Mule Deer Meat Flavor

[Bubblehide]

Hey, that makes sense. Maybe that is why high-country bucks taste good- less sage and woody browse up high?

I'd bet all I could, that what an animal eats effects how it tastes. But with that said, I hunt two very different areas here in California every single year. I have yet to be able to taste a difference in the two different subspecies of Mule deer, despite them have very different environments and subsequently food sources. However, I do notice that the high country bucks are more tender. I can tell the difference when butchering and eating. The high country bucks are much easier to separate muscles and remove sheath; I can do a lot of it by hand, where as the bucks I harvest in the 4 to 6 thousand foot level require that I do more knife work. So I venture a guess that what they are eating also effects how tender they are.

Yep, those high country bucks are generally eating much more forbs and grasses than buck brush and such.

 

[Mtaylor]

I agree with everything that has been said, aging, food sources, temperature, care for the meat and the way it is cooked all effects taste. I am lucky to hunt corn fed mulies where I live but I go through a lot of work cleaning and preparing the meat so my family will eat it. One thing I have noticed is lemon juice and vinegar help take out the gamy taste (my favorite marinade is garlic and herb from Walmart) as does salt water(which was previously mentioned). I have never aged deer but I am going to try it! Thanks for the info guys.

 

[T43]

To the OP there is a lot of good info on how to process, age, care for etc. in here. Some good info for next time. As for the gamey critter you have now there are still some very good options that may help change the taste to something mouth watering.

For starters as mentioned before the majority of gamey flavor comes from blood, fat and connective tissues. If you processed the deer leaving large muscle groups to be cut into steaks, cubes etc. just before final prep it is fairly easy to remove the remaining silver skin, fat, tendons and any off color muscle. If you have everything processed into final cuts already this may be tougher as there may not be as much to work with or worse as much left when you trim all the offending stuff off. Just do the best you can. An option may be cutting steaks into cubes for kabobs or stews after trimming and cutting roasts into steaks after trimming.

If everything is well trimmed and there is still a lot of gamey flavor it's in the blood. There are some very easy and very tasty ways to fix this. You need to displace / dilute the blood with some other liquid. The Coke trick mentioned before works but there are lots of others. A simple soak in salt water over night should give you an idea of how much work you need to do to displace or even cover up some of the gamey taste. If a simple salt water soak makes it more palatable that may be all you want to do. A soak overnight covered in milk is probably the next step to remove gameness. The enzymes in the milk help reduce the gamey flavor but milk doesn't add much if any flavor. If neither of those provides enough improvement then it's time to add flavor while removing blood. A day or two in a good marinade will make just about anything palatable. One of my favorites is soaking cubes in a 50-50 mix of Worcestershire and teriyaki for a day or two to use as kabobs. If the chunks are about an inch or less square on a medium grill the meet should be a perfect mid rare when the edges of the veggies on the same skewer start to blacken just a touch. Other marinade options are Italian dressing or barbeque sauces. Just remember thick marinades will need to be thinned out with vinegar or water etc. To better penetrate the meat and displace the blood.

Another option is charcuterie. I like corned venison far better than corned beef and there isn't much gamey flavoring that can withstand a six week soak in a good brine in the fridge. That also holds true for dry cureing, and most sausage making.

Odds are that buck of yours can be some of the best you've ever eaten, you just need to help it out.

 

[rockwind1]

it seems to me that, from my limited experience, that a few times i have shot a mule deer when they were totally "relaxed" and the shot killed them instantly, i have always thought that deer tasted better than one in which they were shot, ran for a ways and then died. i sorta figured it had something to do with that extra blood pumping thru the body, or maybe the "hormones, proteins, adrenaline" that was being sent to the muscles after having been spooked or shot.

has anyone had experience with a change in flavor associated with how quick the kill was? out west here, i would think that it is hard to figure out what really makes a difference because each deer is usually taken in a different place, different time of year usually. it is hard to correlate factors when so many things change each time.

 

[rockwind1]

how long has anyone aged deer meat in a cooler sitting in ice and water? i tried to let it sit for a few days the last couple years, am thinking of trying longer but a little worried. maybe aging the meat is a big waste of time if all you have to do is soak it in salt water?

 

[robby denning]

soaked meat in salt water for years, did not get the good results that dry aging provided. I posted my method earlier in the thread.