Processing my own deer tomorrow....any advice?

CyaN1de

CyaN1de

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2nd only deer and will be my first for processing.

Any advice from experienced "butchers"?

Any really good Youtube vids that one would recommend? Seems to be a 1000 of them but there are always those 1 or 2 that stand out as good tutorials.

Have watched a few, one of a guy in a butcher shop setting, but sound is the ####s and looks like it was filmed on a super8 so detail is lacking.

Thanks
 
Well, there IS a science to it, but you can also come up with acceptable results as an inexperienced amateur! Just separate muscle groups from the bone. A flexible deboning knife is best for that, or a fish fillet knife works OK too. Slice what you want of the backstraps and hams into steaks. Keep the tenderloins ( the two strips of meat inside the body cavity, along side the backbone) for special meals and cut them into medallions when cooking. Take off all the fat and discoloured tissue. Remove all big tendons and connective tissue, and discard bloodshot meat. Scrape blood form the surface of messy looking but not bruised meat. Package with very tightly wrapped plastic film or at a minimum tight butcher paper. Vacuum packs are much better but more expensive. Grind only meat that you would eat "as - is" since grinding does nothing to improve meat quality or reduce contamination or spoilage.
Before all that, skin the animal carefully, never touching the meat with the hand that touched the mud,blood, and piss-soaked hide. That is the #1 rule in meat handling.
Enjoy!
 
This guy shows some good stuff. He is fast but if you look how he takes the meat off the bones you should learn some good tips that I basically had to learn through experience.

[youtube]xijmge8_NJw[/youtube]
 
Don't do like the guy in the second vid did, where he skins at the same time he cuts off the meat. Hair frikken everywhere. Bleh.

Deer fat tends to not be in the main muscles, so it trims away pretty easy. Never had any deer fat go rancid on me, maybe it's getting blamed for poor handling.

If you have not skinned the deer, do that, wipe the carcass down to clean off any bits of hair or blood, then let it dry. Once dry, you can go over it again and pick off any remaining hairs.

I don't actually mind a little fat, but don't care for picking hairs out of my food much at all.

Clean, clean, clean! Treat it like you would like all your food to be treated. Make big chunks of meat, take them indoors, get them organized, and make them into nice looking cuts.

Cut and trim, then wrap all the same cuts, and mark them, then start on the wrapping of the next type. Saves the PITA of unwrapping it all to figure out what is inside!


Cheers
Trev
 
My favourite Youtube is Mark Gilchrist (The Hunting Life). Watch his videos and you'll get a good idea of how to break the job down into a manageable task.
 
i have two suggestions.

Number one, go take the course at OLDs College and never look back, Knowledge that will last you a life time, that will be valuable so long as humans remain omnivores. (http://[Delete]oldscollege.ca/programs/MeatProcessing/index.htm)

Second suggestion. convince one of your friends to take it then teach you how it's done, the right way. My brother in law took this course in order to help his folks out at the farm. Holy crap! the guys butchers beef like a champ, I don't have the time to go and take this course (wish I did) but I make it a point to pay really good attention when he's butchering.

This is of course going above and beyond the call of duty but man, I think it be worth it if you have the time and money to take this course.
 
trevj said:
If you have not skinned the deer, do that, wipe the carcass down to clean off any bits of hair or blood, then let it dry. Once dry, you can go over it again and pick off any remaining hairs.

I don't actually mind a little fat, but don't care for picking hairs out of my food much at all.

Clean, clean, clean!


Cheers
Trev
Click to expand...

Once again, Trev, sound advice. I am a clean freak when doing my meat.
Hardest part of butchering, getting the dang hair off! So, A quick tip on cleaning the hairs ... Use a rag dipped in a water and VINEGAR mix. The vinegar breaks the surface tension and the hairs wipe right off and stick to the rag. Fastest, best advice I ever got, and now it is yours, for free.
 
Thanks for the tips.

Deer has been skinned and hanging since Friday.

Wife and I Will be working on it in the garage and we have the loan of a vacuum sealer to package the meat up with.
 
Find a new crazy carpet wash and bleach clean, makes a good cheap cutting table cover. Easy to keep clean as you go, Jcloth with vinegar, easy on knices cutting edge and is large enough to work a quarter. We used to debone the quarters and then butcher and wrap not quite traditional cuts but more than satisfactory...
 
Find a new crazy carpet wash and bleach clean, makes a good cheap cutting table cover. Easy to keep clean as you go, Jcloth with vinegar, easy on knices cutting edge and is large enough to work a quarter. We used to debone the quarters and then butcher and wrap not quite traditional cuts but more than satisfactory... A crazy carpet is a flexible plastic sheet that kids use to slid down on snow covered hills,
 
trevj said:
If you have not skinned the deer, do that, wipe the carcass down to clean off any bits of hair or blood, then let it dry. Once dry, you can go over it again and pick off any remaining hairs.

I don't actually mind a little fat, but don't care for picking hairs out of my food much at all.

Clean, clean, clean! Treat it like you would like all your food to be treated.
Click to expand...
After skinning, wash down the carcass with cold, clean water to remove hair, blood and any internal guts and stuff. Wipe down after and hang and a cold, dry environment.

Washing will NOT degrade the meat. Hanging in a humid location will. I even seen folks put a fan on it to aid in drying off the surface for the first day hanging.

Removing all fat will reduce the wild taste that folks don't usually like. Boning out all muscle and slicing boneless will eliminate bone dust from the meat. This too will greatly improve flavour.

Skin it ASAP, wash it, cool it ASAP and hang it for a week if you can.
 
That is pretty slick, but I'm surprised at how easy the hide falls off. Not like that with northern deer.

I would have completely skinned it first and removed the lower legs.

Boomer74 said:
This looks pretty slick, and they guy explains very well...

*vid gets windy after a minute or two.

[youtube]6ZFuNW6usmI[/youtube]
Click to expand...
 
Make sure your table top is near waist high- probably 4" higher than standard. Your back will thank me.... One year I ended up with the table on the back deck and me standing in the yard to get things the right height. Five deer back to back and I wasn't even a bit sore. Since then I've invested in a proper solution!
 
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