How do you process your venison?

RichardK

RichardK

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First deer is hanging in the shed, I have a local lined up to process the meat for me but he has alot of different options so I'm curious how some of you get it done.
I definitely want sausage, burger, pepperettes, but don't know how much of each to expect. Curious the weight and cuts you get done up, or do for yourself.
No scale, but it took two grown men all we had to lift it onto a hook.
 
you should yield roughly around 60-65% weight of product off the hanging weight....figure out what ya want a get it all made into equal parts..We do dinner sausage, smokies or garlic coil, pepperoni and then ground what is left
 
I do all my own butchering.

I rarely age deer. I find that if I debone it and leave it on a table at about 5 degrees for 4 days or so, I can easily butcher it into roasts and steaks, remove all silver skin and the rest is sausage.

Normally, I leave the front quarters whole, bone in, and put it on the pellet grill at 200 degrees for 2 hours. I slice lines into it at 1hr and put on kosher salt, garlic powder and some blackened seasoning. Flip it and do the same to the other side. Cut the meat off at the 2hr mark and feed everyone here.

For sausage I will add 30% pork. Grind it all , season it and put it in casings. Thats it.

God drew lines on the deer so you know where to cut and pull. Try it with a hind quarter. Use your fingers to pull apart the overlapping muscles. Cut when you have to. Doesnt take much to butcher it yourself. Making sausage etc is a bit different as everyone has their "secret" recipe. Experiment if you like. Less is better as you can always add. Have a frying pan ready and sample a tablespoon every so often. As soon as you are happy, thats your recipe. Write stuff down.
 
Don’t know what kind of deer you got but the whitetails I have done up with 30-40lbs finished meat. Bones out.
Also I butcher my own, good skill to have and not that hard.
I grind the fronts and rib meat. Steaks and roasts off the back quarters. Backstraps and tenderloins.
 
I have butchered all of the game ive hunted since i was in my early twenties. Whitetails and moose. Our group has a big Biro bandsaw and a huge biro grinder so we make short work of everything. We also have our own portable cold units that are used if the weather isnt cooperating plus we have a heated shop thats 30x45 with all the hoists and tables for efficient butchering. We always have a party after and even the wives and GFs join in on wrapping. I worked for a while butchering and slaughtering so its second nature and one of our gang was a butcher for 50 years, good guy to have around. We dont smoke or do pepperettes. That we hire out. We do make fresh sausage like Italian and Honey Garlic and a really spicey one that we concaukted a few years ago.
 
Back straps get cut usually into three pieces, Tenderloins come out whole.
Two roasts out of the hinds and everything else is cut for stew or ground.
My son does about the same except he also cuts a French Rack every year for Christmas Eve dinner
Cat
 

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I cut the backstrap loins into 3 "roasts" per side, get 2 roasts from each hind leg grind the rest and generally save the rest for ground and or sausage.
The blacktails we get end up around 110 to 130 ish pounds on the hook, no hide, no head no legs below the knee.
From that we get 50ish to 60ish pounds of meat to process. So roughly 1/2 the hook weight = cut and wrapped weight in my experience.
Decent size mule deer, add 20 or 30 pounds but the spikers and 2pts generally don't weigh much more than a fat coastal blacktail.
 
My son and I do ours up . We debone remove the fat slice steaks cubes and strips and rest burger. We then season and vacuum seal the meat so straight from the freezer to the fry pan We bought one of the coolbots off Amazon plugged it into an air conditioner made an insulated cooler room and let it hang 4-5 days. Usually 2.5-3 hrs we are done a deer packaged and everything wiped down and cleaned up and put away And the tenderloins go straight to the fry pan after we are done skinning as a reward
 
My advise watch videos on ytub. I printed off a butchers layout on a beef cow back in 2006. I have butchered all my own (12) animals since. Pigs, deer, bear, moose and more.
Owned 2 different grinders. I make all our sausage and patties with recipe's off the internet. Cook one before casing the batch.
I buy pork backstraps/loin and use all the fat off it for my sausages. Then cure and smoke the chops.
 
iron cat said:
Back straps get cut usually into three pieces, Tenderloins come out whole.
Two roasts out of the hinds and everything else is cut for stew or ground.
My son does about the same except he also cuts a French Rack every year for Chridtmas Eve dinner
Cat
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That’s a great idea. Next year I’ll do a long French rack off a blacktail for Christmas or new years.
 
Hollow Point said:
I never tried sausage making but if i get a deer this years I plan to. I bought a kit from Princess auto for mild italian and am just going to make patties instead of using the casings.
the rest of the deer I just bone out and cut into roast and steaks.
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I bought that kit too. What do you mean you won't use the casings but still want to make sausage? I've not done them before. I have the Cabela's 1hp grinder with the sausage attachments ect I haven't used but so far the grinder actually hasn't worked all that amazing for the 500$ or so it was.
 
Have butchered into various cuts, have had it professionally butchered, but now I grind most of it because my wife prefers the versatility for chili/pasta sauce/mexican recipe. I usually add a bit of other meat to add a touch a fat so it’s not too dry when cooking.
 
We have made patties with the sausage kits before too. Usually with one of the breakfast style seasoning mixes and then just make small patties instead of running it into sausage casings. We put a square of parchment paper between each patty and freeze them in packages of 6
Going to be making sausage soon but i need to build another smoker so I can hang links of jalapeno cheddar smokies and garlic coils.
They won't fit in my little chief smokers LOL
We have a Cuisinart countertop grinder which i would say is the bare minimum. Trick is to keep all the parts of the grinder (except the motor of course) in the freezer for a while before you grind. Helps to put the meat and especially the fats in the freezer for 1/2 hour to stiffen it up a bit too. Otherwise the fat melts in the grinder and sticks to everything, making the process difficult. So keep everything as cold as possible. We also like to do our grinding out in the shop without any heat on this time of year as it just helps to ensure everything stays cold. The first time i made my own sausage was with a clamp on hand grinder with attachments...... probably one of the smallest clamp to the counter grinder models LOL Worked great but was a lot of working hand cranking 80 pounds of deer and pork through the grinder and then another pass thru to stuff it in cases.
 
They'll add pork to the sausages so you'll get more weight back than you expect. Some shops have minimum orders on sausages.

I do my own, generally into primary cuts that I vacuum pack and freeze. Then decide at the time weather it is going to be steak, steak bites, roast, ground, stew or jerky.

The unwanted trim is bagged and froze, then in the winter I'll boil or microwave it and feed it to the dogs "wet" when it is cold or on Sunday as outdoor dogs can be dehydrated when it is cold.
 
I haven't processed big game for years and years, I always give the whole animal to my adult childern, minus the guts, head, hide and hooves.
 
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Cdnhunter117 said:
I bought that kit too. What do you mean you won't use the casings but still want to make sausage? I've not done them before. I have the Cabela's 1hp grinder with the sausage attachments ect I haven't used but so far the grinder actually hasn't worked all that amazing for the 500$ or so it was.
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after the sausage (veniso, pork, seasoning) is mixed i want to form it into patties instead of putting it into casings. i think it will be more versatile for adding to chili, sauces, etc as well as cook faster in pattie form.
 
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