I'm ALMOST out of venison!

[vixenmaster]

Bob sorry to hear of the deer meat shortage! I looked in our 7 cu freezer yesterday & there was half a hog & 1 1/2 deer waiting on our taste tasting

[awshucks]

A pox upon both y'all! Mike: never did find any hog ribs here from your butchering job last spring.

[Normous]

Same here. The three were not large but very tasty indeed. I just recieved my Fall Cabelas catalogue which is always one of my first indicators the hunting season is nearing. After Labour Day deer hunting in October is first and foremost on my mind.

[bob1961]

i haven't had venison in two years so shut up, please ..........bob

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[vixenmaster]

No deer meat in 2 yrs ? I can kill an extra one fer you, gas would cost you more than the value of the meat. bob1961

[bob1961]

yeah two years without blood on my arrows, but this year "WILL" be different ...........bob

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[dutchhunter]

i just got the last pack off steaks out of the freezer yesterday .boy they were good .all i got laft is turkey breast and lots of fish have to make do till october 1 now going to be a long wait .we eat about three deer a year in my houes DUTCH

[Dave1]

Just curious, how do you process and cut up your deer? Do you age the meat before cutting up and freezing or cut/slice the steaks when the meat is still fresh?

Down here (Central Florida) I try to age my venison for about three weeks. We had access to a walk in cooler for years that maintained 38-40 degrees and a deer hung in there (hide on) for 21 days then processed was some of the best tasting and tender venison I have ever had. Don't have the cooler any longer so now I have to age the venison in a large marine ice chest or the frig. I like cubed steaks and deer burger.

Dave

[Cossack]

Hunted with a pro meat cutter turned meat inspector for years.He taught me that ageing venison only adds to making it taste 'strong.' His contention was that the at is so rich that it spoils even in the freezer, like pork.
His rules: 1) get the hide off ASAP it's a near perfect isolater and keeps the deer from cooling off. 2) Bone em out, never cut through the bones with saw. Marrow is so rich that it will spoil (see no 1). 3) Unless you have a cooler where you can maintain meat at near 32* aging (esp in the hide) causes meat to spoil.
4) If you wash it, dry off well, wet meat enables bacteria to breed. 5) Let meat 'set up' overnight -weather permitting- and bone out, cut, vacuum pack and freeze.
Been doing it that way for years. Works for me. Cooking venison (too hot, too
fast, too well done) likely ruins as much or more as poor butchering

[TYE]

I'm all out. It's depressing... Didn't shoot anything last year so I couldn't refill the freezer. I got a good feeling about this year though.

[evaughan]

Bone em out, never cut through the bones with saw. Marrow is so rich that it will spoil

x2 for hunting with a professional meat cutter who DEMANDS that all venison be de-boned at processing. He says "if you want to ruin venison, just freeze it with the bone in"

When he butchers deer, he insists that even the chops are boneless. I partake in this hunt and another where the deer are taken to the butcher for a bandsaw job. There is no comparison and I can no longer eat the latter or bring myself to serve it to company.

[Dereck]

Many folks leave their deer hang outside for days with the skin on, not me.

I get the meat into a *controlled environment* (refrigeration/skinned and quartered) as fast as I can. I wait 24 hours for rigor mortis to disengage. It's a huge mistake to cut meat up while rigor mortis is still in effect. That meat will be tougher than nails no matter what.

After the meat has become relaxed (next day) I take each hind quarter, debone it using a fish filet knife and cut as many round steaks as I can get. I always go for maximum grill meat (love my Weber).

I cut the backstraps into nice thick butterfly chops. The front shoulders I like to leave whole and they get done in my pressure cooker. I bag up as many random clean red meat chunks as I can get for canning, soups, stews and for grinding later. I also make jerky every year using a Cabelas commercial grade food dehydrator.

I use a commercial grade vacuum sealer (Weston 2300) and get everything sealed and into the freezer as quickly as possible.

Works for me.

Sounds like I need to bring my deer to you
If I get one this year I will do it like you do.

[killshot]

His rules: 1) get the hide off ASAP it's a near perfect isolater and keeps the deer from cooling off. 2) Bone em out, never cut through the bones with saw. Marrow is so rich that it will spoil (see no 1). 3) Unless you have a cooler where you can maintain meat at near 32* aging (esp in the hide) causes meat to spoil.
4) If you wash it, dry off well, wet meat enables bacteria to breed. 5) Let meat 'set up' overnight -weather permitting- and bone out, cut, vacuum pack and freeze.
Been doing it that way for years. Works for me. Cooking venison (too hot, too
fast, too well done) likely ruins as much or more as poor butchering

This is exactly the way we have been doing ours for years aswell.

[Brenjen]

I've done it every way mentioned except I only hung one doe skin on, one time & then only for a week. Boned, not boned, aged, skinned, not skinned etc. nothing made a difference to the taste imho.

As long as the person butchering the animal didn't puncture the bowel, bladder or foul the blade on the tarsal glands etc. the only noticeable difference to my palette is in young deer vs. mature deer & doe vs. rutting buck & none whatsoever from the method of butchering or aging. For older, rutting bucks, the faster you can bleed & cool the meat the better it will taste. Some say the lactic acid build up from deer that have been run hard before their demise are more tender, others claim it toughens them...I have no opinion on that.

Of course that's MY taste palette! I have eaten things people claim tasted horrible & all I thought is that it needed more salt lol


I've been out of deer for a couple years myself. I had access to some but my parents freezer went out on them earlier this summer & it was two days before they realized it. It was a huge old freezer stuffed full of meat, half of that was venison.