Mule Deer Meat Flavor

[groundswatter]

I just shot my first mulie buck here in the high desert of Texas. I was thinking the meat would be ok, me and my wife eat whitetail and axis regularly, but it is gamey to the extreme. Just trying to get peoples take on how the meat flavor changes in different parts of the country. Sure it has to do with diet, and rutting or not, but I was just curious on everyone else's view.

 

[robby denning]

After very careful dressin and field care, I age mine 33-40 degrees 21-28 days and have minimized "gamey" flavor. I have people eating it who hated it before.

 

[Art Vandeley]

Mine have always been fine. I will admit I like the taste of whitetail better. Proper field care and cooking them medium rare are very important.

 

[5MilesBack]

I've never had gamey deer. It all tastes good to me.

 

[groundswatter]

Yah the field care was fine. I didn't have to pack it off a mountain or anything, and I wish I had a way to let a deer hang in temperatures like that, but Texas usually doesn't allow it with our crazy weather. I will say hunting them for 4 days out in that desert really got my blood pumping. I have hunted a lot of whitetails all over our state, but this was just a different animal. I hope I get another opportunity at taking one next year.

 

[Eagle]

My wyoming mule deer buck has been excellent table fare. He was killed in mid September and had about a 3" layer of fat on his hindquarters. Amazing how fat they can get on natural browse. I deboned the meat before packing him out and had him in a cooler within 10 hours of killing him, didn't actually butcher/package the meat until 5 days later though.

 

[COlineman78]

I have had very gamey mule deer before, but I am convinced that it all comes down the meat care. If it is cleaned and hung immediately as well as processed in the proper way it can taste very good. Last year some hunting partners grilled up the backstrap right away and it tasted much like elk backstrap. If in hot temps you must find a butcher that will hang it in their cooler for a reasonable amount of time. The gamey muley that I have had was done improperly by a terrible processor who I believe went out of business a couple years later. The processor we use now always hangs your animal for a couple days in their cooler as well as deep freezes the meat (below 0) after it is packaged. Lots of sage where we hunt so I think that means that you must take extra care.

We are lucky enough now to have a walk-in freezer that was discarded by a restaurant that was revived with some repair and is now available for hanging game temporarily until we either butcher ourselves or take it to the processor.

 

[Bubblehide]

What I have found is that all the gameness is in the fat, sinew, and sheath. I literally remove each muscle from it's sheath. In doing so, I don't have any gamey flavor at all. Only thing is that the meat is so lean, I need to cook it wrapped in bacon, or use some other from of fat, otherwise it ends up on the dry side. I also never cook past medium rare.

 

[HuntHarder]

I think here in Az, it all depends on the deer's diet. I have taken many low desert muleys with a bow, some young, some older class, and every desert mule deer has had a "gamey" taste to them. Some more than others. I was then lucky enough to get a N. Kaibab tag, (8200-9000' elevation) and that deer had little to no game taste to it.

Robby- how, where do you age your meat for that long? Does it get moldy and you have to trim off some of the outside of it. I recently began looking into aging some of my game meat, and it seems to be a pretty involved process. I am curious as to how you do yours.

 

[Muledeerfanatic]

High country deer are some of the best meat around. I have had a few deer from lower elevation sage that were gamey. Also some rutted up bucks that were almost inedible.

 

[ckleeves]

I think it 100% depends on the individual deer. September above timberline deer are hands down my favorite game meat. Absolutely fantastic. A deer that's been in the sage and PJ country and close to or in the rut is a completely different piece of meat.

I have had timberline deer that took me quite awhile to pack out in pretty warm temps and they have still been awesome. On the other hand I have had November sage country bucks that were very carefully taken care of and aged in a walk in cooler and were so gamy they ended up as sausage.

 

[robby denning]

I agree with everything here so far. One other thing is that the gutless method protects the meat even more than standard gutting, so if you can go gutless, it helps.

I don't have a walk-in cooler either, so I have to work a little harder, but totally worth it when my anti-hunting mother in law who was married to a hunter for 30 years comes back to the grill for seconds on venison, and her husband admits he musta been doing it wrong all those years (he was.)

HuntHarder, on your questions:

Because I kill most of my bucks in the backcountry or a far walk from the truck, I almost always have to quarter them. I get those quarters cooled and on ice ASAP. Once home, I wrap them in scentless trash bags tightly and put them in the freezer (easy to get a quartered buck in most freezers). By the time December hits, my average temp in the garage is in that 33-40 range most days, so I pull the meat out and hang it then. Freezing it once or twice has virtually no impact on quality, so don't sweat that or if they're in the freezer from August to December.

I insert a butchers thermometer deep into one of the rear quarters and have an old sleeping bag on hand. I also have a thermometer on the wall of the garage to monitor air temperature and check the daily forecast.

If that butchers thermometer gets close to 40, AND it's still early in the day, I wrap that sleeping bag around the deer. I manage air temp by opening/closing windows in the garage and on one warm December stretch, I even put a fan in the window to pull in the nighttime temps which still drop below freezing even in warm spells. In below zero weather, that internal temp drops below freezing and the aging process stops, so I deduct those days from my aging total. Most of the 21-28 days, I don't have to do much at all.

Yes, it grows a lot of mold, and yes, you have to trim the outer layer off. That is why it's best to do them whole as less surface area is exposed so you lose less meat. I'd rather have 40 pounds of excellent table fare than 60 of crap that the wife and kids won't touch (which if guys are honest, all gets wasted to freezer burn or the dog.)

I've used this technique on bucks as old as 9 and one very rutted up 8 year old buck from last year killed in November and this years buck killed November 27 and all have eaten well. I'm not concerned much with how old or how rutty they are, as aging really improves the quality.

Because I'm an outfitter and take a lot of game to our local processor, I've also had him age on big buck whole for me in 2012 for free and I did "net" more meat. Not always possible to get them out whole though.

Aging isn't for everyone but there's a reason virtually every world class cook demands aged beef- for flavor and tenderness. "Fresh meat" isn't what you want.

Now there will be someone who posts on here "grandpa did this, and I do that, or I don't think aging works, blah blah," but once I started aging meat about 10 years ago the right way, I've converted many people to game who hated it before, so I know it works. I'm convinced. If aging didn't work for them, they just screwed up the process somewhere along the way.

A good resource is Chef John McGannon's website, wildeats.com. He's big on aging and who I learned much of this technique from.

 

[HuntHarder]

Man! Thanks for the info, I am going to have to try that. If nothing else, I will atleast try it on a quarter just to make sure I do not mess up a whole animal my first time. Here in Az, I might have some problems keeping the temperature that cold for that long of a time period. Do you think If I just purchased another fridge, I should be able to get the same results? I am going to check out John's website, and I appreciate the info.

 

[elkguide]

Good thoughts on aging RD.

As a kid growing up, my neighbor seemed to always have a deer hanging in his shop and after helping him with some project, he would say let's have some venison and he would proceed to cut the "green stuff" off and then slice off a couple of chunks to go in the house and fry up. Man was that good stuff.

 

[BruinPoint]

Trimming off all the fat has made a huge difference for us. The other thing I learned about late season deer is not to touch the hair then touch the meat with either the knife or your hands because the gland secretions will carry over.

 

[5MilesBack]

On the other hand I have had November sage country bucks that were very carefully taken care of and aged in a walk in cooler and were so gamy they ended up as sausage.

The best tasting deer I ever shot was a big 4x4 the first week of Nov, in the sage brush, near Glenwood Springs, and no aging. That one really surprised me.

 

[MuleyFever]

I have never eaten a deer, elk, or antelope that I thought was bad. I was raised on deer so maybe I just am accustomed to the taste. Taste is something we will all experience differently though so maybe I just like the game flavor more than others.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Everyone has their thing. I don't have the ability to age stuff but have had good luck to date just by focusing on meat care. Get the hide off, get it cool, keep it clean, seam out the garbage when butchering.

I process my own stuff and wouldn't say I'm "fast" by any means but I take my time and remove fat/silverskin/etc. and it pays off in my opinion. To date I haven't had anyone turn up a nose at the meat (lots of compliments actually) I've served (elk, mulie, antelope) and that includes folks that were leery about venison (usually folks that have previously been served venison from midwest whitetail that were hung for a week hide on in varying temps).

I certainly wouldn't mind aging stuff if I have the ability to do it right in the future and I'm sure it would be "great" but I seem to produce a "good" product as is that completely replaces beef usage in my home (IE myself/wife/guests all eat it, my young kids seem to just eat chicken nuggets and hot dogs... )

 

[dotman]

I do a 7 day ice bath. 6 days submerged in ice water and on the 7th I do a salt water brine. Meat always tastes very good. You have to drain and replace daily.

 

[5MilesBack]

I do a 7 day ice bath. 6 days submerged in ice water and on the 7th I do a salt water brine. Meat always tastes very good. You have to drain and replace daily.

Uhhhhh.......doesn't that remove every drop of blood from the meat?