Processing gear or Support your local processor?

[jimbob86]

and why mix it with beef/pork

Ground venison does not fry well at all due to the lack of fat in it.

It sticks to the pan, scorches easily, and won't hold together to make a patty or meatball well at all without adding fat of some sort ...... grinding it together with beef tallow works ...... so does mixing it in with fatty (cheap) beef burger, ground pork, or bacon ends and pieces.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

Its actually quite easy to butcher a deer. One thing that confuses many is what to do with the rear legs. You shouldn't push them thru a band saw to make Round steak. Although I have witnessed that being done by a processor to save time. If you have large Round steaks made by a processor and you notice each steak has a small round bone. (You know what he's doing.) Yes Sir. Spreading bone marrow & bone chips across surface of your steak with each saw cut. Something not very palatable to say the least.

For a home butcher its a matter of simply separating the legs muscles (3.) Two Flats and the Eye of the Round. After trimming fat and tallow away. Simply by inserting your fingers between the muscles and observing their connected 'ness to their leg bone and cutting those muscles a little at a time away from the rear leg bone nice & easy like is all that's required. Than put those muscles in a freezer for 1/2 hr to firm the meat before its final cutting. Upon their cutting watch which way the grain of the meat flows and cut your steak from the opposite direction. Simple North South grain needs to be cut from the East to West.
Cut your steak 3/8s of a inch thick side to side like you would a fresh loaf of homemade bread. One (even & straight) single motion cut. (no hacking allowed) If your cutting creates a unequal look. Turn the muscle up-side down (over) and and adjust for your uneven cutting. That's all there's to it.

[Ske1etor]

Luckily, my boss has a full blown processing shop (the skinning shed) behind his house. Stainless from floor to ceiling, center drain, all the equipment for pretty much anything you'd want to do with a deer, pig, cow etc. It's open to all in the neighborhood, hose and bleach down when you're done, leave it like you found it. I've never had an animal professionally processed.

[jimbob86]

For a home butcher its a matter of simply separating the legs muscles (3.) Two Flats and the Eye of the Round. After trimming fat and tallow away. Simply by inserting your fingers between the muscles and observing their connected 'ness to their leg bone and cutting those muscles a little at a time away from the rear leg bone nice & easy like is all that's required. Than put those muscles in a freezer for 1/2 hr to firm the meat before its final cutting. Upon their cutting watch which way the grain of the meat flows and cut your steak from the opposite direction. Simple North South grain needs to be cut from the East to West.
Cut your steak 3/8s of a inch thick side to side like you would a fresh loaf of homemade bread. One (even & straight) single motion cut. (no hacking allowed) If your cutting creates a unequal look. Turn the muscle up-side down (over) and and adjust for your uneven cutting. That's all there's to it.

+1, and adding this:

Work from the inside, with the outside of the leg down on the table. After removing the leg at the ball and socket hip joint, follow the femur down to the knee ...... the front part of the leg is one muscle (we've always called it the "knuckle"- don't know why) and kind of wraps around the front of the femur .... a cut across it, about an inch above the knee, will pretty much free it from the leg...... cut into 3/4" to1" thick steaks across the grain after removing what connective tissue you can ..... this is the toughest of the 3 parts of the round, so is good candidate for cube steak or a goooood beating with a meat mallet.... the other 2 muscles of the upper leg are the top and bottom round, and are probably the 3rd best cuts on the animal, after the loin and tenderloin ..... on par with the front shoulder, but easier to make into steaks....... cut into steaks like the knuckle, but they will be harder to keep together, unless you partially freeze them, like SSG said ......

The shank (lower leg) is really tough- best for stew meat or ground up for burger or sausage .....

[jimbob86]

Jimbob, is this really necessary? You do not answer the question or add any value to the conversation with snarky comments like this. Why you continue to judge folks with different opinions and experiences boggles my mind. It is ok NOT to post your negative comments...

......?

I gave an opinion .... I did not see it as negative.... (are folks really that thin skinned? If so, then, I'll welcome the Zombie Apocalypse ......)

My comment was an invitation to a bit of self examination- ground meat is the very simplest thing in butchering to come out with decent product ..... is it really that complicated? It is not, and requires very little in the way of special tools or know how: as I said, a grinder, a bowl and a spoon.

As with most things, basic butchering is not that difficult: Like reloading, if you follow some basic safety rules, pay attention to detail, and work at it, you can do it ..... it's not rocket science ....but until you know how, then it looks much harder than it is.....

[Barnacle Brad]

self examination

You should give it a whirl

[globemaster3]

Thanks Brad, I appreciate the concern, but my skin's pretty thick.

Jimbob has normally brought good perspective in the threads we've been in.

As for that, I don't own a grinder, and with work, wife, and kids, I don't have the time to experiment to get a mix "right". Easier to pay and let someone who knows what they are doing get it right the first time. Call me less of a man/hunter/whatever... I know what works in my life right now. That's also why I am not reloading. I've got the interest, and the money, but time is always that critical quantity, and my employer is relentless in demanding more of it. For the precious time I do get with my kids, I'd rather take them fishing, hunting, or shooting than gather around a table with a grinder, bowl, and spoon.

And Husqvarna, the reasons mentioned is the reason why most of us add some kind of fat to the ground meat. Venison is a lot of things: lean, free range, organic and non-GMO (in some cases/places), yummy, but one of the things it is NOT, is very good by itself for ground meat used in burgers, chili, etc. Because its so lean, it just doesn't have the fat to render to help it cook, burning, sticking, and in general, not working out well.

[jimbob86]

Globe, I always have help from the family with butchering/sausage making- a combination of "many hands make light work", "The Little Red Hen Story", and my oft-repeated "I won't always be around to do this for you, so you need to learn to do this for yourself...."

..... for us, the butchering and sausage/jerky making is as much a part of the experience as the hunting .......

I guess it boils down to developing and practicing skills, for me ...... skills are earned ..... so I value them above most everything else.

[jimbob86]

Call me less of a man

I sincerely hope that butchering one's own deer does not make one "manly": I've been teaching my daughters this for years ......

[Crazy Carl]

I have neither the skills, the equipment, the inclination, nor a wife understanding enough to butcher a deer myself.

I do have a great local processor, however. $65/deer, carved any way you want (add $2/lb for sausage). Hung for 2 weeks & vacuum packed.

[Gunplummer]

I have been cutting up deer off and on since I have been hunting. I really stuck to it once I started hunting out of state. I remember one year in WV it was in the 70's during rifle season. At the end of the 2nd day I was dragging one to a dirt road and there was a hunter standing by his truck waiting for his buddy to come down. We talked and he said "I got a nice eight the FIRST day in the morning, want to see it?" We walked towards his truck with a cap and I thought he had the rack in the back. The whole deer (Gutted) was in the back. I would not have fed that to my dog. I bet that meat got given away to relatives. If you think you ever want to expand your hunting range or hunt in the early seasons, you better learn how to cut up a deer. It is not a steer, it is just an oversized rabbit.

[Rmart30]

Processor for me ... we have a full processing room at the club but it isnt worth it with all the pre cleaning and then cleaning up afterwards of the meat saws, grinders etc ... it isnt bad if 2 or 3 guys all do it same time then ya have help with it.
$50~70 here for basic processing .. (no jerky, meat sticks etc) .... i dont have to gut it and can drop it off a 830 on a sunday night and not have to work till midnight doing it myself.
It comes back in paper on freezer trays... I just label and vacuum seal before freezing.. Worth the cost to me.

[Barnacle Brad]

Deleted redundency

[pete2]

I have a couple knives to debone and slice it. A grinder for chili meat. Butcher paper to wrap it in. That's all it takes. I only do 1 deer at a time. Could make sausage with the grinder but don't.

[Gunplummer]

That is true about the sausage and grinder. One year we made sausage "Patties". You really do not need to stuff sausage.

[Barnacle Brad]

Bulk sausage is where its at. I will at times stuff some polish and summer sausage, but mostly for breakfast sausage and other fresh sausage, bulk pack works fer me!

[Geezerbiker]

I've been seriously lazy when it comes to dealing with grinding the left over odd bits of the deer. Anything that doesn't look like a steak after cutting it up goes into the grinder. Just as lazy I mix the ground venison 50/50 with extra hot Italian sausage. The venison tames the hot sausage and the fat in the sausage holds the venison together. In the end I get a somewhat lean and mild sausage that I can't get enough of...

Tony