How do you use your venison?

The choicest cut on a deer in my books is the neck! It's the most heavily marbled piece of meat with interstitial fat.It makes the best roasts in the animal in my opinion. I cringe when I see hocked deer heads with 4 inches of neck meat wasted on them. I completely bone the neck out. Easy to do with a a boning knife or fillet knife. I usually get four good dized rolled neck roasts out of it. Crock pot on low is by far the best way to cook it. All I add is two cups low sodium beef stock, salt, cracked pepper, and a tiny shake of Montreal steak spice. It literally falls apart when you cut the strings.
Bone out your front quarters and make rolled shoulder roasts. Excellent in the crock pot.

You'll never waste another heart if you try it snitzel style. Soak whole heart in salt water overnight in the fridge. Trim off white waxy tissue and sino node, then cut into four even pieces. Pound lightly out with a meat hammer until about 1/4" thick. Dust in bag with flour, salt, pepper, and a dash of ground sage. Dip in egg wash and coat with Italian bread crumbs. Fry in butter. You can also make a basic brown sauce to put on it. OMG this is good!

Make your own simple pepperettes. No need to follow any fancy recipe and you don't need to own a hot smoker. Your gas BBQ works just as well. Skip the overpowering commercial sausage spice mixes unless you like to taste salt , sodium nitrates, and an overload of garlic, cumin, etc. You do not have to add "cure" or prague powder. Basic recipes usually call for added pig fat and lean pork, but I prefer straight ground venison. 22mm collagen casings are at TSE stores. Fill them dry with a basic meat grinder attachment. Into BBQ with closed lid on low for the prescribed recipe time, check internal temp is safely reached with meat thermometer, and throw a couple of cans of wood chips to smoke (just use an old tuna can on the grill). Ziplok bag and freeze them. Just pull out a bag, thaw and they're good in the fridge for a week. Fantastic with cheese and beer. They don't stick around long. I'll look for the recipe I use and I'll post it.

Grind the neck and shoulder meat and any trimmings.
Debone the hinds separating the muscle groups. Some is made in to Jerky the rest in to steaks.
Fillet off the back strap and cut in to steaks.

The thought of dropping off my deer to be processed by someone else scares the hell out of me... lol

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Originally Posted by Fenelon

The choicest cut on a deer in my books is the neck! It's the most heavily marbled piece of meat with interstitial fat.It makes the best roasts in the animal in my opinion. I cringe when I see hocked deer heads with 4 inches of neck meat wasted on them. I completely bone the neck out. Easy to do with a a boning knife or fillet knife. I usually get four good dized rolled neck roasts out of it. Crock pot on low is by far the best way to cook it. All I add is two cups low sodium beef stock, salt, cracked pepper, and a tiny shake of Montreal steak spice. It literally falls apart when you cut the strings.
Bone out your front quarters and make rolled shoulder roasts. Excellent in the crock pot.

You'll never waste another heart if you try it snitzel style. Soak whole heart in salt water overnight in the fridge. Trim off white waxy tissue and sino node, then cut into four even pieces. Pound lightly out with a meat hammer until about 1/4" thick. Dust in bag with flour, salt, pepper, and a dash of ground sage. Dip in egg wash and coat with Italian bread crumbs. Fry in butter. You can also make a basic brown sauce to put on it. OMG this is good!

Make your own simple pepperettes. No need to follow any fancy recipe and you don't need to own a hot smoker. Your gas BBQ works just as well. Skip the overpowering commercial sausage spice mixes unless you like to taste salt , sodium nitrates, and an overload of garlic, cumin, etc. You do not have to add "cure" or prague powder. Basic recipes usually call for added pig fat and lean pork, but I prefer straight ground venison. 22mm collagen casings are at TSE stores. Fill them dry with a basic meat grinder attachment. Into BBQ with closed lid on low for the prescribed recipe time, check internal temp is safely reached with meat thermometer, and throw a couple of cans of wood chips to smoke (just use an old tuna can on the grill). Ziplok bag and freeze them. Just pull out a bag, thaw and they're good in the fridge for a week. Fantastic with cheese and beer. They don't stick around long. I'll look for the recipe I use and I'll post it.

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Good info. something I've been looking for is a home jerky recipe. I use the commercial stuff and like the flavour, but I don't like the idea of all the salts, and especially the nitrates.
I did debone the neck, but it just looked like a mess when I was done, so I got frustrated and cut it all up.

We use a lot of grind
tenderloins left whole
backstraps cut into butterfly chops
serloins done into stewing cuts
flatirons whole for grilling
rest of the deer is ground with a medium plate

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Originally Posted by sierra

One recommendation I would make is you mention loin chops - try this the next time, do them as a french rack - basically the loin chop with about 4-6 inches of the rib bone attached. That bone adds flavor if you ask me and will make a tasty part even tastier! :) You can do it with multiple bones to make a roast style and then slice into steaks or slice each into steaks when butchering.

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Do you saw the rib bone to make them shorter?

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As a generic question to everyone about grinding:

Do you grind all cuts next 1/2 days after the kill?
Or freeze the grinding cuts and the de-frost/grind.make sausage etc/re-frost ?



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Originally Posted by newbiehunter

As a generic question to everyone about grinding:

Do you grind all cuts next 1/2 days after the kill?
Or freeze the grinding cuts and the de-frost/grind.make sausage etc/re-frost ?



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I grind as the last step of butchering. I shot the deer on Sat, meat was ground on Wed night. It was in the fridge in between. I just used my wife's KitchenAid mixer with the grinder attachment. Almost 30 lb seemed to be the limit for the machine. I had to stop a few times because I was worried it would overheat, but it does the job, and the meat comes out fine. Maybe freezing as mentioned earlier would make it easier?

We debone all of our deer and trim every bit of fat, silver skin, and sinew. Then we send the meat to the processor where it’s turned into kielbasa, peperettes, sausage, and smokies.

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Originally Posted by Sam Menard

We debone all of our deer and trim every bit of fat, silver skin, and sinew. Then we send the meat to the processor where it’s turned into kielbasa, peperettes, sausage, and smokies.

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I am curious: why go to all the trouble with trimming if it all ends up going through a grinder anyway? Don't get me wrong, I trim all the regular cuts very well, but stuff that goes in the grinder, not so much. I find that that a reasonable amount of fat, etc. in the ground meat does some good.

I debone most of the deer while it is hanging.
Due to the CWD "scare",i do not cut bone,do not use hatchet or a saw at all.
Just work with a knife.

I Break the spine if head goes to the taxidermist-way up at the skull,by rotating and rotating the head until it does not separate from the spine.Leave 1" meat around that area ,for good measure.
Where the deer was shot,i score with the tip of the knife 4x4 or so around the wound (if bigger area damaged-then i score more)and i do not touch that area.
Easier with a bowshot deer(almost no lost meat there)-but i seems to have more deer with slug.
The whole meat is "peeled off"from the skeleton.I take off the front and hind legs(easier deboning them on the workbench)then i debone everyhting.
I run a deboning knife between each rib,remove all meat from between ribs,and use the meat for stew or sausage.
Bone/scrap goes back to the area i took the deer from.
Few times i did the whole deer 100% while hanging,deboning and all-and at the end i had a "museum display" looking deer skeleton hanging in my garage.
I cut up all the meat as "it was a pig".
My granddad was a butcher,my uncle thought me how to process pigs back home.So-i juts do the deer as it is a pig.

Many times listen to these specific words-rump,brisket,chuck-and wonder what the heck they are on my deer.
But-i do as many here-nice grained meat goes for steak or chops,chunkier meat goes for roast.
Odd shaped meat,meat from the front legs,and where there is not so nice grained meat on the deer-goes for stew,or i grind it up (lesser portion-and just lately)for ground meat.
I remove,as many said ,all the silverskin, sinew ,and all the "clearly visible and accessible "fat.
I take some flat belly muslce area meat(the thin one)and cut them up,like 4x4 or so.After flattening /tenderizing with a kitchen hammer-they make excellent Wiener Snitzel.

I do use neck meat for stew meat or sausage!
After reading some comments here ,and watching the video how the guy does "fast and smooth"neck deboing,i will try next time a neck meat roast. Thanks guys for that idea!
My sausage meat is cut up 1x 1",frozen,and delivered to a local butcher eventually, who does my smoked sausage.
I ask him to add 40-50 % of pork fat(basically belly bacon)to the sausage. Tried to add less-but seems oddly dry for me.
I will try some internal organ recipes from here when next time comes.