Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What tools do I NEED to butcher my own deer?

I raise a hog to get my fat and bacon for the deer sausage......

Here's my stuff. I was going to buy a grinder this yr but a fly-in moose hunt to the Yukon is diverting my cash resources.

There's no reason why not to mix fresh pork fat into leaned out venison as a fat replacement.


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Yep.


Travis

Good God man, that's a lot of stuff......

You have a nice set up.

No offense, but mine's easier to clean up when I'm done.....

I agree with Bighorn, I use a plastic cutting board, a hacksaw, a fish fillet knife and a small hunting knife or even a pocket knife. Well, I also use a utility knife with a hooked linoleum blade to ease skinning but that's a different task.

It's more than simply 'butchering' it tho, for best results we have to start at the time of the kill. Field dress the critter as soon as you can so the meat can begin to cool. After you get him to camp, hang him by the head so it's easy to pull the skin off. Raise him until his rear feet are about ground level for a good working height. Then hacksaw the legs off where ever you wish. Slit the skin down the neck and all four legs and pull the hide off. Wash out the body cavity to flush any squishy, stinky stuff off the tenderloins.

Prepare a sufficently large ice cooler with ice/water and salt for an aging solution. The cooler must be large enough to allow you to completely submerge and soak the meat. I find maybe half or three quarters of a pound of table salt in five gallons of icy water will work well. After the first day, just keep enough ice in it to maintain the temp, ideally the water will hover around 35 degrees. I like to use water frozen in liter sized soft drink bottles after the first day, it will cool but not dilute the brine mix. The low temp will protect the meat as it ages and the salt will pull most all of the blood and fluids from the lymph system. It won't dry out or 'salt' the meat unless the brine is much too strong, nor will it allow the meat to become 'gray' from being fresh water logged.

Quarter the body, placing each piece into the brine water and ice solution. Strip the loins off the spine. Cut off the meat around the rib cage and neck as you wish and then discard the skeleton. After it's aged enough, 10-14 days is usually plenty, it's time to complete the cutting and package it.

Remove the pieces, flush off the brine and pat the meat dry. Use the fillet knife to seperate the muscle bundles from the leg bones and each other. Skin off/cut out the fatty deposits, slice off the tough muscle sheath "silver layers" and tendons until you have clean muscle bundles.

Cutting across the grain, cut the larger bundles and loins into steaks and cut the rest into thumb size chunks, or smaller for stews, chili and barbecue kabobs. Vacuum seal and freeze it in meal sized packs.

Venison done this way makes our occasional 'non-venison eating' dinner guests compliment my wife on the quality of her delicious meat! At our church dinners our resident vetrinarian, who just hates the idea of shooting a Bambi, will eat it 'till he nearly pops!

I NEVER grind any of my venison or mix it with something else for sausage any more. It's much to good to do that to it!

Nice job on boning that deer. I don't use all those knives. The older ones were passed down from a grandfather who was a meatcutter/butcher as well.

I was a meatcutter for over 20yrs. It comes in handy.

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444Matt,

Since you asked about books, I might suggest my wife's book, SLICE OF THE WILD. It describes a lot of options in butchering methods, depending on your likes or your family's needs, and has lots of photos of various butchering techniques, including how to make various kinds of sausage.

There are also a section with the latest info from meat science, and 100 recipes, with suggestions for side dishes (recipes included for them as well).

The price is $24.95 (which includes postage) from: www.riflesandrecipes.com

I think we all start out with basics and add what we need. I like ground so we grind a lot of our deer (since we grind lots we use good meat and our ground is really good)

My Daughter and I process our deer together its really cool. Although she is a bit pissed we have used a small grinder that takes time.Just by coincidence she is going off to Collage (she may not be around to help this year) this year and I bought a 1hp grinder I am sure it will be quite easier.

I dont think I would buy one but if you have a sawsall they work great for removing hooves and horns.


Hank

So u go to the local lumber chain and snag a piece of scrap countertop for next to nothing. Option 1 is to screw some folding legs ( like something liberated off a conference table ) or 2, screw two of those round things that can hold closet rod on one end, and a hinge to the opposite end bolted to ur garage studs. Two lengths of closet rod work as legs ( note pic, but it doesn�t haveta be this FANCY). Run some anti-bacterial spray, then dishcloth, and ur ready to rock from last season.

Also note cutlery. That�s it.



I don�t buy junk steaks at the store, so I�m not cutting anything similar. Remove fillets inside cavity.
Next remove backstraps.

Halfway done, and on to the round. Cut tips from front of femur. Top N bottom round are on the backside of this bone, separate and remove.

To this point everything is steak.

Final stretch, the shoulders, or chuck. Bone everything. I do some strips for fajitas (or stew if so inclined), and the rest I sausage. One may do burger, but I can�t dig the veni. Elk yes, veni not. I have the sausage processed,, as I�m less than enthusiastic to mess with it and equipment. Mostly do Italian brats and grill �em or in for pasta dishes, sliced or �deskinned�.

Sever spine below ribs. The skeletal structure is now in half. Place both in dumpster.

Washing, freezer paper, and final beer, should be way under two hours tops.

So this is going to be boneless steaks left in large (4-5 pound) chunks frozen. Marinade and grill medium rare, they won�t dry out like individually sliced steaks. Cut steaks after grilling.

The end.

One can substitute steaks for roasts. Think round or tips, as the straps are sacreligious�

years ago i used to process my own. other than a grinder (get a good one) and some form of plastic top for your table, i think you're set for processing.

HUGE plus one on this book..I wish I had had one when first starting.....it took me about 30 deer to learn what she puts forth in 30 pages....absolutely the best book on the subject Ive ever seen...

Ingwe

444Matt;
I�ve read through the responses and would say you�ve gotten some good advice already.

We�ve been cutting our families� game � deer, bear, a couple moose and one sheep- since about �89 I believe. For some reason we never kept track of what we did until 2000 and last season we passed 80 animals that we processed in our garage, so likely we've done somewhere between 120-150 animals since we started way back when.

First off I�d highly recommend Eileen�s book that JB mentioned. Even though we�ve been at it as long as we have, when I bought the book last year I learned a few things about cutting meat. The recipes are very good as well might I add.

We have a pole outside that allows us to skin the animal as soon as is practical. It is equipped with a hand crank boat winch and pulleys which make hoisting a job a 5 year old can do - and has at our house! We then try to let the carcass hang overnight to rigor and then relax before cutting it into chunks and placing it in our cooler.

For a cooler we use a large converted upright chest freezer that I�d say is about 22 cu.ft. or so. We don�t have the airflow that a commercial cooler has, so we generally have found that leaving the meat in more than 7 days is not the best. I�ve begun to experiment with auxiliary fans placed inside the cooler and that is showing some promise.

When the meat is ready to cut or better said, when we can assemble the �cutting crew� that uses our place, we line the tops of several tables with 3� paper we get from the local newspaper as it makes cleanup a breeze.

We then line a liquor box with commercial butcher paper into which the meat to be ground will go, lay out the cutting boards and knives and get a big garbage can lined with oversize bags ready for the bones.

For the actual cutting, we�ve procured a number of boning and fillet knives from commercial meat cutter supply houses. They run about $10-$18 each. If you do ebay, I see that my personal favorites the Victorinox � Forschner line are readily available.

We use wooden cutting boards that I�ve made from scraps at the cabinet shop I work at, but plastic would be fine too.

My late father built a butcher paper dispenser that we clamp onto one of the tables as well as a tape dispenser that clamps onto the table. I�ve got to say these two items are very useful and we all wished we�d commissioned them years earlier.

For cutting steaks we use a couple scimitar type steak knives, a 10� and a 12�. I like the larger one for making round steaks on moose, but the smaller one would work for any deer we�ve cut thus far.

We wrap the meat with a single layer of commercial paper. One lays the paper in front of you in a diamond shape, the point toward your chest. Then place the meat on the front edge of the diamond, just far enough on to cover it entirely when you fold it forward. Then one folds the left and right side in, keeping the paper as close to the meat as possible, as the goal is to remove air which causes freezer burn. Then the front is wrapped towards you, again keeping it tight and then tape the package with freezer tape.

We mark the package with the hunter, the animal, the year and the cut. As part of our family supper ritual, we thank whoever pulled the trigger for providing the meat for the meal. For younger hunters in our family it�s proven to be a significant part of their growth and has been very positive overall.

Meat that will either be ground or will be taken to a commercial sausage maker that we trust is put into the butcher paper lined box and when the animal is done, the paper is pressed down tightly to seal it. When the next animal is cut, we open it up and put the next layer on top.

Ground meat is done at the end of season when all the boxes are full. We partially thaw it and try to grind it semi-frozen as it grinds easier that way. We use a 3/8� plate for first pass and then a �� for second. Some folks don�t mind leaving it course ground by the way.

In general we don�t add fat until we cook the meat as we believe the fat will freezer burn quicker. If we want to add fat when cooking ground meat, one can either chop some bacon or fat ham into it then or add cooking oil to taste.

Hopefully that was some use to you and good luck on your meat cutting.

Regards,
Dwayne

Wildswalker: Yes, I have about 8 knives, cleaver, saws, steels, hooks, grinder, etc. Pretty much only bring out the boning knife, plastic wrap, and butcher paper. Never had much need or desire to cut through bones.

I go pretty much minimalist as I only process a deer or two a year. Deer get hung in the garage on a home made single tree on a (cheap) chain hoist. Works better than a come-along for moving the carcass up and down so you're not bending or stretching while cutting. Carcasses hang for a week, more or less, depending on the weather. My table is a half sheet of plywood, depending on what's on hand, on saw horses with heavy plastic sheet stapled over. I don't cut against it so it doesn't get cut, only bone and slice to convenient size to finish up in the kitchen.

Implements of destruction are two boning knives and a slicer and a really good steel - used often. I like the curved boning knife for some things and the straight one for others. But knives are a personal choice. I only use a saw for cutting the skull to remove antlers and dividing what remains of the carcass when I'm done for easy hauling. Also good for shortening the front legs so they don't get in the way while you're working but limb loppers are faster. It's strictly boning out the meat for me.

Final cutting is done in the kitchen where it's warmer, our late Novembers can be pretty chilly, much more so late hunts. I wrap in freezer type Press n Seal and freezer paper, the freezer paper to keep packages from sliding as much as anything. I don't grind much, preferring stew and chili meat so I use the old, old hand crank monster for the few pounds that I may do.

I'm with the "one good knife" plan. To much time gets wasted changing and looking for other tools. Get one good knife you can gut,skin and bone with. Make it a good one and don't be afraid to spend some money on good steel. Keep it clean and sharp. Once upon a time I shot crop damage and we would average over 100 deer a season between my three uncles, my dad and myself. I became quite proficient with processing deer. If you're going to grind the meat make sure it's free of the "silver skin" That will clog a grinder in no time. Keep the fat out of the ground venison as best you can. If you want something to add so it makes good patties add some pork later. As for a vacuum sealer I have had good luck with my Foodsaver brand. I have had it over ten years and it has worked well. You can get them and the bags at Wal-Mart fairly reasonable. Don't think you NEED a fancy butchers' set of knifes to process a deer. If you want that later on go for it but all you really NEED is one or two good knifes to get from the field to the freezer.

I recommend NOT using counter tops for a cutting surface. While they are easy to clean and control bacteria, thay are quite hard and will turn a knife blade in short order. Much better to use a nylon cutting board for the actual cutting and the counter surface as a work area.

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