Proccessing?
 

What is needed to process moose, deer and elk? Other than grinder and mixer and a jerky shooter what else? What for cooling?

RE: Proccessing?
 

All I got this year was one mulie doe. So I deboned it and aged it in the bottom of the fridge for 14 days. Next year, I plan on bringing home more meat and will look into a cheaop fridge from the local auction house to age larger animals.
So if you have the room, debone and age at 34-40* for 10 - 14 days and get as many steaks as you can. Use the scrap for sausage, jerky, dog food, etc.

RE: Proccessing?
 

I hang mine in the garage by the hind legs. If its too warm it just means that you have to cut it sooner.
All you need is a good knife of sufficiant length. I use an 8" boning knife. A good sturdy table, butcher wrap, plastic wrap, some tape and bags for the scrap. I have 2 left to cut in my garage.... if you like maybe I can recruit the help of friends and photo the whole process?

RE: Proccessing?
 

We quarter ours out and soak them in ice water in coolers for 4 or five days. Then cut them up and put in freezer. In a pinch we do have an extra fridge (and two freezers ... too much work to risk not having room for anything!).

Helpful hint, the meat slices better in steaks when it is not quite thawed after being frozen so we store most of ours in chunks and slice when we start to thaw it out to cook.

As for processing, we have an old commercial grinder (have used a hand grinder in the past) with different plates and different size stuffing funnels, an actual meat market saw with bone in and regular blades, knives (God and hubby are the only two who know exactly how much money we have tied up in knives -- big ones, small ones, thick ones, thin ones, straight ones, curved ones, etc. -- while my dad has his pocket knife, a bigger skinning knife, and an old fashioned butcher knife that is older than me), a vacuum sealer (a truly miracle gadget for storing meat), and game bags (can use ziplocs but we like these because they are round and you can slice the hamburger patties while frozen and slap in the pan -- no defrosting needed!). That is it. To make jerky we use strips of meat instead of grinding it. Gotta admit though, I married a butcher. His first job was cleaning up in a processing plant and from there he worked his way up to butcher (and now manager in Sam's over the meat market). I can do it but he is MUCH faster than me!!

RE: Proccessing?
 

A picture tutorial would be much appreciated. We all have different methods and can learn from each other. I hope you do it!

RE: Proccessing?
 

Couple 8" boning knifes (i prefer victorinox boning knives) and a steel. Optional 10-14" chefs knife for cut larger steaks off bigger game. Gambrel hooks and hoist. Hand Meat saw to remove limbs and split larger game. Cut top, I use butcher blocks(basically large poly cutting boards) and strudy cutting surface. Brown wrap (optional vac sealer), large meat freezer bags(trim), freezer tape and sharpie marker or stamp to mark packages.

I personally don't age my venison as I have found no benefit. I let the animal hang for at least 24 hours to relax and let the lactic acid turn back into sugar (rigor mortise process). If the ambient temperature is above 50 I will let the carcass come to the ambient temeprature then move it to the fridge to continue with the rigor process but will leave it their for 2-3 days due to the spike in core temperature from the meat. As far as cooling I fd and hang/skin asap possible. If you don't have or will not use a grambel either tie off each rear leg so it is spread or split and hang in actual quarters to ensure the entire carcass is cooling and no meat is touching. Once I have skinned I wipe down the carcass with cool water/vinegar solution, this removes pesky little hairs from the skinning and the vinegar will help combat any bacteria from introducing the atwer to the surface of the meat. If you still have hairs on the carcass you can use a BBQ lighter to burn them and then just brush off the dusty, being hollow they burn very quickly. Pet peeve of mine is hairs on the cutting surface as it ultimately leads to getting into the finished product[:'(].

Tloins are dropped as soon as the animal is hung, as the skin over very quickly and require no aging. The rest I cut by muscle groups, removing the loins(backstraps) and rear (hams)portions while hanging. The front shoulder I release by pulling the leg away from the body, then use my boning knife to remove the connective tissue under the scaplula. Flank, intercostal, neck meat I take off last on the sides of larger or while hanging if a deer I'll do them at the same time as I do the fronts because essential the fronts of deer are grind from my perspective. On a deer I do loins, fronts, trim(flank, neck, etc) and finish with the hams.

RE: Proccessing?
 

here's a post I did, Hope it helps:
http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1733225&mpage=1&key=deer&#17 33306

RE: Proccessing?
 

Thats what I was thinking while reading this and was gonna put the link up too, great lesson Mastevt.

RE: Proccessing?
 

Just a little sidenote....If you think you would like to get into doing your own smoking and curing, an old refrigerator makes an excellent smokehouse.
I use a 55 gal. drum with a woodburning door and flue kit for the fire an smoke, duct the smoke into the refrig. from about 8 ft. away. Sooooo much easier to control the temp. for hot or cool smoking.