How long to work up your deer to "meat".

Theres usually 4-5 of us and we all hang our deer in my cool room.
They hang whole for 2-3 days unskinned. Then we get together and with one guy skinning and quartering, the rest of us debone and cut.
Nothing fancy. Usually just backstrap steaks, maybe some stew meat and the rest gets ground.

Start skinning to finished wrapped for 3 deer a night is 3-3 1/2 hours counting clean up.
 
JimPage, When I had two weeks off, I used to get an average of 2-3 deer a year. Add the in laws 1-2 deer. That would be a heck of a bill around Christmas (Can I still say Christmas on this forum?) I have not used a butcher in years but the bill for one deer has to be way over $100 by now, and that is just a standard skin&cut.
 
i can get a deer skinned,cleaned and cut up for 40.00( 5.00 extra cut into canning chunks), you do have to wrap it. i have gone the whole nine yards in doing up my deer in the last 60 years, as i got tired of the mess and clean up after the job i just pay the money and take a nap. eastbank.
 
interesting

Thanks for all replies. Seems my 4-5 hrs is reasonable, and about the middle of the road. Its all part of it for me.

When I was a kid, my Dad always took our deer to a "process shop", we paid the fee, and picked up a box of meat a few days later. I always wondered if we got all of it, and if it was "my" deer.

This way, I know.
 
Ground my own and . . .

So, I took a yearling doe this year. It was a long way back to the truck, mostly up hill so small was good. Anyway I do all the work myself save for the tenderloins and back strap I ground the rest of it into burger cut with some bacon. I didn't weigh it but would guess I had about 45 or 50 pounds of meat and I put it all through the grinder twice. The grinder I have work as an attachment on my wife's LARGE kitchen mixer. Anyway, I was at that grinder for well over two hours. But now I have a fridge full of ground venison and that is just about the only way the family will eat it, hamburger, meat loaf etc. If I manage to fill my archer tag, that one, save for tenderloin and straps is going to become deer sausage at the hands of the local meat processor.

Live wll, be safe
Prof Young
 
From woods to gutted and skinned in around an hour normally, try to do this before the deer stiffens up. Deer is quartered along with tenderloin and backstraps, meat is rinsed of as much hair as possible, and goes into a very clean cooler on a shelf over bags of ice. Drained at least daily. Maybe 2-3 hours into it now. Another hour of further cleaning the carcass and saving as much meat and organs I can for my puppy, some of the softer bones like ribs with their fatty meat. I'll pull about 30+lbs of dog food out of a carcass that would normally be wasted.

A week to 10 days later we cut the backstraps into dinner sized chunks and vacuum pack, vacuum pack the shoulders or turn to burger. We cut the hind quarters into a bunch of roast and then vacuum pack them. Freeze for at least 2 weeks because I prefer venison very rare, but in terms of labor this might take an hour or two.

So from woods to eating is at least 3 weeks on most of it, but probably 7-8 hours total during that 3 weeks butchering it how we consider proper given the equipment we have at hand. This is with 2 people who pretty well know how to take apart a deer, honestly to me it looks like meat when the guts and skin are out and off. We used to freeze the hams whole and freeze them immediately, the quality of the meat improves dramatically if it's allowed to bleed out somewhere cold for a week or more before you freeze it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top