Processing a Deer

The idea of this post is to show you another side of what we do.  Dad is a huge hunter and as is the rest of the family, so around this time of year, we get to process a few deer and/or antelope and elk.  
 
This deer was shot by Big J. last Monday. 
 

Photo credit goes to Dad

After we get the deer home, we gut it (also called field dressing because sometimes this is done in the field).  All the inner parts are removed, the deer is washed out with a water hose if one's nearby, and frozen water bottles go where the guts once were.  We wrap the whole deer in a tarp or sheet and keep it in a horse trailer for a couple of days.  And it's usually cold out, so it doesn't spoil, plus the bottles keep it cool.

 

When it's done aging, we bring the deer inside the shop and hang it by the hind legs.  The skinning process is then started.  All hide is pulled or cut off the deer, exposing the meat.  In this picture below, you can see the "back strap" being cut off the back, near the spine.  This piece of meat is used for steaks.

  

 
Dad, with his many years of practice and knowledge, continues to cut off good parts of the deer for us to eat.
 
In this picture you can see a few piles of good meat that we will eat in the near future.
 

 
Once the meat is off the carcass, we three kids and Dad head into the kitchen to trim off any fat and other bad parts, along with cleaning off any hair.  At this stage, we turn on the Carpenters or Christmas music, it's a tradition...

And yes, the cats think they need to help in the step.  They swarm around the our feet and clean up any fallen scraps.  Here in this pic. BingBong is licking his lips as he moves from one scrap bucket to the other.
 

 

Dad is trimming this back strap

 And when all of the trimming and cleaning is done to the meat, it's time to pull out the meat grinder!  We use a meat grinder in order to make hamburger.  But remember, the back strap is kept separate, to be cut into steaks.  Also, we make a lot of stew meat, and that is hand cut as well.  But in this case, we mainly used the grinder. 
 
The chunks of meat are pushed into the machine.  Big J. and Little J. are both very good at this and help out, as shown in this picture.
 

 
The ground meat comes out looking just like hamburger you'd buy at the store, only this would be venison.
  

 

 
And we don't leave anyone out in this job!  Mom is the head of wrapping.  She takes the ground hamburger and other cuts (steaks, stew...) and wraps it, first in plastic wrap, and second in newspaper.
Apparently, her time working at Subway was a good thing since she now wraps all of our meat the same way as the subs.
 

 

When everything is wrapped, we label the package with a marker.  As this picture shows, we put the initials of the hunter (JB in this case), the animal (buck this time), date, and what cut (loin).   

 

Front

 

Back

 

 
Once we've wrapped and labeled every one of the packages, it's off to the deep freeze.  And I bet you can guess what happens after that. 

 
Now, this is just how we do it.  Other people have different ways, different cuts, and different wrapping ways.  But, this is the best way we've found and we like it.  : )