Butchering Deer

sean18mb

sean18mb

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Turner Valley, AB
I'm just wondering how long it usually takes to butcher an average sized whitetail buck. Pretty much the whole front shoulders will be ground into sausage, so do I need to be picky about all the silverskin between the layers of shank meat? Can I just grind this up, or should I still take it all out?

I only have a few hours each day to work on cutting up and packaging the meat. I skinned the deer tonight, but was only able to do that and butcher 1 front leg. The deer has been aging for 7 days now, between 35-40'F. Will the meat dry out now that the skin is off? I actually loosely draped the skin back over the deer when I was done tonight. Should I leave it off? This is only my second deer, and the first I've butchered myself. It's not that difficult, it just seems very time consuming. The fat seems to be layered throughout a lot of the meat, so that eats up lots of my time removing it.

-Sean
 
I wouldn't cover the deer back up with its hide, gets some clean sheets that you dont use anymore preferably of a material that won't leave bits of stuff on the meat and use that as a shroud. most of our deer also goes to sausage, we don't worry to much about the silver stuff on the meat we just try to get the majority off same with the fat.

On sunday me and my dad butchered my deer which was a good sized animal in about 3 hours, alos i had to butcher a half b/c my mom dragged my dad to town for Grey cup snakc shopping.

hope that was helpful

Logan
 
sean18mb said:
I'm just wondering how long it usually takes to butcher an average sized whitetail buck. Pretty much the whole front shoulders will be ground into sausage, so do I need to be picky about all the silverskin between the layers of shank meat? Can I just grind this up, or should I still take it all out?

I only have a few hours each day to work on cutting up and packaging the meat. I skinned the deer tonight, but was only able to do that and butcher 1 front leg. The deer has been aging for 7 days now, between 35-40'F. Will the meat dry out now that the skin is off? I actually loosely draped the skin back over the deer when I was done tonight. Should I leave it off? This is only my second deer, and the first I've butchered myself. It's not that difficult, it just seems very time consuming. The fat seems to be layered throughout a lot of the meat, so that eats up lots of my time removing it.

-Sean
Click to expand...
Hi Sean, your whitetail deer, shouldn't take more than 2 to 3 hours to butcher, but that will come with experience. To de-bone the front shoulders or hinds, just cut about 3/4" deep into the white lines of fat that separate the muscle groups. Each muscle group should peel off if you're butchering at the right temperature, slightly below freezing. Most butcher shops that grind up meat for sausage etc, don't want it aged more than one or two days. Roasts and streaks can be aged a bit longer. Aging is very much a personal thing, for me, I don't want to hang it for more than three days. You should removed the biggest pieces of fat, don't worry about the small stuff too much. The most important thing is cleanliness, wash the meat in cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. I highly recommend those vaccum sealing machines over paper wrapping. Another time saver is investing in good set of very sharp butchering knives, your hunting knife is NOT such a knife. My favorites are my Henckell de-boning knife and the deep blade butcher knife. Once you get set up, organized, have good knives and get a pattern going, a hind quarter takes about 20 minutes to de-bone, clean and package. Wanna know how I learned?...I spoke to a butcher at our local small town supermarket. I invited him over for some of my homemade wine, cheese and some elk steaks. He jumped on the offer, brang his wife and butchered my elk with me. While we were cutting and I was learning, his wife and mine, cooked up some small pieces of meat on an electric grill, served with cheese, red wine and italian buns. Good luck and bon appetit.
 
Amen to the sharp knives. There is NOTHING worse than cutting any animal with dull or too soft blades, just makes for a frusterating night. We usually cut our up for steaks and roasts. The rest gets canned or cut up for stir-fry meat. mmmmm.....
Usually takes a couple hours.
 
As mentioned, a sharp knife is a must. I used to cut meat for a living, but am a little rusty now, so it takes me about 2 hours. I skin the animal asap, and wrap it in a wet sheet, and let it hang for about a week. That is the way we butchered and hung beef. If you are going to grind the meat, I wouldn't be too worried about "all" the silverskin, some of it will wind up around the blade of your grinder, and you can clean it off. I do trim all the fat and silver skin off that I can, and I never leave the meat with bone in it. It gets easier the more you do.
 
Did 3 bucks last weekend and was really picky about getting all the silver skin off. Took me about 14 hours over two days for the three to get skinned, trimmed, cut and wrapped. That included the time spent to cape out the wall hanger.
 
here is a tip i learned from professional butchers.
if the meat freezes at all, don't bother letting it age. The bacteria that aids in the process is killed and it won't do nothing but dry out.
Also the temp is important, 4 deg. cel. but the humidity is more critical. Most of us don't have a controled room for this.
After learning that i now just butcher it when i feel like it.
 
One of the biggest time sinks in butchering is trying to get meat out of the shanks, you can spend an hour trying to get the silver skin out and for what a pound or 2 of clean meat. One year a butcher just ground the stuff up siverskin and all, it tasted like crap. Now I have a dog breeder friend her dogs get them now along with all of the major bones.

I did two does last week in about 6 hours including grinding. But with practice you will figure out what mussle groups will give you what sort of cut. I don't use freezer paper or a vacum sealer. I wrap roasts in plastic wrap then store a number of them in heavy freezer bags. Stew and burger goes into 1 lb bags then grouped in larger bags.

Kepp an eye out sometimes fish and game clubs or butcher suppy houses run seminars
 
Sharp knife,keep it dry and following the bones is the easiest way to debone.Try to remove as much fat and silver skin as you can. If you are grinding it youself with a small grinder you may have to clean out the plates a few times if you don`t.silver skin doesn`t grind too well.
Just take your time.I did 2 yesterday,deboned,ground and wrapped in just under 2 hours,but I have been cutting for a living for 12 years.
 
I think next time, I will process my own deer.
I brought this one, (my first), to the butcher and they were done in less than 10 minutes. Nice roasts and chops but the stewing meat and burger could have used some care.
They didn't make any attempt to clean up the (what I heard refered to as the faille, please correct me if it's wrong)white skin or much of the fat.

I also had pork added to my ground meat. I went by the butchers recommendation of 20% pork....for me that meant 8 lbs and it is very tasty and makes awesome burgers.

I'm going to try to do most of it myself, and just get the butcher to do the chops and the burger.

Now I need some recipes for sausage (another post).

Take care
 
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