Butchering your own
 

Alright, there's a pretty funny thread on the deer hunting board about gutting a deer. It seems that some there are puking while gutting a deer or would rather drive the whole thing to the locker and have the butchergut it. So, how many people here wouldn't dream of taking game to a locker?

I know I am of this frame of mind. I have never taken an animal to a "processor", that sort of defeats the purpose of why I hunt, to get fresh, cheap, well-raised meat. I have done a deer and an antelope already this year and still have a speed goat hanging in the barn. I spent 6 hours gettingthat antelope packaged and in the freezer yesterday, and it was hard work. I dare say it's more traumatic or whatever than gutting onel, but pretty simple and rewarding to have done it yourself.

I just had to post this, because I was hurting after working all day yesterday and the thought of having an elk to do in a few weeks made me laugh when I read that people hated gutting a deer!

RE: Butchering your own
 

I've never taken an animal to a processor either, but the older i get, the more i think about it! lol

We have so many deer here, and they are so easy to get that i tend to just take the back straps and one hind quarter off, and pass the rest of the deer off to some friends who REALLY need it.

Even though i didn't buy any, wejust had a doe hunt that tags were $3.00 ea., and i could get all i wanted here for my place. I just don't shoot an aninial "just to shoot it"... I'll wait a while, and harvest a decent buck, and perhaps a wounded doe that comes by, as there's always a limping doe or twoaround, after bow season starts. [:@]

DM

RE: Butchering your own
 

People thought I was crazy for hauling my elk that I shot in Wyoming home with me in coolers and butchering it myself. I couldn't fathom taking it to a processor there and spending several hundred dollars to have it butchered.

It did take me close to 10 hours doing it by myself, but I knew it was my elk and knew how well it was done. I spend a lot of time cleaning and trimming that I don't think a butcher would spend on it.

Growing up we lived on wild game and we butchered all our own animals. The most we ever processed in one year was 15 deer, 2 antelope and an elk. We got to make a bunch of jerky that year! (We didn't get to make any jerky untilboth freezers were completely full of steaks, roasts, hamburger, etc.).

I didn't eat my first beef steak until I was in high school on a school sponsored trip.

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I'll butcher on my if we have a couple of them to do at once and all the right equipment set up. i.e. regular deer gun season.

However, when its just one and only me I will take it in.

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Deer I process 100% myself. Elk I do some myself, but have the rest processed. I like smoke rings as part of that processing, and I have never wanted to learn that.

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my dad and I took my 1st buck to one. back in 2001. we ran out of time to stay. so we had them cut it up and my grandpa pickled all the meet up and we got it next time we went to PA. Other then that, We have cut up prolly thirty deer since then. Love doing it on our own!
-Jake

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I process most of the meat we eat, be it domestic or wild. Not because it's cheaper but becauseI enjoy it and it's done right/to our liking.

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I just paid $368.40 to have my elk processed. We paid right at $1500 dollars for 4 elk. My buddy and me decided we are going to spend the dough this off season and get everything we need to do it ourselves. So about the middle of Feb when goose season is over, you guys get ready for a bunch of "how to", "and what to get" questions.

RE: Butchering your own
 

We've always done our own elk, deer, and I even did a moose once. I'm fortunate that I have options in the fact that if it's cold out, I just hang it on my garage for a few days (whole if deer, quarters if elk). If it's too warm, my buddy has a walk in cooler in his barn I use.

It isn't too hard. I got a really nice commercial cutting board thing from my friend who cooks at a fancy restaurant. We just pick a Monday night and watch football. Me and my dad cut and my mom and my wife wrap and label. It goes fast. Everything that we don't cut into steaks or roasts goes into a milk crate that I do take into have hamburger/sauage made. It's not very cost effective to do it myself. Good meat grinders are spendy and I don't have ready access to beef suet, I can't use pork because my wife is allergic to it.

So, I usually end up taking at least 50-80 lbs of hamburger meat into my butcher.

RE: Butchering your own
 

Depends upon what you mean about taking it to a butcher. Gutting it in the field is a part of my hunting. Not a problem. However, making sausage, pepperoni and jerky out of all that meat is beyond me. I typically take the back strap and maybe some small cuts from the lower ribs then take the rest to the butcher for the sausage etc. That's deer. Elk is another story. Just to good to be made into anything. I do that myself. As for puking? Naa. Wouldn't be hunting unless you at least gut the animal yourself would it. At least that's the way I was taught.

Steve

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In an area where lots of folks process their own animals it is pretty common for butchers to charge a nominal fee to grind the meat and add fat to it (i.e. make hamburger). Growing up in Montana they charged something like 50 cents per pound or something like that and that included the added fat. They will usually grind it on the spot and give it back to you in a few minutes, sometimes you have to wait an hour or so. Here it comes out closer to $2 per pound and the last time I had it done I'm 99% sure they mixed mine in with a larger batch of meat and I didn't get mine back. I've waited as long as 3 weeks to get mine back here.

I bought a 1/2 hp grinder from Gander Mountain for $80. I've processed 25lbs of Elk that I mixed 50/50 with some cheap hamburger and ended up with some good 90% lean hamburger out of it. I made 30lbs of pork sausage from a wild pig and it came out a little on the lean side, but really turned out pretty well for my first batch I think. Next time I do it I will cut some more chops and steaks out of the leanest meat and keep the trimmed fat to add to the rest of it when I grind it and I think that will be a win win on both sides of things. (I ground 100% of the last pig into sausage). I ended up making some REALLY spicy sausage that you can't get done commerially. I added habeneros, chile picanes, jalepenos and LOTS of crushed red pepper. I'd always heard that you need the ultra expensive grinders but so far this little 1/2 hp grinder is doing a bang up job in my opinion. Of course it has only gone through a little over 50lbs of meat and is only a few months old so time will be the ultimate decider on whether it is good or not, but it has already nearly paid for itself at the amounts they charge for grinding around here. I do cube all the meat up before running it through but that isn't too difficult.

The food saver vacuum sealers are nice to have too. I bought one of the medium priced ones for under $100 and it works great. WAY nicer than using freezer paper since I package everything myself. Freezer paper is cheaper, but the food storage bags last longer in the freezer.

Oh well, just thought I would add that.

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I always process my own. Years ago, I paid to have meat ground, and occassionally sausage and pepper sticks made. The cost kept going up. I don't have a problem with that, buthchers have to deal with overhead and inflation too, but it didn't fit with cost effectiveness and self sufficiency. I've borrowed grinders for several years and this year bought one of Cabela's 1hp units (it comes with stuffing attachments. It cost less than Colorado Luckydog paid to have his elk processed and should work for me for years. I bone out all of my biggame. Hogs, I use a hand meatsaw. I may try to pick up a small band saw, but they are pricey for one or two hogs a year. Though one could freeze boned portions of wild game and cut steaks and what not with one too...

I've done well with sausage, but haven't find the right recipe for peppersticks. Anyone have a good recipe, please post!


Oh, and npaden is spot on on the vaccum sealers. A bit more cost than freezer wrap or ziplocks, but they are a great way to package meat, and about anything else you could want.

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I NEVER add fat in with my meat when i grind it... The fat is the first thing to go bad in meat that's in the freezer, and also that fat just takes up freezer space... Instead i buy some FRESH pork sausage or what ever i prefer, a pound or so at a time, and add it to the meat when i thaw it out to use it.

It sure makes a lot better burger!

DM

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My family used to butcher all of our animals ourselves when I was growing up. I just went back to it 2 years ago and I think the meat is just alot cleaner and better when I do it myself. I do everything except grind the burger and make specialty meat sticks. I have a dehydrator my grandpa built that I use to make all our jerky. I'll probably buy a grinder this year and do or own burger like we used to as well. We would do like npaden does and mix the deer or elk burger with the cheapest beef burger available at the store. My brother has a vaccume sealer but I think the stuff double wrapped in butcher paper is just as good.

I didn't even know it was an option to take your game into a processor without it being gutted. That's gotta be a pain for the processors to haul the guts away. I know they have to haul the carcasses and stuff away anyways but I bet it's a pain to haul the guts too.

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I took my first elk in years ago and ever since then I have done it all myself. for one it is way too expensive and second I feel it is a good way to finalize my hunt and the satifaction of doing it myself.

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Darn near everything that I bring home is already boned. I steak and roast the prime cuts, The not so prime cuts I run through a cuber, the rest gets ground and turned into link sausage or chorizos. I just did a deer and ended up cutting the strip loins and ribeyes for roasts and the rest got turned into 218 sweet italian sausages, the pork trim, seasonings and hog gut casings ran 40.00. I use a grinder I got from cabelas. Cabelas grinders are great as you can get the meat mixer and cuber unit that hooks up to the grinder. I like to use the tube type bags for the ground stuff when not making links. You stuff the bag like you would a casing and then use a one pass tape dispenser to seal the bag... It doesn't take long for the grinder to pay for itself.....The grinder works great for making salsa too!!!!

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"The grinder works great for making salsa too!!!!"

Tell us about that a bit.... Recipies are good too!

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My dad still helps me when i put a deer in the freezer...He was 94 last falland still helping me, by packageing the meat, as i grind it.



When i was a kid, he would have been putting the meat in the grinder, as i turned the handle... lol and mom would do the packageing...

DM

RE: Butchering your own
 

Gutting, well, I always do that myself, it only takes a few minutes to gut a deer when you have done north of a hundred and fifty of them.

I typically do take my deer to a processor. #1, until very recently I did not have space to process one. #2, I have no access to a cooler. #3, I never had all the right equipment to cut them up myself. #4, until last year I always hunted far away from where I lived and had no where to deal with it in a rented suburban house.

Now, time and the cooler are the only limitations. I cut one up myself once, it took more than half a day and they don't cost enough to cut up to justify that.

Now if I get an elk this year, I will be boning it in the field and cutting it up myself.

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I dont really have a written recipe. I do however grind tomatos, peppers and onions. I season it with some chili powder and then can it. All of the veggies are fresh from the garden.

DM, that is abosolutly awesome... I remember the days of old when the whole family gathered at my grandfathers house for the annual deer cutting. I would love to go back in time to see everyone again...

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I took one elk to a butcher, and I'll never do that again. However, since here in TN after we get a deer we have to take it to the closest check station to be checked in, and the closest check station to me is also a processor, and I don't have a place to hang a deer on my property... I pay to have my deer done. I mean, I've got to drive them to the same place by law anyway, so it's just more expedient.

I'm going to go back to butchering myself next year though. Maybe by then I'll have some sort of a system worked out.

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That is why we do our own. Be it moose, deer or bear. All you need is a couple of knives (a six inch boning and a 10-12 inch butcher), a sharpening steel, a good cutting board, a nice high table (so you don't have to bend over while cutting, preferably stainless), a role of brown butcher paper, a bag of elastics, a Sharpie marker, a grinder for doing up burger and a couple of beverages of your choice.

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It is more difficult if your lacking in space and equipment, but even when I was back in college--living in apartments we found ways. Line up someone who'll let you hang and skin in thier garage. We quartered and then took them and worked on them on kitchen counters and tables. If the weather is favorable, a piece of plywood on a picnic table or over a couple of saw horsed, stacked cinder blocks, etc... makes a decent outside butcher table. We used whatever knives we had. I did, and still do, most of my boning with a fillet knife or similar narrow, thin bladed, knife. Same knife works well for cutting steaks and roasts, though a longer knife is sometimes nicer for roasts. We put as much of our animals into steaks and roasts as we can. A decent portion now goes into jerky strips and stew meat as well. What's left over we grind. I borrowed a grinder for years and before that took it to a butcher to grind. We've never added fat to our burger. It is mostly used in casseroles, spaghetti, etc... If I can line up some beef fat, I may grind a little in this year for hamburger patties. I will be butchering a hog in a week or so, so will have sausage fat.

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I do all my own as well, and use a meat slicer for cutting steaks after I have it all boned out. I also like to use bacon pieces for making burgers with. I have never tried to make sauages with it though. It always comes out nicer if you can cut it the way you want it to be done. I also have the wife wrap it for me.

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We always do our own big game but I got a early start at doing it because my Dad was a Butcher before we moved on to the ranch.