Questions on Butchering Techniques of Whitetail Deer

[SteveR]

I basically bone out the entire deer. I use a sheet of plywood, held up by 2 sawhorses in my basement, covered with cardboard boxes I saved.
I found a cheap PVC saw works great to break down the deer into quarters and cutting down the legs. Then I bone out the rest, I don't like chops or other cuts with the bones sawed off and left in. I think the bones makes it more "gamy" tasting.
What do you do?

Steve

[Pete44ru]

.

#1: I harvest the heart & liver (sometimes, liver gets cooked with bacon & onions on a camp stove for lunch @ roadside) during field dressing, later slicing them & separating into portions prior to freezing - although I sometimes freeze a whole heart, for a stuffed heart dinner.

Then, because I don't like the different meat textures when making leg roasts, etc - I :

#2: Remove both whole backstraps & whole tenderloins for roasts.

#3: I bone out & grind everything else into hamburg - 85% venison, 15% ground pork.

Done.

YMMV, of course.


.

[Grizz]

on the boat I hang by the neck and skin, rinse with salt water to get the blood out and cool it down. hang in the woodshed for a couple of weeks usually, depends on temps.and bone the meat from there. if they freeze we cut with the recip saw.if we want to process fast I use a recip saw with a 16" blade. we discard the ribs and roast the neck and hams. we save the tenderloins and backstraps for best company, and grind the rest.

in the field around bear sign I peel back the hide, take the shoulders and hams and bag them and put them in the pack. I put the neck, organs, backstrap and tenderloins in a bag, and hope b'rer bear goes for the deer carcase and not me. otherwise I carry out 'trapper style', if that's a style.

[hondo1892]

I debone all my deer also. I used to take it to processors but I once seen how they were storing the carcasses. After that I learned how to do my own. I too don't like the bone in my cuts either.

[geobru]

I bone out the deer, then separate the larger muscles and cut steaks out of the heart of them and either use the ends for stew meat or grind it for burger. I make sure that all of the tallow is in the garbage can. The backstrap and tenderloins are sliced for breakfast steaks.

[Griff]

When I was younger, I used to bone the entire deer... in my garage the same day it was shot if possible, or in camp if hunting away from home. (Hanging by the neck also). Immediately it'd go into the refrigerator over nite to chill down before wrapping the different cuts and freezing.

Now? After the tenderloins and backstraps come out, it goes to the processor! I get a more varied pack of meat back. I used to never make venison sausage, now I get at least 2 different kinds instead of a LOT ground. I still get some ground, for the wife to use in her spaghetti sauce! I like ground meat and sausage in my spaghetti sauce.

I've never done the heart or liver thing, those I give to a hunting partner that likes 'em!

[SteveR]

Sounds like we all like to bone out and save the best parts and grind the rest.

Steve

[TomF]

Never have paid to have a deer processed. I separate the muscles in the hind quarters and make steaks from several individual muscles. Bone the front quarters neck ribs and flank for grinding. I made a video a few years back from skinning to fully processed but never edited it for publishing.

TomF

[Malamute]

I bone it out for the most part. I now avoid cutting bones or the spine in particular if possible, I understand that where CWD is possible, that it mainly lives in those tissues.

[6pt-sika]

I generally hang the deer in my tree thing at the house , pull the hide off and then gut it . I rinse out the body cavity and cut out the fish , then the backstraps . After that I cut everything else off the bone while the deer's hanging and put it in freezer bags and in the freezer until the seasons over . After that we thaw out all the off the boned meat grind it and make burger or sausage . I do not as a rule fool with steaks or roasts . I generally do something like 20-30 deer each year hence the reason I want to do it the quickest way possible .

[Blaine]

.

#1: I harvest the heart & liver (sometimes, liver gets cooked with bacon & onions on a camp stove for lunch @ roadside) during field dressing, later slicing them & separating into portions prior to freezing - although I sometimes freeze a whole heart, for a stuffed heart dinner.

Then, because I don't like the different meat textures when making leg roasts, etc - I :

#2: Remove both whole backstraps & whole tenderloins for roasts.

#3: I bone out & grind everything else into hamburg - 85% venison, 15% ground pork.

Done.

YMMV, of course.


.

^^^^This^^^^ 5 to one....I like to mix some coconut/olive oil in with the burger.....

[SteveR]

I generally hang the deer in my tree thing at the house , pull the hide off and then gut it . I rinse out the body cavity and cut out the fish , then the backstraps . After that I cut everything else off the bone while the deer's hanging and put it in freezer bags and in the freezer until the seasons over . After that we thaw out all the off the boned meat grind it and make burger or sausage . I do not as a rule fool with steaks or roasts . I generally do something like 20-30 deer each year hence the reason I want to do it the quickest way possible .

I never boned a deer when all still together hanging, might be something to look in to, since it's only me doing the work, any shortcuts are welcome.

Steve

[Griff]

I generally hang the deer in my tree thing at the house , pull the hide off and then gut it . I rinse out the body cavity and cut out the fish , then the backstraps . After that I cut everything else off the bone while the deer's hanging and put it in freezer bags and in the freezer until the seasons over . After that we thaw out all the off the boned meat grind it and make burger or sausage . I do not as a rule fool with steaks or roasts . I generally do something like 20-30 deer each year hence the reason I want to do it the quickest way possible .

I never boned a deer when all still together hanging, might be something to look in to, since it's only me doing the work, any shortcuts are welcome.

Steve

Don't do it in the garage with the door open. Police came to see me... to see what I was butcherin'... neighbors were nosy, but too squeamish to come themselves. Out in the country now... you have come down my drive to see in the garage...

[Old Savage]

Better have the tag handy.

[Old Ironsights]

Bone out. I dislike sawn bone grit.

Plus, I have a TINY freezer. Bones are in the way and take up Meat Space.

[AJMD429]

We field-dress it and 'hang it' for 4-5 days if the weather is cool enough. If borderline, we put a cold (well-water) garden hose on it a couple times a day and keep it in the shade. If hot, put a few bags of ice in an old unplugged chest freezer and go ahead and skin/quarter it and put wrapped quarters on top of the ice.

To skin, we free up the arms and legs at the elbow and ankle joints, then make slits to the open front area. Same for the neck,. Then we take the toughest-looking arm skin, stick a golfball-sized rock in it, wrap strong rope around the 'wrapped' rock, and lay the deer on a clean tarp with the head near a tree or post. Then attach the rope to a vehicle and the head to the tree or post. The vehicle pulls the skin off in one piece very easily.

Then we use knives to find the shoulder (glenohumeral) and hip joints, trying to cut around vs. through as many muscles as possible. We cut through those capsules and then have four limbs and a torso.

We take off the distal arm/foot the same way, then cut the head off the torso by cutting down through the muscles and finding a vertebral joint. Often there we do have to use a saw due to the interlocking bone. Same for the tail.

At this point all the five pieces (limbs and torso) are "clean" in terms of having no skin on them, so we hose them off and either put them in trash bags for storage or if we're butchering already, we'll carry them one at a time into the kitchen, where we have a large table with good light over it, and three pans and some knives and a couple diamond sharpeners.

• We then just play "find big muscles" and cut them out as intact as possible. Those go into the "ROAST" pan.
  
  Medium-sized muscles we cut out as intact as possible and put into the "STEW/STIR-FRY" pan.
  
  Then anything else we get off, or little pieces that we wind up with, we put into the "GRIND" pan.

We do the torso last, as the reward of seeing the backstraps serves as a sort of 'dessert'.

The pans of stuff get rinsed again, and roasts go into gallon ziplock bags individually, we cut up the stew/stir-fry stuff into small chunks and pack up them a ziplock at a time, stacking them flat. The 'grind' stuff may get ground that day and bagged up a ziplock at a time, or frozen to grind later.

The backstrap gets sliced into sets of five or six and laid into ziplock as well.

Finally, the carcass parts usually go to the chickens - they LOVE to pick the meat off the bones.

One other thing - you have to remember to PUT AWAY THE DOGS during all this....

One time our two huge Great Pyrenees dogs had just had surgery and were in two big kennels in the living room, which is not separated from the kitchen. They were dozing off their anesthetic when we started bringing quarters in, but three hours later when we were finishing up, they sure were 'alert'...!

[6pt-sika]

I generally hang the deer in my tree thing at the house , pull the hide off and then gut it . I rinse out the body cavity and cut out the fish , then the backstraps . After that I cut everything else off the bone while the deer's hanging and put it in freezer bags and in the freezer until the seasons over . After that we thaw out all the off the boned meat grind it and make burger or sausage . I do not as a rule fool with steaks or roasts . I generally do something like 20-30 deer each year hence the reason I want to do it the quickest way possible .

I never boned a deer when all still together hanging, might be something to look in to, since it's only me doing the work, any shortcuts are welcome.

Steve

Actually if it's hot during damage control hunting I've been known to hang them , pull the hide off down to the knees of the front legs . Make an incision enough to cut the fish out , then take the backstraps off and cut the meat from the bone on the hams and shoulders . Then I throw the carcass away with the guts still inside .

[M. M. Wright]

Pretty much as most others. I use Doc's trick to skin except I have a truck mounted crane that I hook to the neck just below the head and the rope and ball go under the hide down next to the trailer hitch. Then the crane peels the hide off so slick I marvel at it every time.

I fillet out the back straps, remove the front legs, saw off the back legs and separate them. Hack off the ribs and cut the back bone into foot long pieces. The neck makes one or two roasts. Most everything goes into a dish pan and is layed out on the rack shelves in a spare frig where it stays for a week or so.

I cut a roast from the rump of each back leg and a few round steaks from each. Everything else is boned out and ground.
We use lots of ground for spaghetti sauce and chili. (Can't make good chili without venison or burro.)

I use freezer paper instead of zip locks and like someone said, no tallow in the freezer if I can help it. Usually the pieces of back bone and the ribs end up going to the dogs but those ribs ain't bad in a smoker.

My "secret" to good chicken fried steak or backstrap is a little ginger. The real root and a grater is best but ground from a shaker beats nuthin'.

[gcs]

I can't/ won't, drag another deer again.
I use a packboard with a large bag and carry a small auto locking block and tackle, my butcher tools, game bags and an old shower curtain to lay the pieces on. As soon as I drop one, I find the nearest appropriate tree, hoist em up, skin and bone out right there in the woods.You don't even have to gut them first, and still get any part you want. The meat goes into game bags, and I can walk out one large or two small deer without having a heart attack, and I don't have to figure out where to dispose of unwanted parts. The Coyotes clean up after me.
From start to finish, maybe 20/30 minutes. The bags get hung up in the shade to cool, and then into a cooler with ice. I can keep them in the cooler a week if necessary before I finish cutting them.
I've done up to 3 in one day, with hardly hurting hunting time.
Unless you have a 20 year old kid to drag them, this is the easiest way to get them out of the woods.

[cas]

A while back I realized there were 3 or 4 things I was doing with the meat, and none of them involved true "cuts" of meat. The last couple deer I've done I cut the whole thing up into little chunks. (Like cubes, just not as neat)

[spaceman spiff]

We field-dress it and 'hang it' for 4-5 days if the weather is cool enough. If borderline, we put a cold (well-water) garden hose on it a couple times a day and keep it in the shade. If hot, put a few bags of ice in an old unplugged chest freezer and go ahead and skin/quarter it and put wrapped quarters on top of the ice.

To skin, we free up the arms and legs at the elbow and ankle joints, then make slits to the open front area. Same for the neck,. Then we take the toughest-looking arm skin, stick a golfball-sized rock in it, wrap strong rope around the 'wrapped' rock, and lay the deer on a clean tarp with the head near a tree or post. Then attach the rope to a vehicle and the head to the tree or post. The vehicle pulls the skin off in one piece very easily.

Then we use knives to find the shoulder (glenohumeral) and hip joints, trying to cut around vs. through as many muscles as possible. We cut through those capsules and then have four limbs and a torso.

We take off the distal arm/foot the same way, then cut the head off the torso by cutting down through the muscles and finding a vertebral joint. Often there we do have to use a saw due to the interlocking bone. Same for the tail.

At this point all the five pieces (limbs and torso) are "clean" in terms of having no skin on them, so we hose them off and either put them in trash bags for storage or if we're butchering already, we'll carry them one at a time into the kitchen, where we have a large table with good light over it, and three pans and some knives and a couple diamond sharpeners.

• We then just play "find big muscles" and cut them out as intact as possible. Those go into the "ROAST" pan.
  
  Medium-sized muscles we cut out as intact as possible and put into the "STEW/STIR-FRY" pan.
  
  Then anything else we get off, or little pieces that we wind up with, we put into the "GRIND" pan.

We do the torso last, as the reward of seeing the backstraps serves as a sort of 'dessert'.

The pans of stuff get rinsed again, and roasts go into gallon ziplock bags individually, we cut up the stew/stir-fry stuff into small chunks and pack up them a ziplock at a time, stacking them flat. The 'grind' stuff may get ground that day and bagged up a ziplock at a time, or frozen to grind later.

The backstrap gets sliced into sets of five or six and laid into ziplock as well.

Finally, the carcass parts usually go to the chickens - they LOVE to pick the meat off the bones.

One other thing - you have to remember to PUT AWAY THE DOGS during all this....

One time our two huge Great Pyrenees dogs had just had surgery and were in two big kennels in the living room, which is not separated from the kitchen. They were dozing off their anesthetic when we started bringing quarters in, but three hours later when we were finishing up, they sure were 'alert'...!

you said "distal" kinda like a medical guy might say it


spaceman

[Pete44ru]

If hot, put a few bags of ice in an old unplugged chest freezer and go ahead and skin/quarter it and put wrapped quarters on top of the ice.

FWIW, my Son & his friends take about 15-20 deer each year (a max of 8 deer tags per hunter are allowed here) and one or two (Canadian) black bear - which they butcher themselves.

They field dress & skin the animal, working together each time, before cutting the carcass into sections.

The sections are then aged in a used (refrigerator-sized) soda cooler (like is seen near the checkout registers of many national chain stores) for a week or so prior to cutting the meat and portioning it (they all share the meat, regardless of who actually took it).

Those guys make some truely awesome spiced Italian sausage from their bear meat or venison.

.

[SteveR]

We field-dress it and 'hang it' for 4-5 days if the weather is cool enough. If borderline, we put a cold (well-water) garden hose on it a couple times a day and keep it in the shade. If hot, put a few bags of ice in an old unplugged chest freezer and go ahead and skin/quarter it and put wrapped quarters on top of the ice.

To skin, we free up the arms and legs at the elbow and ankle joints, then make slits to the open front area. Same for the neck,. Then we take the toughest-looking arm skin, stick a golfball-sized rock in it, wrap strong rope around the 'wrapped' rock, and lay the deer on a clean tarp with the head near a tree or post. Then attach the rope to a vehicle and the head to the tree or post. The vehicle pulls the skin off in one piece very easily.

Then we use knives to find the shoulder (glenohumeral) and hip joints, trying to cut around vs. through as many muscles as possible. We cut through those capsules and then have four limbs and a torso.

We take off the distal arm/foot the same way, then cut the head off the torso by cutting down through the muscles and finding a vertebral joint. Often there we do have to use a saw due to the interlocking bone. Same for the tail.

At this point all the five pieces (limbs and torso) are "clean" in terms of having no skin on them, so we hose them off and either put them in trash bags for storage or if we're butchering already, we'll carry them one at a time into the kitchen, where we have a large table with good light over it, and three pans and some knives and a couple diamond sharpeners.

• We then just play "find big muscles" and cut them out as intact as possible. Those go into the "ROAST" pan.
  
  Medium-sized muscles we cut out as intact as possible and put into the "STEW/STIR-FRY" pan.
  
  Then anything else we get off, or little pieces that we wind up with, we put into the "GRIND" pan.

We do the torso last, as the reward of seeing the backstraps serves as a sort of 'dessert'.

The pans of stuff get rinsed again, and roasts go into gallon ziplock bags individually, we cut up the stew/stir-fry stuff into small chunks and pack up them a ziplock at a time, stacking them flat. The 'grind' stuff may get ground that day and bagged up a ziplock at a time, or frozen to grind later.

The backstrap gets sliced into sets of five or six and laid into ziplock as well.

Finally, the carcass parts usually go to the chickens - they LOVE to pick the meat off the bones.

Great idea
One other thing - you have to remember to PUT AWAY THE DOGS during all this....

One time our two huge Great Pyrenees dogs had just had surgery and were in two big kennels in the living room, which is not separated from the kitchen. They were dozing off their anesthetic when we started bringing quarters in, but three hours later when we were finishing up, they sure were 'alert'...!

Steve

[SteveR]

I don't let any of the deer hang for any amount of time, same day as killing, it gets cut up and frozen. I package the roasts and back straps & fillets with my vacuum packing machine later on when I have more time. I found after freezing in plastic ziplock bags, then vacuum packing is so much easier and seals better, no runny blood getting in the seal and in the machine.

I do gut my deer, I try to cut off as much meat as I can, without getting tallow or fat at a minimum. I make jerky with some of the odd pieces, like the flank steak off the belly. And I bone out the ribs.

I grind up with beef fat and pork fat, about 80%/20% meat to fat.

Steve

[BigSky56]

The only bones I cut on a deer or elk is the pelvis take the legs and head off, game marrow will taint the meat so will body fluids and dried blood, wash out with water or snow and wipe down with white vinegar hang for 1 week in the meat cooler or if at camp hang wrapped in a mantee till its time to pack it out. For elk I dont gut them, I skin them if family or friends want a hide, if not I quarter hide on them and take rib and neck meat a hatchet works better than a saw. If I drop a elk and cant get it out till the next day I gut it peel the hide and butterfly the front shoulders, cut them loose so they lay out, a elk will sour in the front shoulder area overnight in 20 degree weather they have so much body heat. danny

[Dave James]

Mostly like others but due to the warm weather here during early season, and using dogs, no hanging, for any time, gut it,skin, break it down, and every thing into water bath for soaking over night then I take the time to peel the "silver" off of it and bone it out and tie some up kind of like a chuck roast, back straps, and the tender receive all the special care. Every thing else is given over to a local Amish farmer and made into sausage

[1894]

I always enjoy reading these threads , mostly because I am a lousy hunter and don't kill very many deer , I try and learn from others experiences.
That said , regarding the OP ?
At the camp across the road from us there are what I call both ends of the spectrum regarding butchering deer. They are all hard core hunters and usually get several deer each season down home to stuff their freezers with.
One guy ( the camp owner ) takes as many muscles whole as he can. The rest is stew meat. He just labels the zip locks with what muscle it is , ie " the football " etc... he has cooking those down to a very tasty science . A few may get later cut up into steaks but not often ,usually there is plenty of hungry folks to make the whole roasts disappear quickly .
Another prefers burger. Not just some parts of the deer , the whole deer. His logic is that if you just use the tougher to cook parts for burger it is OK but not great. He uses a mix with pork and his processor probably cries every time he tosses a back strap into the grinder , but it all goes in there. Very good burger it is.