Venison questions

Meat does not age in a freezer. Best is 34 to 37 constant temperature and high humidity. Let all meat set 24 hours to relax after rigor mortis, any meat used ground or as sausage does not benefit from aging. Refrigerator works well, good humidity, meat covered. Hanging outside, daily temperature fluctuations, dry air is not good....James

Take the neck and boil it til all the meat falls off the bone,then make macaroni soup. Be the best broth you ever ate.

When the deer is harvested, immediately cut out the scent glands. Wash knofe throughly. Gut and cool carcass. Do not cut though any bones-the marrow is very gamey. Remove all fat and silver skin - this is gamey too.

I never soak it, but I do age it in the fridge- in whole muscles for a week. If anything gets slimey, rinse it in a 50/50 vinegar and water solution. This is what od time butchers did. That is the tenderest meat. Cut it and freeze in vacu- seal bags. Lasts for years.

I only hang it when the temperatures allow, and where I live, that's pretty much all deer season..

I hang mine in a shed, that is in the shade, so if the temps don't get over about 40 for more than a few days, life is good.. .for me..

Granted, some people can not do this,and some age their meat in a fridge for a week or so...

WHat I am getting at, dry aging makes a difference, whether you can do it as a whole carcass outdoors, or if you have to do it in a fridge if you are lucky enough to have enough fridge space..

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[QUOTE=jwal10;7328574 any meat used ground or as sausage does not benefit from aging. [/QUOTE]


I disagree with this aging affects taste.

Lots to consider. Thanks for the additional comments. Looks like we will have another go at it. I figured the deer would take off for more secluded parts, once I turned my horses out on the rye grass. Last night, after I called the horses in to the barn, it didn't take 5 minutes for the deer to come out of the woodwork.

yup it makes it taste old lol!

Its not a bad flavor I guess, But theres a reason I prefer venison to beef...
I like it better a little fresher tasting.

It will age in the Freezer but its a much slower process.

I have some that is probably close to 2 years old right now, it tastes more like beef then venison.

Some things can benefit from aging and others not so much.

IMHO a 2-3 year old deer does not need it, a Longnose Doe perchance, Bucks around here at least don't have the perk of old age...

To each there own.

Like I said most deer here are corn fed.
I'm sure it makes a huge difference.

If its a swamp deer eating cedars and brush well, I don't think you can age that flavor out...lmao

Preparation from field to table makes a difference as well!

You also don't want any animal to get worked up before or as it dies, the calmer it is the better the meat will be.

When I pop one, I'll light a cigarette and slowly smoke it.
takes about 5 mins.
They normally don't get more then 100' if that,often I can hear them crash or see them drop.Difference between a well placed shot and a careless one.
A slow walk over and I have yet for one to get a second wind and run.
But if they got any bit of life left they can get a adrenaline surge and go a long ways on you.

Every deer hunter has their preferences... Ask us all the best kind of camo, we won't even agree on that...

We all live in different places, the deer are all different, and they all eat different things..

Here, people hang their deer. I've always done that before and I ain't from here... I've had good corn fed deer, and it tasted a lot wilder than the acorn and weed eating deer we have here..

To the OP, experiment.. see what you like... I ventured from my norm, and wasn't happy with the results... The meat is still good, just not as good as it normally is, but I also fought a lot more with the silver skin left, than when I allow it to turn to a rind and shave it off.

We all have our preferences, and there is no wrong or right way... find YOUR way... and that may be soaking it...

HAPPY HUNTING!

__________________
Never let your fear decide your fate!
Kein Mitleid für die Mehrheit

Always going to get a ton of different opinions when you ask about venison.

I have at least helped in the processing of well in excess of 100 deer through the years. The weather is often very warm during the long deer season here in south Georgia. We try to get the deer cleaned as quickly as possible and put into a cooler with plenty of ice (fully covered) and check it very frequently (at least 3x a day during the first 2 days to make sure the meat is well covered with ice---adding as needed). We drain the water and recover with ice which eliminates a bunch of blood in the process. We aim at doing the processing (cutting into steaks, roasts, grinding etc) in roughly a week, give or take a day or two based on real life issues and such.

I have eaten both 7 1/2 year old deer and 6 month old does and can't really tell a difference in the meat IF it was taken care of promptly. I will say that I firmly believe the number one issue with taste issue with venison is lack of proper care before it is put back into the food safety temp zone. Too many times a deer is hauled around in the back of the truck through town. Shown to a bunch of friends. Pictures are taken and care wasn't done to make sure the meat was clean and debris free when skinning the animal.

I rank venison as one of nature's best bounties!

We don't soak or hang. Small deer killed in the morning is often in the freezer by night fall. The big doe we got this year took 2 days to get it all into the freezer....be we were wiped out by the time we got to butchering her. We had just finished a smaller one the night before and I was in the middle of a long insomnia cycle.

I should mention that my kids and I do NOT taste "game-i-ness" in venison, ever. It taste like beef to us. DH can tell a difference between beef and venison, so I know there is a differnce.

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Properly butchered there shouldn't be any 'gamey' flavor. Keep the hair off the meat, keep the innards off the meat, and never ever let any intestinal fluids touch the meat.... cut any parts that touch hair or 'juices' away and feed to the dogs.

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A doe should be delicious and tender just as she is.

OK, next question...,
Care to share a recipe for venison sausage?

I was thinking to mix it with pork fat, but some recipes I found call for pork meat. I won't have another pig ready for butchering for a while, but I currently have plenty of pork fat. Will that suffice? In what ratio? Other spices?

We don't have as much experience as others in processing a deer, but for ours we skin asap. Keep everything as clean as possible, first we take the backstraps and then quarter the rest. Everything goes into a cooler filled with cold water as soon as it's off the carcass. Then rinsed thoroughly under running water again and we make sure it's in small enough sections to fit into a 2 gallon ziploc bag and then into the fridge for at least 3 days.

After that we work on cuts, grinding up, etc. Like others have said, make sure to clean off as much fat and silverskin as you possible can, deer fat does not taste good

We don't soak or anything and we've never had gamey tasting deer, but ours chow down on cropland and it affects the taste.

We cut medallions from the backstraps and fry those up, yum!!! There is another muscle on the hind quarter which when separated from all the other muscle has a very definite rectangular appearance - we've found that also makes nice little steaks/chops.

With the neck we slow cook it until the meat is falling off the bone and then use that for stew, delicious!

Remember to keep some for jerky

I just grind the odds and ins and rib meat and brisket.

If I do sausage its patty style and I'll mix spice in the grind when and If I decide on sausage. No extra fat but I do give run it though the grinder several times.
That way if I need burger I have it rather then sausage.
Spices for the sausage are Salt,pepper,sage,onion and garlic powder.

When grinding its nice to have partially frozen meat. the process tends to heat it up.

Really any piece on a deer can make a steak, you just need to pay attention to the grain of the meat. Search for butterflying, its when you only cut partially through, envision making veneer, you can basically unwrap a muscle in to a steak of you desired thickness.

I have found the membrane (the clear snotty stuff) is not really of any issue, it cooks up and you never notice. Tendon though needs attention depending on what you do with it. If grinding I dont bother with it much, just cut in chunks and feed the meat in the tuff stuff will collect in front of the plate. you do need to clean the grinder out but easier then striping the tendons by hand.

I debone but have had "traditional" cut with bone in, the marrow was not bad and actually tasty.

Fat well it really depends on diet and age, young ones eating crops the fats not bad.
Older ones its stronger, and those eating a wild diet of brose the same.
You could develop a taste for it though.
don't know till you try.

I've never really made venison sausage the same twice. I cook by smell, so I season my sausage much the same way. Garlic, salt, pepper, onion, sometimes sage, sometimes basil, sometimes whiskey, you just never know, but I've never had a bad batch unless I got to much pepper in it, then I just add more salt, garlic, onion, and meat. I test my sausage by grabbing a small ball of it and frying up right then and there. If I am satisfied, I package it. If not, keep mixing till I am.
IF I have a choice about what fats I am mixing with my venison, I like the following combinations best: Deer / Beef hamburger with lots of fat, Elk / rendered pork fat, antelope / pork sausage, Moose / bear burger. This is how I got to coin the term pigalope. Most of the time, I don't season my ground meats - I just use them in place of hamburger and season as I cook it depending on the dish. At then end of the season, we always throw in the last bit of everything from the year for jerkey - you never know what you are going to get in it! We roll the burger out in cookie sheets about 3/8 inch thick, cut into 1 inch wide slices, smoke it, then put it into the dehydrator.

Lots of good advice here already. A doe shouldn't have much of a gamey taste, Bucks are usually the stronger tasting venison.

We add some bacon in with the venison when we grind burger and it gives it a good flavor and adds some fat to hold the venison together if you make hamburgers.

Canning was mentioned already too and it's a good way to use small or tough pieces. We can them in beef broth and its really good over rice or noodles or in stew.

The burger makes excellent Chilli imo and I prefer it over beef.

Get the animal field dressed immediately and the body cavity cooled below 40 degrees as quickly as possible. In warm weather than may mean packing bags of ice inside the body cavity. If temps are staying below 40 degrees, hang for a few days at least. If temps are forecast for cold (below 30 or so), I'll leave the hide on. If not, I skin immediately to allow the carcass to cool faster. Meat doesn't freeze until it is below 28 degrees F, so hanging meat from 28 to 40 definitely has a benefit. Be very careful at the upper range of those temperatures.

Also, hand cutting venison REALLY makes a difference in avoiding gamey meat. Deer bone marrow is very gamey tasting. If you just bone out the meat instead of running it through a meat saw, you will avoid a lot of the "gamey" meat issues.

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Everyone has their own method. What some people relish others would spit on the ground. I process my deer ASAP. Extra effort is made to remove ALL the fat and silver flesh. The gamey flavor comes from the fat. Before cooking steaks, cops, roasts, I rinse them very well to remove any remaining blood and then cook slowly and gently. Venison is easy to overcook. In my opinion a good venison roast is the same as a roast beef that someone added a lot of pepper to. But that's my opinion.

I keep my fat trimings all year to use to make venison sausage. I use beef or pork, which ever I have. When I run out of fat I buy ground pork from my butcher. I'll add about 5# of his grass fed pork to 12-15# of venison. We don't like our sausage too fat....but some makes it better.

Like Lilith, I just add spices, no recipe. Salt, pepper, garlic, Hungarian paprika, and sage are the bulk of it. Add spices, mix, pinch off a bit and cook, taste, adjust seasoning as needed....cook, taste, repeat

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