Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Venison Jerkey Smells Like Rotten Fish

Got a deer back from a large local butcher who assures me you get your deer back 100% of the time. I paid a bit extra to have some jerkey made (real meat slices, not ground). It looks great and is nice and dry,but it smells and tastes like a slice of kippered herring left in the sun until it dried hard. I mean it is impossible to swallow as the gag reflex is awful. I need to cook some of the seaks or roasts, but if was wondering if anyone has encountered this before?

The deer was a good sized button buck (maybe 2.5 years old). I did not detect any musky rut smell and the deer was a neck shot bang flop. Deer was gutted clean and in the processing bay in less than two hours, so post harvest treatment was good.

The butcher was responsible for aging and skinning the deer. Any ideas what went wrong?

The jerkey I have is delicious and is very close to beef jerkey. Can't keep my grandkids away from it. Next time make it your self.

Never yet seen a 2.5 yo button buck.

Perhaps he smoked some fish in the same unit he dried your jerky in.

Sure it wasn't a button doe?

Ha! If it was it had a pretty convincing gender change operation...

Id ask the butcher to taste some of it. Remind him of your buck and tell him to eat chitt.

There's a reason I process ALL ALL ALL of my own meat.

Time consuming and the grinders/smokers/stuffers/dehydrators are expensive but soooo worth it.

That goes for all of our garden products as well.

My $0.02

One of my mom's fellow teachers decided that her class should experience the good, old-fashioned fun of making anise candy. She brought the necessary equipment and ingredients from home and commandeered the home-ec room for the event. When it was done and cooled, she broke it into pieces and passed them around. The unanimous opinion was that, the pioneers be damned, it was the most god-awful stuff anyone had ever tasted. (Edythe did not sample any herself.) On the drive home, she expounded upon the unnappreciative nature of today's youth, not to mention their spoiled appetites that could not recognize a traditional treat. Upon entering her house, she found the pans that she had greased for the anise. What were missing were the pans that she had used to make salmon patties the night before.

Agreed 100%

If you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

Just got done making 50 pounds of venison Polish, 25 pounds of Snack sticks, 25 pounds of Venison Heidelburger and 25 pounds of Venison Burger.

When my friends and family taste my sausage they are always amazed with the flavor and texture. Comments are usually, wow, that's really good, how cum the sausage I had made at xxxxx meat shop doesn't taste like that?

Answer to them, you didn't process your meat correctly before you brought it to them, and/or they prolly mixed someone elses poorly processed meat in with yours.

I work to hard to harvest my game, I'm not going to trust my sausage and jerky to some guy that is pounding out hundreds of pounds a day and claiming (I) got my deer meat back with no other rotten meat added for flavor.

This! More than likely he didn't clean the racks and used the same racks giving you a unpleasant fish taste! Take it to him and have him taste it. I would then ask him how he wants to resolve the problem. I would request to be reimbursed but more than likely he will want to give you a discount on next years venison?

It's possible (very possible) he will say, "Tastes Fine, good, great". At that point I would say, excellent, lets replace the jerky you have for sale in your window with this jerky and see if your customers like it. Lets see how many of your customers come back for more and tell all their friends how wonderful your jerky is".

I don't think it's from previously smoked fish. Smoked fish tastes good, it doesn't taste rotten. The rotten fish taste is from something that went rancid, or just a HS marinade that sucks no matter

I still can't get passed the 2.5 year old button buck statement. That is ridiculous. Did You cape it? I guess you won't use that meat processor anymore.

Uh - yeah.. Besides, I'm chea - economical.

And what I kill is what I get/deserve.

Perhaps that's the issue. Some sort of hardware problem.

I did not pull the jawbone, it very well could have been a 1.5 year old. I freely admit I suck at aging deer, it just 'looked' big for a 1.5 year old deer.

In any event, it was my daughters first deer. I used to process myself but I didn't have the time nor the equipment to do what I wanted this time. I don't mind having lots of roasts, but I had this one made up into breakfast sausage, brats, ground, and jerky. I will pull out a roast or a steak and see what it tastes like. I *hope* it is just the jerky.

And yes, that was the first and last time for that processor.

Yep sounds like BS to me! I have eaten older deer and other than being "tough" the venison tasted fine!

I might add that for much of my 40+ in Alaska, I've been a piece away from a commercial processor - also growing up in NoDak. Never found the need for them. Processing is part of the hunt.

Years ago I used a processor that when I picked up my packaged deer I wound up with almost as much meat by weight as what my deer weighed field dressed. Easily a good 140-150lbs of butchered and ground meat from a deer that weighed about 175lbs field dressed. The amount of steaks, roasts, loin and tenderloin looked correct but I got a BUNCH more ground venison than I normally should have. Only thing I could figure is maybe they finished up with my deer and threw some of the ground meat they had left over from other folks deer into my box and probably a couple of others too so they could clean up their cooler, shop and equipment. It all tasted good with no unusual odor.