both in tenderness and flavor. I have used rock salt and driveway salts like you mentioned in the past. I'm going to take pictures of the meat each week for the next 3 weeks so everyone can see the progress.

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