A lot of the processors I have seen don't take the time to trim deer meat properly, they leave too much deer fat and connective tissue. Time is money, and IF they do trim it rather than just cut off the bone and grind, they have way too much waste for my liking. Even with superb knife skills, it takes me 2+ hours just to bone out 1 deer. Processors just can't dedicate that much time to one deer and make money. That is one of the biggest reasons why I process the meat myself. A lot of people that don't like deer meat have eaten it from a processor that left fat on the meat. IMO, venison is very good.....if cared for properly after the kill and that includes proper processing.
Very good point! I process my own animals for the same reason.
My deer taste like lean beef almost al the time due to taking care of the meat and trimming. It also helps I shoot mostly does and a lot of the spikes are younger. Females taste better than males and younger taste better than older.
I'll make an exception for feral hogs a the processor since we are so accustomed to pork flavors. If I only have a weekend to hunt and I drop 3-4 pigs in a day then taking them to a processor to grind them all up would be completely acceptable for me.
Yep it cost some money BUT its far less money than what I lose if I take the days off to do it myself, so it's decent trade off.
I've been very fortunate to hunt on a ranch for about 5 years where the head guide used to professionally harvest game for wild game meat companies the ranches would contract with.
He know ALL the practices, processes, and standards to produce the highest quality meat the moment the animal was dropped in the field.
Things like skinning but being sure to leave outer areas of meat and tissue on the animal so it could protect the better meat underneath as the dear hung.
Having a 50/50 mixture of distilled water and white vinegar in a spray bottle to spray down the carcass and "whack" some bacteria and prevent other unwanted micro-organism behavior that may affect taste while the animal hung in the coolers.
Other things as well, all invaluable when handling the animal before it ever hit a knife for butchering or eating!
I'll also post that if you take the live weight on the hoof before gutting and multiply by 0.32, that is how much properly trimmed meat you should get off a deer (assuming no loss to bullet wound like hitting bone and blowing out a shoulder). If you pick the carcass clean-and trim between every rib....get every scrap...you can push that to 0.37. But its the law of diminishing returns...takes a lot of time for not much meat.
Very true! I always estimate .30 (30%) of the weight I can basically count on hitting :)
Diminishing returns is so true as well. I don't mess with ribs or flanks or necks on these small body TX deer I take. They are usually 90-100lb so no such thing as a real "neck roast" on these animals.
Well I have zero processing skills or experience, although I watch a lot of Bearded Butchers videos...LOL
I think I could handle it, but the cold storage space is an issue.
As
indaswamp
has mentioned even the grind form a processor will have more tissue in it than you want.
If you could get your hands on whole muscle roasts from the back leg (top round, bottom, round, sirloin) then you don't need any real butchering skills, u just need a sharp knife!
you just cut off any silver skin or translucent outer tissue you wouldn't throw in a skillet and eat.
Once done, you have premium venison meat to eat... provided the animal was treated properly from being down to the meat coming to u :D
Winterrider
said, contact local game wardens. They keep a list and give away deer that were taken illegally. Then you could process it as you see fit.
tallbm
. Yeah could be way more trouble than it's worth using just trim. I have run into that just trying to use a pork shoulder; lots of effort to get rid of all the undesirable scrap.
