RE: processing your own deer?
 

As I'm doing this, the cut off meat goes into a small fridge set up for this, it has 2 racks and stainless bottom, I use paper towls to soak up the drippings, and I allow a day or so in the fridge to drip and age. Next is the rear quarters, First, cut off just above what you would call I guess the knee. Pick up your hide, and throw away or dispose of in your own way. Follow down along the hip bone, untill you get to the socket, slice across the socket to expose the socket itself, and the nerve that runs thru the middle, cut the nerve, It will almost fall off at this point, so be carfull not to drop it, there will be some more tissue to cut behind the socket, in the anal area, and then it's off.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

Remove any meat between the ribs that you may want, and any else where, next lay down the carcuss and remove the tenderloins. I walked my wife thru this process for her first time, she did it in about 1 1/2 hours. It' takes me about 45 minutes to an hour. After the T.Loins are removed, you can dispose of the carcuss. It's done.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

Next cutting up the meat is pretty easy, dress up the backstraps by taking off the silver fish.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

then cut into butterfly steaks, cut half to 3/4 thru, then all the way thru on the next cut. wa-la

RE: processing your own deer?
 

a little more work goes into the rear quarters, I separate out the main two large muscle groups, I call them groups because there is more than 1 musle in each one, here you can see the two separated apart and compared to the other side for referance.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

now depending what you want or like, you can do several things with these, roasts, steaks, stew, or grind forburger or sausage, or take to a processor for them to finish. I take the musle on the left, and cut the ends off, ends go to canned meat (stew). We pressure cook the stew meat, it's real good if you havn't tried it, anyway, then cut steak out by cutting across the meat grain, this is important to remember, meat will be more tender if cut acrossthe grain. I call these round steaks.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

Informative post. Thanks. I''ve done my own for a while now but not the doe I got this AM. I found her at 12:30 and had a 2:45 dentist appointment. I stopped on the way home from the lease and dropped her at the butcher. I hate to pay for what I can do but temps are in the upper 60s and I didn't want to chance letting her sit out too long.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

now the muscle group on the right on the above pic is seperated once more, you can see a seam running almost in the center, the small section I grind or use for stew, the larger gets cut into butterfly steak again. These are really good steaks also, but not quite as tender as the backstraps.

RE: processing your own deer?
 

the rest of the meat that you take off the front quarter, and the bottom of the rear quarters are not good for anything else but the grinder,grind it up with the neck meat, and anything else. We get beef fat from the local grocery store for free, and grind it once thru the 1/4 plate, meat goes thru once in the 1/4 plate, then blend your fat with the meat, and run it thru a second time thru the 1/4 plate, and your done, we package it at this point, unless we make sausage. The beef fat helps in cooking. you can make it as lean as you want, we like it very lean!

RE: processing your own deer?
 

Ready for the freezer. and it's all done. Except for if we want to make Italian sausage, polish sausage, summer sausage, and canned stew meat. then there is much more detail in that. We use the season kits from Cabela's, everything you need is in them, instrucions and all. Except meat of coarse. We have an Italian receipe that we use, and for canned meat, just follow the directions in the canners manual on how to do it, but it's basicly brown it in a pan first, put it in sterilized jars, top off with the remaining juice from cooking, and water, we add 1/2 teaspoon of beef boullion (check my spelling please) put your lids on, and pressure cook. We recommend the type with a rattle weight instead of the guage. Guages can go bad, and then that's trouble! let it cool down befor you attempt to open the cooker, and let cool befor storing. No need for freezer when cooled down.meat is preserved from the pressure cooker.