Venison, Part 2: Cleaning and butchering

I could write pages and pages on cleaning and butchering the deer. Instead, I'll just add my comments to the already pages and pages (and videos and videos) out there. Do a quick search, read, and watch some videos. These are just some additional notes that I feel are important:

The deer is down. Now what? The important thing here is to get the temperature of the meat down below 40 degrees as soon as possible. If you don't live near where you hunt, that means you really should field dress the deer. Again, there are lots of videos and articles on the web. It's probably best to check it out before pulling the trigger.

Gutting / Field dressing: Regarding gutting the deer, there are several methods, mostly boiling down to the preference of starting at the middle and going to the back, or starting at the back and going to the middle. It really doesn't matter. I actually use both methods and haven't found that one is particularly better or faster. The important thing here is to try, as much as possible, to be clean about it. That mostly means, try to keep the nasty insides of the organs away from the meat. Clean it out with a water bottle or hose right after gutting, keep grass and mud off the exposed meat.

Aging / Hanging: You'll hear people talk about "aging" meat. I've done some digging around to find out just what that means and why you want to do it. Basically, aging the meat involves keeping it above freezing, but below 40 degrees (to avoid spoilage), in order to allow rigor mortis
to resolve. Rigor mortis will typically resolve in about 72 hours. Aging the meat longer (up to a couple of weeks) allows further breakdown of the meat from enzymes. Personally, I shoot for about 3-4 days. You can age the meat in a cooler, a bathtub full of ice, or a refrigerator, if the outside temperature is above 40. If using ice, try to keep the meat from sitting in the water as the ice melts (keep the ice bagged and set the meat on top). Otherwise, you can just hang the carcass from a tree, in a barn, from the swingset, etc. for a few days. The important thing here is temperature and cleanliness.

Butchering: Most hunters I know take the field-dressed deer to a butcher/processor to have it all cut up and packaged. I actually enjoy doing it myself and like knowing the quality control at each step in the process. Again, there are some good videos out there. If you want to butcher and process your own deer, I recommend watching this guy's 4-part series on "How to butcher a deer at home". You can get some really fancy, expensive equipment to get the job done. I do mine with just a 7" knife and a hacksaw. At this point in time, I don't own a grinder, so I won't talk about making sausage or ground meat. But that's coming soon... The main thing to keep in mind during the butchering process is, again, cleanliness. Use CLEAN countertops, tables, knives, etc. Be meticulous about this!

I did want to say something about butchering the hind quarter. When you're looking at the whole quarter, you notice that it's a bunch of muscles. When you buy different cuts of beef, they come from different muscles. It's the same thing here. If you pick one of the large muscles, and start working your hand into the seams the separate it from the other muscles near it, you can start to work it away. Use your knife to cut the connective tissues away while you're separating the muscles. I prefer to keep each one of those muscles intact until I'm ready to use it. I just label them as hind quarter roasts. If I want steaks, I cut them up when I pull the roast out of the freezer. I just find that it leaves my options open for what to do with the meat when I'm ready to use it.

Important!!!! Beef gets its flavor, juicyness, and tenderness from the fat. Deer fat is NASTY tasting and gets a really rancid flavor when it freezes. Be meticulous about removing all of the fat before you freeze or cook the venison. Trust me on this one!

Wrapping / storing: People, again, have different opinions about what works best. Some like to vacuum-seal the meat, others use just freezer paper, others use just Saran wrap. I talked with my local butcher and here's what he recommended. It's how I do it, and it seems to work well (last year's meat lasted a year in the freezer without freezer burn or spoilage).

• Wrap once with Saran wrap. Completely seal everything.
• Wrap a second layer with freezer paper.
  
• Wrap a third layer with Saran wrap.

That third layer actually makes a huge difference - it adds about another 6 months to how long you can store it. Before you put that last wrap on it, go ahead and write on the freezer paper. I put the date and what's inside (roast, backstrap, etc.). Since I haven't quite memorized the different cuts of meat, I'll sometimes even write myself a note on the wrapping, "Smoke whole", or "Use for steaks." I'll even label the scrap meat, "Scrap" with other notes, like "Needs a lot of work" or "Ready for chili" depending on how much more work I need to do to it (removing connective tissue, etc).

Now that all of that is out of the way, I can get on to the fun stuff - cooking and eating!