# Which parts of deer are the best to keep?



## wahoowad (Sep 9, 2008)

I'm going to harvest some deer that have been damaging my garden and landscaping. I have a permit to take as many as I want, when I want. I will be taking them to a local deer processor who will professionally butcher, vacuum pack, label and freeze all the different cuts. I've never had a whole deer butchered - only eaten a few pieces given to me over the years. 

Which cuts are considered the best for cooking? It is not my style to do a lot of preparation so I will want to keep cuts that can be prepared with some basic recipes like roasts and such. I'll also give some away.


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## myzamboni (Sep 9, 2008)

look into making venison jerky (that's all the more I can add to this topic).


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## JustWood (Sep 9, 2008)

wahoowad said:
			
		

> I'm going to harvest some deer that have been damaging my garden and landscaping. I have a permit to take as many as I want, when I want. I will be taking them to a local deer processor who will professionally butcher, vacuum pack, label and freeze all the different cuts. I've never had a whole deer butchered - only eaten a few pieces given to me over the years.
> 
> Which cuts are considered the best for cooking? It is not my style to do a lot of preparation so I will want to keep cuts that can be prepared with some basic recipes like roasts and such. I'll also give some away.



Get a meat grinder for $100 and some sausage recipes.Bone the deer out yourself. Mix in some fatty hamburg or beef trimmings from a butcher shop at 50/50. You won't be able to tell the difference from store bought.  Around here processors get $3.50+/lb to process deer. No way I'll pay that!


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## Bad Wolf (Sep 9, 2008)

The back strap is always my favourite.  That’s the two pieces on either side of the spine.  On a cow that would be filet minion.  
Have him cut some steaks, some checks for stew and chili and the rest burger and sausage.
Learn to do it your self if you can, you'll go broke otherwise. I usally take 3-4 /yr and thats money I could use for somethng else (like firewood!)
My first deer I cut up with a "how to" book in one hand and a knife in the other. 

Greg H


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 9, 2008)

#1-tenderloins
#2- backstraps

You can make everything into chili- little cubes, browned well- chili will tenderize even the worst cuts.


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## Hogwildz (Sep 9, 2008)

Ditto the others, back straps are great steaks, I personally like lots of jerky & bologna & sausage out of the rest.


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## Backroads (Sep 9, 2008)

I cut out the tenderloins immediately after I've got my deer hung and clean.  Nothing better IMHO.  I hear people paying upwards of $110/deer to process, I guess I'm luck because we process our own and last year I harvested 5.  No way would I pay that much myself, for those prices it mind as well be angus.


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## jebatty (Sep 9, 2008)

All of the deer meat is good -- waste of a wild animal is the 8th deadly sin. 

You do want to be sure to remove every bit of tallow/fat you possibly can, as that is what can give deer meat a strong flavor. Also, a clean kill (heart, lung, neck or head), no wounding, no chasing. Do not take a gut shot, stomach, intestine or rectum stuff spilled inside the carcass is bad stuff. I've never had to shoot a deer twice, never wounded a deer, never lost a deer.

Then immediate skinning and chilling to prevent spoilage, followed quickly by butchering and freezing (some will dispute this, ignore them). Some say to hang or age for days or longer to improve flavor or tenderness. This is a myth unless temperature controlled, as hanging/aging really is controlled spoilage. I never hang/age. Good to bone out most everything, and be sure to get the hair strands, leaves and grass out of the meat. Need a sharp knife and a bone saw is useful.

As others, for a true delicacy the tenderloins (inside back bone, rear half of carcass) and the backstrap loins (outside back bone, neck to tail) can't be beat as wonderful steaks or anything else.

We keep just a couple of roasts from the rounds, also the front shoulder blade roasts (very tasty). The front legs (shanks) below the knee (leave the bone in) make very good soup bones with just enough meat for a very tasty venison and vegetable soup.

Everything else we freeze immediately and when convenient bring to the local butcher shop to have made into hamburger, which they grind and add 1 lb beef tallow for 10 pounds of venison at $0.75/lb (last fall price for grinding, tallow, packaging and freezing). Tastes as good or better thank hamburger from beef ground round. Sausages, jerky, etc. all are OK, but unless you make these yourself, they are pricey when made by the butcher shop.

Don't leave the flanks, neck or rib cage out of the butchering. Just strip the meat out from the tallow. Very good for the hamburger, sausage, stews, etc. Flanks when cut into strips make very good stir fry meat.

Donate the hide to a local habitat or deer hunter group which collects hides; or if you have several, bring to an area tanning/leather shop to have made into a jacket, gloves, etc. If you live in a rural area nail the leftover carcass to a tree and feed the birds, squirrels, and anything else. I'm not one for organ meat, but the heart, liver also are OK. Entrails I leave in the woods for the coyotes, wolves, and other scavengers to clean up. They normally disappear in a few days.

Venison is exceptional and healthy meat. If you have bad venison, it's because it's spoiled meat, tallow wasn't stripped out, hair or debris left in meat, or taken from a wounded and chased or gut shot deer (meat full of bad stuff).

Enjoy! My wife wouldn't eat venison until I butchered myself. Now we no longer eat beef, only venison.


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## webbie (Sep 9, 2008)

wahoowad said:
			
		

> I'm going to harvest some deer that have been damaging my garden



"Harvest"?
You mean shoot. kill, vamoose, goner, dead, flat on back, no longer here.......
Me and the boys are going down for a gang fight tonight, and I'm gonna harvest the opposition. In fact, I'm headed over the Afghanistan to do some harvesting of Taliban. 

First I'm headed to the ATM to harvest some green. 

I'm gonna tell all their bambi friends about your lawn and garden.........and they'll be back.
 

(pay no attention to this post -"to harvest deer" is a proper use of the verb)


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## JustWood (Sep 9, 2008)

Ohhh boy .  Here we go .


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## MainePellethead (Sep 9, 2008)

Webmaster said:
			
		

> wahoowad said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



in my neck of the woods.....its  "bagging" a deer  lol  or just plain "Git R Dun"


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 9, 2008)

When I took my last deer I made sure to tell people that I murdered her.


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## webbie (Sep 9, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> When I took my last deer I made sure to tell people that I murdered her.



"Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with malice aforethought"

It ain't human..........

I'm just being funny...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I'll go back to eating my tofu.


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 9, 2008)

I know it, but the term "murder" was more offensive so I used it  

Also when asked "how can you kill those innocent creatures?"  I respond with " I only kill the guilty ones".


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## d.n.f. (Sep 9, 2008)

So does this make you a serial deer harvester or something?

I am planning on using my bow on one of the 16 that were in my front yard the other morning.
Never shot one before and am hesitant on the 'what do you do after you find it lying dead' step.


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 9, 2008)

Field dressing: http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/deer_field-dressing.pdf

You can find videos of it on youtube as well.  I field dressed and butchered the first deer I got by myself and it was really no big deal as long as you know how to sharpen a knife, you aren't squeamish, and you don't mind not knowing what most of the cuts of meat are called.  I had some labeled things like "left butt cheek".  I just mostly took out whole muscles.  remember the tenderlois are INSIDE the rib cage near the backbone and are absolutely the best meat on the critter.  My wife was hesitant on deer until I made some up for her- her eyes lit up "when are you going to FILL that freezer?"  LOL


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## Hogwildz (Sep 9, 2008)

Helped my neighbor make about 200 lbs of kielbasa last year. Made some with jalapeno peppers dices and mixed in, other with cheddar cheese chunks mixed in.
I think the mix was about 40% pork to 60% venison. Was good, but just a tad too dry for me. Being polish and living in  a area that has a big kielbasa festival every year, I have become very particular.
Hillshire farms??? Gag, I like the real stuff.


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## d.n.f. (Sep 9, 2008)

Wow this internet stuff is amazing, I thought it was just a fad.
Thanks for that link.
Seriously, never even considered looking for a you tube vid on the subject.  Will search for it.

I have taken a number of animals down to bones (Himalyan goat, lizard, sheep) back in my U days.  But I was trying to get the bones, not the meat.

Just hear stories about make sure you don't do this, and that.  Would be nice to have someone do it while I watched kinda thing but that ain't going to happen.


cheers


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## burntime (Sep 9, 2008)

What parts are best...the eatin ones  We use a few knives and a sawsall.  Do all our own butchering.  The backstraps and tenderloins are the best but there is nothing wrong with a good roast  We get as much of the fat off as possible because that is where the gamie taste comes from, the rest goes in the grinder and freezer vacuum packed.  Sometimes they were running arround 5 hours earlier...now that is kinda morbid.  My 3 year old sees deer and says yummy, boy am I proud of that little guy!  We may actually start to do some reading so we know how to cut the steaks one day!


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## burntime (Sep 9, 2008)

Forgot to add, some of you may find this amusing...we go to Kentucky to deer hunt as well as Wisconsin, we say that it is Kentucky or Wisconsin beef, and if someone asks what we mean we tell them it is eather 44 tender (44 mag pistol) or 6.8 tender (6.8spc ar-15).  You can insert the caliber of your choice!


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## wahoowad (Sep 9, 2008)

OK, thanks!

tenderloin
backstrap
front shoulders for roasts

What about rear leg quarters? I think I roasted one of those and it came out OK.

Deer processing is $60 here. I see them in my yard early in the morning before work, or late in the day. Either way I'm lazy and would prefer to shoot with my crossbow, throw in truck and pay someone $60 to do all the work.


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## burntime (Sep 9, 2008)

You are thinking of 1, we have 5 in our hunting party and can bag 2 each...volume is bigger!


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 9, 2008)

Eat it all.  Any tougher cuts- have made into sausage or jerky, burgers, or save for chili and stew.

And of course there's hats of meat

I know this is pest control, but don't waste it if you can avoid it!  If I lived closer I'd say "give me the rest"


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## Jags (Sep 9, 2008)

Oh yeah, the hats of meats.

The last 2 that I butchered (other than straps and loins) was turned into jerky if whole muscle or burger.   MMmmm venison sketti.  I was doing 60 pound batches of venison jerky at a time.  Man does that go through a deer in a hurry.


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## ScottF (Sep 9, 2008)

> Which parts of deer are the best to keep?



Id say the feet,  you can nail them to a board and turn them pointing up at a 90 degree angle and they make a great coat or hat hook.  Looks great in a cabin.  

Actually the meat is excellent also .  Very tasty.    

NOTE:  I am a member of P E T A

 People who like to Eat Tasty Animals


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## Highbeam (Sep 9, 2008)

I agree that the only good eating parts that you should eat plain are the tenderloins which are inside the gut cavity up against the spine just on the butt side of the rib cage and the back straps, aka new york steak or loins, which are on the top of the deer under the fur on either side of the spine. The tenderloins and the backstraps are the two lobes of the traditional T-bone steak, aka porterhouse. 

The toughest part of the whole gutting operation is making that first cut into the belly. Before that first cut, the animal might as well be a dog or pet, after the first cut then you put on your surgeon hat and it becomes very clean and methodical with no mistaking the goal. 

After removing the good steak meat, the rest of the meat should be stripped and thrown into a cooler. This is a traditional beer drinking activity and done in the barn while the animal is hanging by its feet. The full cooler is then weighed and the weight is used to buy the proper amount of pork fat from the local butcher shop. Then grind it in with the meat and freeze. We are still eating the ground meat from last year's deer. 

Daughters have been known to make snowmen out of other deer parts.


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## ScottF (Sep 9, 2008)

Cute kids.  And see there is another use for the feet.  Great idea


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## sinnian (Sep 10, 2008)

lol - make sure before you make that "first cut" in the belly, to first "poke" (just take you knife blade and 'stab') the belly.  Then wait........................  That will release the gases inside.  If you don't, I doubt you will get much further when you realize you didn't  :sick:


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## Tfin (Sep 10, 2008)

Just be sure to not paunch the stomach lining or intestines.  Other wise you could end up spoiling some of the meat.

I'll echo the backstraps/tender loins as the "best cut".  But definatley use it all.  I have my steaks packaged for two, roasts out of the neck and the remaining 75% gets made into sausage (the frickin' best!) and the other 25% goes to regular old burger.

I make my own jerkey out of the sausage and burger.  Man now I'm hungry.


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## Highbeam (Sep 10, 2008)

Okay, now I hope someone will speak up if this is too much detail but I have never found the area below the diaphragm to be containing any gas. I know that I do not want to cut an intestine with by first belly opener. So..... what I do is grab onto a particular little piece of skin that sort of protrudes from the buck's belly and pull it away from the belly. This pulled out piece of skin is where I enter the belly with the knife. Once I am into the belly, I can keep the intestines off of the knife while I remove all the skin between the rib cage and the pelvis. Then of course pop through the diaphragm and get to the other organs.  

Don't forget to be careful around that bladder. It'll make a mess too.


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## Tfin (Sep 10, 2008)

Highbeam said:
			
		

> Okay, now I hope someone will speak up if this is too much detail but I have never found the area below the diaphragm to be containing any gas. I know that I do not want to cut an intestine with by first belly opener. So..... what I do is grab onto a particular little piece of skin that sort of protrudes from the buck's belly and pull it away from the belly. This pulled out piece of skin is where I enter the belly with the knife. Once I am into the belly, I can keep the intestines off of the knife while I remove all the skin between the rib cage and the pelvis. Then of course pop through the diaphragm and get to the other organs.
> 
> Don't forget to be careful around that bladder. It'll make a mess too.



Same way I do it Highbeam.


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## Adios Pantalones (Sep 10, 2008)

yup highbeam- entry hole, then keep the sharpened side up.


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## Highbeam (Sep 10, 2008)

The first time I did it, the "instructor" told me to "grab his willy and pull on it" I thought for sure that he was messing with me but it worked very well. Now we can also talk about methods of removing the dookey hole when you can't cut the pelvis with your knife. You don't want to spill dookey either. Then there's that esophagus you need to reach up and cut.

All of this sounds gross and nasty and like some sort of texas chainsaw massacre but I have found that it is very clean and pretty blood free. A mechanical task with plenty of room to move around and see all the parts. The TV shows that show people being operated on make it look very complicated, dense, and messy inside a body but really it is the opposite.


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## the_dude (Sep 10, 2008)

I need to add some comments:

1.  Never would I stab the stomach or cavity with my knife to release gases.  That is not good advice unless you want digested food spoiling your meat.

2.  If you want roasts or steaks, you are better off taking them from the rounds of the hind quarters.  The hinds can be easily separated into the separate muscles.  Each musle than can be cut into steaks, roasts, stew meat, etc.  Use the front shoulders for 'trim' - which is ground to burger or sausage.

3.  I do not condone anyone, not matter how experienced of a marksman they are, to take head or neck shots on deer.  It is true, if you connect, you are likely to drop a deer in its tracks.  However, I harvested a deer with a slug hole in its neck that I didn't put there.  I have also seen deer come through the woods with there bottom jaw blown off from botched head shots.  The most ethical shot is to aim for the largest kill zone on the deer, commenly called the boiler room.  Located just behind the front shoulder is a large area in which you will hit either lungs or heart.

4.  To the above point, I disagree that field dressing a deer is not very bloody.  If you hit where you aim (which should be the heart/lungs), the cavity above the diaphram is quite bloody.  It still is not gross, but there is certainly a lot of blood if the lungs are hit.

5.  Finally, the "dookey hole."  I find the best way is to first cut away the hide all the way around the hole.  If it is a doe, make sure you go all the way around both openings.  I then start through the tissue with a knife.  I will then reach one hand from inside the deer, and work the other from the outside.  I work my fingers all the way around the colon, as this area tears and frees easily without the use of a knife.  It sounds gross and time consuming, but it really takes no time at all.  When the colon is completely free, I pull it out the cavity with the rest of the intestines.  Again, sounds gross, but I can field dress a deer from soup to nuts (no pun intended) in about 5 minutes.


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## Sparky58 (Sep 10, 2008)

My all time favorite is the chops then a shoulder roast. Using the back strap, which i take when I hang, I find it helps to partially freeze it then slice paper thin and pan fry w/ sweet onions.
Don't forget the heart that makes a great pasta ragu. That may be frowned upon organ meat and all.

We always added pork  to venison sausage and suet to a roast. 
As I'm getting older I'm becoming lazier. I let the young bucks in our hunting parties have most of the meat.  I'll take my 2 during bow season that about it.. I'll go out a lot, if I see a spiker I'll take him. I'm too old to be dragging out a 160 lbs!
My kids are all grown up and moved out, so there's no reason to escape anymore  j/k

I have to say the "serial deer harvester" comment was classic.

BTW, this is my first post so Hi everybody!
S


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## Highbeam (Sep 10, 2008)

Hi Sparky, 

You'll notice that I too don't mind taking a spike. The meat is tender and not as gamey on these younger animals. Same deal with cattle, you want a young steer and not some old tough guy.


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## rhetoric (Sep 28, 2008)

If you take your venison, marinade it in a bit of lemon juice and italian dressing, and then don't really grill it but just kind of walk it by a hot grill, you'll never cut any of the venison into anything other than steaks.  Back straps, and hindquarters are all cut into steaks around here.  We grill the tenderloins as if they were steaks too, but in any case, it's got to be nice and rare.   Of course, most of the deer here in western NY is corn fed but it tastes like prime rib. The biggest problem w/ venison is cooking it too long.  Well, maybe after caring for it poorly (tainted w/ gut shots, not getting enough fat cut away, etc.).  And the pieces that are too small?  Buck and Bourbon Stew from the LLBean cook book.  Mind numbingly good.


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