What do you do with your venison?

[Newmanj40]

My first deer I make all ground then after that trail and jerky

 

[jbwright]

Wondering what folks do with their venison. I grind most into sausage except the rear loins, back straps, and tenderloins. Cold smoke for 10 days and air dry for 4-6 weeks. I've heard from friends is the best meat they've ever had. Anyone else doing anything similar? Id like to dehydrate some into Jerky, got the jerky gun and dehydrator but have never done it, anyone have any good recipes for dehydrated venison jerky?

Thanks and happy holidays

Mostly ground for chili, soup, burgers. I like keeping the back straps & tenderloins whole-that way I can do what I want with them. I used to get them cubed, but frying them, though incredibly tasty, takes considerably longer than the slow cooker for soups, or even grilling the tenderloins.

 

[Nfowler2]

Snack sticks, summer sausage, and whole cuts for the smoker. Learning about processing and smoking your own meat, has been not only enjoyable, but informative. Holler if I can be of help

 

[Bladeclctr]

BackStraps and tenderloins get Grilled. Front Shoulders and Neck meat soups/chili; hindquarters are usually jerky or stew meat.

 

[drxron]

Grandpas jerky recipe that we all use in my family is one bottle of Dales Steak Seasoning/marinade (stuffs amazing) and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, marinade it for about 2-8 hours, but not too long. Then put it on a dehydrator at 160 for 8 hours. If you wanna make it spicier or add some more flavor, once you lay the strips on the dehydrator you can kind of sprinkle on a dry seasoning, we use "Slap Ya Mama" cajun seasoning. Slice the meat thin obviously, with or against the grain is personal preference, whether you like a good tear and chew.

 

[Sherlock]

Cut the best steaks. Keep a couple whole shoulders for the roaster. Grind burger & make bulk sausage. If I have a bunch of trim left I can in quart jars. Yum

 

[SoDaky]

Nowadays all is ground,mixed with 50% range beef and packaged in 1.5 or 2 lb packages.Chili,hamburgers,tacos,salads,hot dishes-assorted uses.

 

[RazAlGhoul]

Sausage Sausage
Sausage Sausage
Sausage Sausage

 

[Hunt41]

Back straps and tenderloins are cleaned up and kept whole. Some steak meat cubed for stir-fry or stroganoff. The rest is hot Italian sausage and ground meat.

 

[dustyblake12]

Hi Mountain makes some good jerky seasoning mix. You can use an original recipe as a base and add to it, or just use their different flavors.


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[MtnOyster]

Deer Burger with bacon fat mixed in, usually 2 whole deer
jalapeño/cheese summer sausage 1 whole deer
Deer tenderloin, roasts and steaks
A butt ton of deer jerky
Usually 4 deer a year

 

[mgraz3417]

Grill the steaks and tenderloins. I've smoked the shoulders on my whitetail and always enjoyed it. I use the tougher cuts for sausage.

 

[HunterMN]

I have some thin sliced venison jerky in the dehydrator right now.

 

[N2TRKYS]

I grilled some backstraps stuffed with smoked sausage and wrapped with bacon last night with long grain and wild rice. It's my favorite meal.

 

[Titan_Bow]

I butcher my own elk and deer, and really just stick to I guess what you'd call "primal cuts". I break things down by really just separating the individual muscles. After getting all the silver skin and fat off of those whole muscles, they just get packaged and frozen, as you dont really need to do much more with them. The only steaks I really do are out of the backstrap. We do alot of jerky, but man it goes fast, I almost hate to do too much of it. Last couple of years, I have been doing a jerky with Korean gochujang sauce that everyone thats tried it has loved.
I will usually grind the front shoulders, but occasionally, I'll just separate the shoulder into 3 pieces, as 3 bone-in roasts. Backstrap and tenderloins always go on the grill, or a hot cast iron, to the rare side of medium rare.


A few of my families favorites have been these:

Grilled heart wrapped in bacon. Depending on where I'm hunting, my son and I rarely get home before this is already devoured on a campfire!



Slow cooked shanks. I know, I know, all the meateater hipsters ever talk about. However, I've been doing these way before it was the hip cut of meat! Oso Buco (thick part of shanks cut into cross-sections) has been in our recipe bag for years. For deer and antelope, I like keeping the shanks whole, and just zipping the bottom and top of the bones off with a saws-all so the marrow has a chance to come out. Ive done many different variations on this, but if you cook them low and slow in a crock pot or in the oven for 6 or more hours, its going to be delicious regardless of what you do.



Another often neglected cut, that gets alot of love in my house, is the neck. Cooked long and low in a stew of red wine, vegetables, homemade stock, etc cooked pretty much all day, until its just fall apart tender, is pretty hard to beat. Ive had neck from big bucks in the middle of the rut, to little yearling does, and its always been good when done this way. In the field, I just butterfly off each side of the neck and roll it up and truss with butcher twine to get an even "package" to cook. For elk or a really big buck, you can get 2 pieces off each side of the neck like this.


All in all, my freezer is basically organized into 3 sections - Steaks/backstrap&tenderloins, then Roasts and primal muscles, then grind. I also save bones for making stock.

I love doing unique and different things with game meat as well. I'm doing up some pemmican right now from this years elk. I've done pate from liver a few times. (turned out really good but wife and kids didn't like it) Tongue for tacos is always a hit as well!


Get a couple cookbooks, Julia Childs and Cooks Illustrated or probably the most useful in general terms of classic recipes you can build on or experiment with. Cooking with wild game for me is really one of the biggest enjoyment factors I get from the whole experience.

 

[Werner]

I keep most of mine in muscle groups and decide use of cut pending on what I feel like making. I make a lot of sausage, bologna and smoked sticks so don't end up with much ground.

 

[ghunter3]

Baloney. Just made 110 lbs of it yesterday

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[LNF150]

I process my own deer. Inside loins come out first and wrapped or grilled but the rest of the carcass is left to hang for a week or two, (if the temperatures are cold enough). When I'm ready to process the rest of the deer; backstraps come off first, cut up 4 thick steaks/package. The rest of the deer; I separate out and wrap up individually by their muscle groups. All of these get wrapped one by one in 2-3 pieces of cling wrap then 2 pieces of freezer paper and marked for each cut.

I do jerky and burger throughout the year on an 'as needed' basis. For burger I use a cuisinart food processor by taking a half frozen whole cut, a little olive oil for the 'fat' part, then any seasonings I want to add. For me personally it's just easier to go this route of 1 or 2lbs of burger at a time.

If I'm in the mood for steaks, pot roast, green chili stew, kabobs, or whatever; I'll find the bigger cut in the freezer, break it down when it's half frozen to what I need and use that.

 

[Snyde]

Eat it. In a variety of ways.

 

[Clearedhot1]

Following


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