Tennessee Deer Talk: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat?

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#1719638 - 01/11/10 12:21 PM

How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat?

BowGuy84
10 Point

Registered: 09/16/07
Posts: 4862
Loc: Nashville, TN and Louisville, ...

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I know a lot on here kill more deer than I do. I usually kill about 5 a year on average. Still thats a fair amount of cutting and clean up.

My question is: How do you manage all the meat?

I sure cant afford to pay to get them processed (or maybe Im too cheap). We are having our cutting party the Saturday of superbowl weekend.

When I kill a deer I take the straps, tenderloins and freeze them in water for grilling. Then I debone the hams in one big piece. They get double garbage sack treatment and thrown in the deep freeze. Same with any shoulders I decide to keep or neck roasts.

95% of all this frozen meat ends up in jerky or ground. So at the end of the season, I have all my hunting buddies over, we start thawing the meat 3-4 days before in coolers (depends on temp). Start icing the beer the night before, I put a cutting board arcross both sinks and plactic table in middle of kitchen. Plug in the grinder and the assembly line is in place. It moves through it about as quick as possible and makes it fun, some good music and a pork butt on the smoker about 5 AM makes for a great day of celebrating the past hunting season and getting meat ready for the kitchen.

I think right now between all of us there are 16 deer that well go through...

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#1719642 - 01/11/10 12:25 PM

Re: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat? [Re: BowGuy84]

KENBOB10
14 Point

Registered: 06/22/06
Posts: 8342
Loc: Benton tn.

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Dang! That's a good idea right there.

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#1719646 - 01/11/10 12:27 PM

Re: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat? [Re: BowGuy84]

TX300mag
Pea Picker
14 Point

Registered: 11/10/02
Posts: 8554
Loc: Crosby, TX

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I normally do around a dozen or so, plus several wild hogs.

I've gotten to where the backstraps, hearts, and tenderloins are frozen whole so I can do whatever I want later.

The neck roast is usually cooked as quickly as possible since I they can take up a lot of freezer room.

The rest is ground. I used about 50lbs for jerky and the rest is stuffed in 2lb tubes.

I used to make sausage, but so far I haven't yet this year since I've given up fatty meats.

_________________________
I'm just a young man living to make me old
Plowing these fields by the river road...

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#1719651 - 01/11/10 12:33 PM

Re: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat? [Re: TX300mag]

44fanatic
12 Point

Registered: 01/01/08
Posts: 6068
Loc: Clarksville, Montgomery Cnty

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Sounds like a good time.

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#1719658 - 01/11/10 12:38 PM

Re: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat? [Re: 44fanatic]

LeatherLungz
8 Point

Registered: 12/17/08
Posts: 1654
Loc: Middle TN

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"how do you deal with large amounts of meat"

well, very carefully unless you've had your gall bladder removed, then party on. Don't forget to floss.

sounds like you got a pretty good system. Congrats on the self processing.

only thing, I don't like the freeze-unthaw-refreeze idea... I just always heard that was questionable.

As for storage, you can never have enough freezer space. I have 4 freezers with all kinds of dead animal parts in them. $\:\/$

_________________________
Caution: Your venison may have been processed in a facility that handles nuts.

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#1719691 - 01/11/10 12:59 PM

Re: How do you deal with large amounts of deer meat? [Re: LeatherLungz]

BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical

Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59670
Loc: Nashville, TN

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My whole family participates in "processing" at the end of each major hunt. We do it in assembly line fassion, with each person specializing in a different part of the process, from skinning and butchering the major muscle groups, to skinning off the fascia layers, to prep work, to grinding, to packaging.

We have the luxury of "holding" all deer killed over a period of time in a walk-in cooler. We may only do one deer or may do 6-8 deer in one processing session, depending on what we've killed during that extended hunt.

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"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan

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