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Experimenting with Venison Butchering Methods

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    Experimenting with Venison Butchering Methods

    I like to butcher my own game. I enjoy the process, as well as knowing that the deer in my packages is the deer that I harvested and cared for after the shot. I recently stumbled on Scott Rea’s YouTube channel. He’s a traditional English butcher and has a wide range of videos on butchering and cooking both domestic and game animals. In one of his videos, he walks through the process of butchering a deer in the same way you would a lamb. I decided to give this a shot myself last night. The benefit of this method is that it produces a lot of steaks and some nice roasts, while still yielding some stew meat and burger.

    The first photo shows how I usually butcher. The second shows the method from Scott Rea's video. Notice the number of steak cuts you get from the second method. These are not thin cuts either. I cut all chops and rounds at about 1" thick. Rib chops are cut two ribs thick. These should make for great grilling cuts. I think I'll definitely being butchering more like this. The only thing that I think I'll change next time is to tidy up the ribs a bit shorter on those chops.
    Attached Files
    Last edited by Slow&Steady; 11-21-2017, 10:40 AM.

    #2
    I can see how that would benefit overall food from the animal, but I have not had good luck with wild animal fat tasting very good. Seems like there are a lot of cuts with quite a bit of fat.

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      #3
      This was easily the fattest doe I've ever seen. I probably trimmed 5 to 7 lbs of fat off her. The ribs could use a bit more care, but honestly there wasn't much fat left on the other cuts. What's there is very thin, and could probably be trimmed up a bit better. I was running on fumes by the time I finished last night and certainly could have been more careful about trimming.

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        #4
        I think iv SEEN his videos

        Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

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          #5
          I do my own too and when someone new watches me they are amazed at how much meat goes into the cooler vs. what they get from their processor. Plus you know it's yours and not the guy who let his turn black on the inside from hanging all weekend in 70 degree weather.

          I bone out the leg meat and it usually has too many ligaments for me to deal with so it goes in the grinder with any trimmings and other portions I do not want to eat. Then I brown it up and bag it for the dog. He loves it and everything gets eaten that way.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Mesquite Archer View Post
            I do my own too and when someone new watches me they are amazed at how much meat goes into the cooler vs. what they get from their processor. Plus you know it's yours and not the guy who let his turn black on the inside from hanging all weekend in 70 degree weather.

            I bone out the leg meat and it usually has too many ligaments for me to deal with so it goes in the grinder with any trimmings and other portions I do not want to eat. Then I brown it up and bag it for the dog. He loves it and everything gets eaten that way.
            I've seen some great videos and recipes for braising the shanks (lower leg meat). I've reserved them so that I can give that a try.

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              #7
              I always separate by the muscle to avoid the sinew and fat because I was told THAT is what makes venison taste "gamey". Is that not true? I need to find the video you're talking about

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                #8
                Originally posted by Slow&Steady View Post
                I've seen some great videos and recipes for braising the shanks (lower leg meat). I've reserved them so that I can give that a try.
                By all means give it a try and report back I would like to know how it turned out. I do the dog food thing because it saves me some time and gives the dog a good treat.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Mesquite Archer View Post
                  I do my own too and when someone new watches me they are amazed at how much meat goes into the cooler vs. what they get from their processor. Plus you know it's yours and not the guy who let his turn black on the inside from hanging all weekend in 70 degree weather.



                  I bone out the leg meat and it usually has too many ligaments for me to deal with so it goes in the grinder with any trimmings and other portions I do not want to eat. Then I brown it up and bag it for the dog. He loves it and everything gets eaten that way.


                  Ten four on knowing you are eating your deer and your deer only. My processor is pretty strict when it comes to accepting deer to process. They will turn you down if the meat is funky or not up to their standards. That being said, I don’t see how anyone can believe that a processor only runs your meat through the grinder without mixing with others. I don’t believe they have the time to grind one deer, clean the grinder, then start on another persons deer. They gotta run a bunch of meat through those big grinders all at once and that means a bunch of cut up deer meat from many deer. My processor has a massive grinder. No way is he cleaning that thing after 30 pounds of meat. 300 pounds? Maybe? A whole day of processing deer...more than likely. I process my own, but have had some processed for me in the past and my place has never given me meat that was nasty.


                  Skinny

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                    #10
                    Yep, and some don't even make their own sausage in house. I used one years ago that sent it to Syracuse so you know that was a bulk deal. Never again.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Da' Hitman View Post
                      I always separate by the muscle to avoid the sinew and fat because I was told THAT is what makes venison taste "gamey". Is that not true? I need to find the video you're talking about
                      Fat certainly contributes to gameiness. Sinew not so much. Also, the silverskin in the meat makes it gamier and tougher, so removing that goes a long way. The biggest contributor to gaminess is field care. Getting the guts out quickly, draining blood, and getting it cooled down quickly all contribute to preventing spoilage and off flavors. You could take the best beef cow in the world, and if you killed it and let it lay in the sun while it's 80 degrees out for hours with it's guts in it and blood pooling in all of the extremities and throughout the meat, then you gutted it and hauled it around for a few hours down dirt roads, filling the cavity with all kinds of bacteria before finally getting the skin off and cooling it down, of course it's going to have poor flavor. Unfortunately game animals often get a bad wrap for poor flavor despite the fact that many hunters give no better care to the carcass than what I've described above.

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