How to butcher your own deer

[Hammer Handle]

Butchered and ground 11 deer on Monday. Now, just need to make the sausage.

It helps having a retired butcher in the family....

[bassNspear]

thats always helsp when you can just pound them out!

[lungdeflator]

the very first step in butchering your own deer is cutting out the tenderloins. this should be done at deer camp and they should be fried up in some butter. mmmhmmm. remember dont run to the stove with the knive still in your hand!

[bassNspear]

and place maple beacon over the top. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM good!

[Powerstroke]

Just finished my first ever batch of sausage. It tastes fantastic. We used the German sausage kit bought at Cabelas. I did it 50/50 with ground pork.

[bassNspear]

congrats on the sausage!

[snoozebutton]

That's good to know Powerstroke. We tried a recipe we got off the internet and it didn't turn out too well. Have to give that a try next year.

[lovebigbluegills]

the very first step in butchering your own deer is cutting out the tenderloins. this should be done at deer camp and they should be fried up in some butter. mmmhmmm. remember dont run to the stove with the knive still in your hand!

With onions and morel mushrooms

[Musky Buck]

It's time for me to butcher my own. Found inside a package of burger all kinds of deer hair, really turned me off this winter/spring to eating it. Also, good friend said you have to try these sausage/brats, best he's ever had right. My first bite, smelled good, looked good and chomp, broken tooth with insurance ran $416.80. Bit right into the bullet. No more taking the deer in. Thanks for the ideas on home processing !

[fr0sty]

I picked up a great book on this a couple weeks ago. The pictures are large and detailed. We have been processing our own deer the past three years. This will make it a little more professional.

"Gut it, Cut it and Cook it" by Eric Fromm and Al Cambronne

(I removed the direct link since it is against forum policy. picksbigwagon)

[Cheetah]

My dad taught me how to butcher deer, I am still fairly slow at it myself, but I get the job done. Basically I look at it like this, it's just me and my wife, and we don't eat a ton of venison. Between steaks and ground venison we eat it on average 1 to 2 times per week. I don't remember the last time I bought beef...

Anyway, when doing a deer, I figure that the chops, tenderloin and steaks from the largest muscle groups in the rear legs make more than enough steak meals for us for the year. I also save a few medium sized chunks for stews, kabobs, or other random recipes that call for chunked up beef. After that everything else I grind up into lean venison burger. I don't even mix it with pork or anything. I just grind it all in my KitchenAid mixer attachment after cleaning off all the extra fat and tendons. Once ground, we weight it out into packs that we would use for regular meals.

- 1lb packs for spaghetti meatballs and some other larger recipes.

- 2/3lb packs for hamburgers, we both eat 1/3lb burgers usually and no more.

- 1/2lb packs for meals that call for less ground beef than usual.

It's nothing fancy, but it suits our needs well and isn't complicated at all. Butchering just takes time and some patience, and don't worry so much about screwing anything up, if you do, just grind it into more burger since you'll eat that anyway!

[picksbigwagon]

I will try and get a pictorial this december down in Iowa on how we process deer, pulling the hide, etc.

[bassNspear]

im sure alot fo people use alot of different ways to pull the hides, however, i do it with 4 cuts on the kneif. Cut around there legs, and pull it off with a winch that is up on the sealing at the shop!. tie a rop around its neck, winch it up, and hold the hide. Comes right off. I will to try adn get some photos of it during the season!It works good when you have to pull 400 hides off a year!

[B-man715]

im sure alot fo people use alot of different ways to pull the hides, however, i do it with 4 cuts on the kneif. Cut around there legs, and pull it off with a winch that is up on the sealing at the shop!. tie a rop around its neck, winch it up, and hold the hide. Comes right off. I will to try adn get some photos of it during the season!It works good when you have to pull 400 hides off a year!

We do it like that too, but hang the deer by the rear legs. Then we have an anchor eye bolt drilled into the floor with a short rope on it. We skin the rear legs down a little, insert golf ball and winch the hide right off.

You can control the winch with one hand, the other hand has the knife to seperate the flanks from the hide while being pulled off.

You can skin a deer literally in a couple minutes. It works sweet!!!!!!!!!

[delmuts]

Ok guys! I could use some help. I've been bucthering our own deer the last number of years, but do have a problem getting much meat of the front shoulders. There seems to be so many tendons,and synue,( sp? Couldn't find it in the dict.! ) that it seems like almost a waste of time with most of it from . Tips! I do trim mine down to very clean meat. Have helped a buddy that doen't and he seems to spend more time unplugging the grinder .

[luckey]

You can work your fingers to the bone (small joke) trying to get all the meat off a shoulder, or, just make it a roast. Put it in a roaster with potatoes, carrots, and oinons and viola a great meal.

[paul pachowicz]

couppla things coould be goin on with the grinder. The plates and knives may be dull or unmatched, trying to put too big of chucks in or really warm product, feeding too fast

or the grinder isn't powerfull enough, period. You can try to cut smaller pieces and put it in the freezer for awhile. Personally, I think people spend waaay tooo much time trying to get all the sinew, etc out of the muscle. My typical yield on our sized deer is 17 lb pounds burger after steaks and roasts.

[deets22]

processing your own deer is a great experience. due to some space limitations i have had deer processed in the past. nothing beats fresh tenderloin. it tastes so much better than getting it frozen 3 months later. and at least you know its your deer.

[harvey lee]

I had my last tenderlion last week. I normally don't freeze them but with 5 deer, one cannot eat all the tenderlion and backstraps without freezin some.

Man, my mouth is watering now thing about those tenderlions.

[LightningBG]

There are some pretty good videos on youtube. There are also some hacks on there though, so you're probably best watching a few and choosing to follow the one that seems most knowledgeable.

[USPENAMC]

booo hooo I just need the deer...

[castmaster]

One tip on grinding. It works better to cut longer strips than cubes as the grinder will pull the strip through rather than having to push the cubes through.

[bassNspear]

Ok guys! I could use some help. I've been bucthering our own deer the last number of years, but do have a problem getting much meat of the front shoulders. There seems to be so many tendons,and synue,( sp? Couldn't find it in the dict.! ) that it seems like almost a waste of time with most of it from . Tips! I do trim mine down to very clean meat. Have helped a buddy that doen't and he seems to spend more time unplugging the grinder .

If you take the front shoulder and follow the bone down to the flat plate bone, there is a jonit that holds them together, just cut down the leg bone till you find that joint, and then you can take it all apart. once you get to that ppint, is simple. You will be able to get alot more meat off the boat doing it this way

[Torquer]

Anyone ever tried using a Sawzall for butchering? I finally got one of my own and while going around sawing everything in sight, I used it to flatten out the skull cap on some moose horns- it cut through the bone like butter! Brainstorm! I wonder how this sucker would work for cutting up deer? Anyone doing this? Any tips?

[castmaster]

Yes we use a sawzall, much easier than using a hand saw.