Angry Beaver

It has become an annual ritual in my household, I shoot a doe early in the season, butcher it up and put it in the freezer. After a month or so thewife takes out some of the burger or roast and cooks it up and the kitchen smells like venison and the kids won't eat it. Wonder what we did wrong and the meat goes untouched until the start of the next season when it is time to clean out the freezer. I feel bad throwing it out so I give it one more chance and now 9 months later it's perfect. Can't smell a thing when it's cooked and the kids love it. We eat every last package.Took some to work and the 3 people that tried it thoughtI had mistakenly grabbed beef. So my question is does the time in the freezer help tame the flavor?

Big Guy01

My venison is great from the start. Do you do your own butchering? I do my own and take extra care to remove all the fat,blue membrane and sinew before freezing. Most butcher just can't take the time to butcher in this manner and keep the cost reasonable. They tend to band saw up a deer , wrap it up then freeze it. The gamey and bad taste is concentrated in the fat, bone dust and marrow adds more bad flavours. It could be your first package might have had a lot of fat on it and the rest little or none. I can't see that freezing would alter the taste.

Angry Beaver

I butchered this deer on my own. Took real good care to cut out the silver/blue stuff etc. We were really disappointed with our first tastes of the burger and roasts since I put a lot of effort into it. As gamey as the first meals were, the meals 9 months later were superb. The first roast my wife made in a slow cooker and I no more than walked in the door from work and announced "venison tonite huh". The roast she just made I had finished nearly all of it before she asked how I liked the "beef"...which I thought was fine and she then told me it was venison. I really wish I could figure out what happened. The burger I ground was pure venison, no pork or anything added, no one could even taste a hint of gaminess.

zrexpilot

venison burgers are not very good, you have to grind it with some beef or beef fat. Or use it for spaghetti or chili or manwiches. But when you brown the meat make sure to drain off all the stock and rinse with water and drain again, deer stock isnt very good, nothing like beef stock.
I also find that deer frozen for a while tastes better. I make my sausage at the beginning of deer season using all last years deer meat and comes out best doing it that way.

Buck Hunter 1

I use all my ground meat for tacos, chiles and the like. My brotheralso mix some pork w/ ground meat and his burgers aren't bad. We also use that vacum sealer, it keeps meat longer and no freezer burn.

Phil from Maine

I do dot know what kind of weather you have down there but up here we can let them hang for a few days which helps quite a bit. Also when making burger put in some ends from bacon when you grind it up instead of beef suite.. At least try a little with the bacon and see what you think..

jerseyhunter

Maybe a piece that should have been thrown away somehow ended up in the grind pile and you just happen to grab that pkg.

dvalliere

I don't know the answer to that question. I do know that my experience with freshly harvested venison is that it's gamey and none of us like the smell or taste (though the smell makes it hard to give it a fair shake). I pulled out some venison backstrap the other day from last season and it was excellent and like beef in flavor. I did all of my own butchering, none went bad. I was very attentive to detail in the process.

I was wondering if it changed by spending close to a year in the deep freezer.

WVCritter

I've killed deer in the morning and had backstraps for supper the same day and also had ones that were vacum packed and frozen for 3 months and honestly I never noticed any difference in the taste. It's always good.

jerseyhunter

While butchering I always have a skillet on the stove and taste/ eat as I cut.