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Originally Posted by Jordan Smith
And here's a decent tutorial:

I spent 24 yrs cutting meat and watch a lot of these videos. This is one of the best deer processing videos I've ever seen.

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Originally Posted by 44mc
dont know were you live but a meat cooler is nice to have .i made one from a refrigerator that works real well .if some body wants to know how pm me and i will explain it to you


I'd love to hear what kind of rig you built. I'm sure everyone else interested would too.

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Building for the start, look at a COOL-BOT controller to use a regular window air conditioner

Last edited by saddlesore; 06/29/20.

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Originally Posted by saddlesore
Building for the start, look at a C)OL-BOT controller to use a regular window air conditioner


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One thing not mentioned yet, a quick way to sharpen knifes! YOu will need to resharpen a few times on a deer sized animal. If not you will start tearing rather than trimming meat!

You want two sets of knives, one for deboning and around joints, one for filet and cutting into steaks.

Wife and I team up on it, nothing fancy, we have a friend who remodels kitchens, he got us a 6 foot counter top to use, we put it on saw horses in the garage. We upgraded from a "crank" grinder to an electric one - night and day! We also switched to vacuum sealer, works great.

We create "piles":
- roasts
- steak
- stew
- burger

as we go. I typically take the meat apart from the quarters (or while animal depending how we got it out of the field). I create the above piles. Wife starts working on them. when I am done taking things apart, I help with the piles.

Everything packaged in 1 lb packs (got a little scale for a present, makes it easy).

We can do a deer or pronghorn start to all cleaned up in about 90 minutes.

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It don't take long to know what 1 pound is without using a scale. 2 hands cupped for me is a pound.

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Originally Posted by Bob_H_in_NH

One thing not mentioned yet, a quick way to sharpen knifes! YOu will need to resharpen a few times on a deer sized animal. If not you will start tearing rather than trimming meat!

That’s what the honing steel is for. If you need to grind a new edge on your knives a few times while butchering a single deer, your knives are either made out of tin, or your giving them a swipe on the concrete each time you remove a major muscle group from the carcass. wink

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When in doubt, package your meat in the form of whole muscle roasts. It’s faster and more versatile. You can always cut a roast into steaks or grind it later but not vice versa.

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This thread has pretty much covered it, except for one thing. Jordan mentioned using freezer paper, but that works best (great in fact) in non-frost-free freezers.

If you have a frost-free freezer, the reason it's frost free is it periodically melts the surface of frozen packages, then expels the moisture from the freezer. This dehydrates the surface of the meat, which is exactly what freezer-burn is.

The major reason to use plastic-wrap (or whatever kind) or a vacuum sealer is when the meat's going into a frost-free freezer. If not, then freezer paper will keep it in fine shape for years--as Jordan noted. Which is why all three of our 15-cubic foot freezers are non-frost-free. We defrost them once a year, just before the fall hunting season when we reorganize the packages, and meat wrapped in freezer paper keeps several years without freezer burn.

Freezer paper can be bought in 1000+ foot rolls for around $35 at Costco, but can also be ordered on-line for somewhat varying prices. We usually process 3-5 animals a year, not just deer-sized game but an elk or moose every couple years. Wrapping in freezer paper is a LOT cheaper, and in our experience quicker than using plastic, though we do use a vacuum sealer for odd-shaped packages, usually game birds.

I might also suggest buying a copy of my wife's field-to-table big game "cookbook," SLICE OF THE WILD, which not only contains around 100 recipes but the science of field care and meat aging, along with photos of how to butcher animals in various ways for your particular needs. You can order it through www.riflesandrecipes.com. It's been in print now for over a decade, and many Campfire members have ordered copies, often more than one.


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Good point, JB. All of my freezers are non-frost-free, so my comments should be limited to that application.

And I'll second the "SLICE OF THE WILD" recommendation. I own the book, and it's another great resource on butchering and meat care.

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No disagreements with the above.

Just inventorying in my head what I do-

Grinder and stuffer: I have a 3/4 hp Cabelas, so does bro in law. Dad has a 1 hp. They can all grind as fast as we feed them. I used to use mine for sausage stuffing and hamburger bag filling. They work, but nowhere near as well as the stuffer I bought later. I bought a Weston 11 lb, wishing I’d bought a 20+Lb. LEM gets good reviews for both as well.

Burger bags and the tape dispenser used for taping them off. Not a must have. But a nice to have.

Plastic coated freezer paper outside of Plastic wrap (and the produce bags mentioned above sound like a winner) to wrap the meat in. Get all air out. Freezer tape. I dislike vacuum packing. Maybe I’ve just used poor bags, or had a bad seal, but they always seem to develop leaks in time. Maybe we are just rough in how we handle stuff in the freezer. I don’t know, but plastic wrapped meat wrapped in freezer paper has never failed me.

Butcher knives. A flexible boning knife from Victorinox would be a good “only” knife to have. Then buy 15 others to go with it for specialties.

Can’t have too many plastic meat lugs. I also have an assortment of stainless pans, the kind often used on buffets. Short ones. Deep ones. Half length ones. Keeps the wife happy that I’m not using her pans, plus they get used a ton with garden produce and big cooks on my smoker.

5 gallon bucket for bones/fat/bloodshot mess/silver skin.

I agree with freezing the whole “roasts”. Then it can be cooked as a roast. Sliced for steaks. Sliced thinner for jerky. Ground for whatever. I typically only grind the trimmings from cleaning up the roasts plus I grind the shoulders.

I’ll put a plug in for Walton’s. They have every supply needed. Hardware. Materials. Seasonings. Good service.

https://www.waltonsinc.com/

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Just about everything covered, we have had a few butchering parties doing 2-3 elk with hunting group & spouses. I love elk burger & venison sausage so we keep the grinder going. I’ll use a little beef suet some years to up the fat content on the sausage. The bigger grinder is a great tip. We bought a small commercial grinder from a deli on Craigslist and it is very effective.

Meat containers, sharp knives, grinder we have had good results with vacuum sealer - I’m going to use the produce wrap this year as well.

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Originally Posted by JSH
When in doubt, package your meat in the form of whole muscle roasts. It’s faster and more versatile. You can always cut a roast into steaks or grind it later but not vice versa.
Doing that is more than just faster. It also exposes less meat surface to the air which reduces oxidation and freezer burn. Meat frozen in large chunks will keep longer.


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Dont forget to make sure your meat is very cold and firm before grinding it. I put mine in a tub after I cut it to the size to go into the grinder . Then into the freezer for a short period to firm it up.


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nathen if you can post pics. pm me and i will send one to you .what i did was took a old frig. gutted it even the part that seprates the freezer from the frig. took a piece of sheet metal and pop rivet it to both doors on the out side then filled in the space between them on the in side with spray foam . after foam drys grind down flush with the doors then add a piece sheet metal like on the out side . then in the center of the inside drop down 4 inc and use a hole saw the size of the tubing that you are using as a cross bar . size dont matter .i used 1 inc. ss pipe & 1/4 rod for the meat hooks . i used 5200 marine sealant to keep the cross bar in place. the only thing that matters is the meat hooks fit the cross bar. i made mine just to see if it would work out of a old frig. that you had to keep a bungee cord on the door to keep it closed . you will half to play with the temp. control to find out what works for you . mine works on low great in Fla i have had 4 100 lb hogs & 2 100 lb deer in mine at one time in a standerd size frig. i split the animals in haft with a sawzall . i think the only thing that really matters is useing ss for the cross bar & the meat hooks .i work in a machine & welding shop so i have stuff to work with .i think that if you had the frig. you mite have 100 $ in it . i hope this helps the campfire brothers . i hate typing grin

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Get good equipment from the start. I have a #32 grinder hooked up to a 1.5 HP motor, but for lighter jobs I just ordered this grinder: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D1TN7XS/ref=twister_B07Z8VK559?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

We also use the grinder attachment on a commercial model of Kitchen Aide mixer and it works well for medium duty use. Eventually you will want a sausage stuffier as the grinder is not that good for this. See if you can find a used one of 10 gallons or more.

Knives I like Victorinox or Dexter-Russel you will want a boning knife, a filet knife and a butcher or scimitar knife for cutting steaks. Get a good honing steel too. A vacuum sealer is nice but the cling wrap & butcher paper seems to last longer. My biggest issue is in aging meat. Now I mostly do this in ice chests but I think I will either make a cold room or get an old refrigerator for this. The cost for good equipment is a fraction of the cost for processing multiple deer.


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It's always an option to take trim from all the steaks and roasts cut, plus neck meat and such down to a butcher to let them do all the grinding...burger is generally dirt cheap to have made. Some butchers have a minimum poundage of trim to be "guaranteed" your own meat back, so keep that in mind. I don't mind cutting steaks and such but grinding, mixing fat, stuffing into tubes and packaging it all gets real old for me.

It'll save a lot of $ by not having to buy a grinder, stuffers, etc. while taking care of the bulk of the animal yourself.

Just something to think about...



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The suggestion above that your equipment will be paid for in a few deer is a good one. When I was growing up the local locker would cut and wrap any size deer for $40, I think elk were $75 or maybe $100. I heard last fall from the guys at work that a deer is $125 now at the same locker and they won’t even do elk. The locker that will take elk is $275.
We can shoot about 7-8 deer and a couple elk a year here, plus we hunt out of state every fall. Wouldn’t take but one good season of tag filling to pay for a good setup if you can find the time.

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Originally Posted by TheKid
The suggestion above that your equipment will be paid for in a few deer is a good one. When I was growing up the local locker would cut and wrap any size deer for $40, I think elk were $75 or maybe $100. I heard last fall from the guys at work that a deer is $125 now at the same locker and they won’t even do elk. The locker that will take elk is $275.
We can shoot about 7-8 deer and a couple elk a year here, plus we hunt out of state every fall. Wouldn’t take but one good season of tag filling to pay for a good setup if you can find the time.

Been processing my own meat for many decades and the equipment is long amortized. I cannot imagine handing the job over to someone else and walking away...


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Originally Posted by Boarmaster123
Dont forget to make sure your meat is very cold and firm before grinding it. I put mine in a tub after I cut it to the size to go into the grinder . Then into the freezer for a short period to firm it up.



Again, grind AFTER the season is over.

Pull everything that you want to grind out of the freezer and partially thaw to grind. I don't want to pull out the grinder every time I kill a deer. It's better to do it all at once.

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