Thread: Deer Processing

Originally Posted by stickum

Crappie Buster has some good advice. I have been processing our meat for the past 20 years and basically do it the same way that Crappie Buster said and the Jerky Gun is the best thing since sliced bread..LOL... Just remember not to put any fat in your jerky meat. We use pork fat in our burger too, it seems to taste a little better to me than the beef fat. The jalepeno and cheese sausage is some kind of good...we even mix a little bacon in ours and it is "slap yo momma" good!!!
I have been making my jerky and seasoning it using just Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and it turned out really good for us. Have a good one!!

When you season your jerky with the Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning what do you use for cure? All the seasonings we use for jerky come with a cure to mix in while grinding. We use a dehydrator to make our jerky, not an oven though so I guess we're not technically cooking the meat.

I love Tony's on just about anything and I would think it'd make some jam up jerky too!

I've always done all the boning out of the meat and then carried to a cannery to finish the meat. It's school funded and operated and very cheap. You do the work on their equipment and pay like $.15 a lb to cube or grind then another $.15 per lb to wrap. Or you fill the cans with meat and they'll seal and cook for ya for $.50 a can (quarts).

When you use a dehydrator you are cooking the meat. You need to make sure you get it to at least 165 deg F to kill any pathogens lurking there. This is most important when using ground meat for jerky since it's more likely to have bacteria in the center as compared to whole muscle meat. When I dry jerky I dry it almost done in the dehydrator, then put it in the oven at 210 deg F for 15 minutes to make sure I get it hot enough. I share a lot with friends and my sons take it to school to share with their friends and I sure don't want to be responsible for making anyone sick.

As far as curing while using your own seasoning mix, you can buy packets of cure alone, without prepackaged seasoning.

I have never taken a deer to a processor. Maybe I have a different view on this than some people, but I feel like if you are going to take the time to hunt an animal and take it's life, the least you can do is be the one that cleans it. I think this gives one a greater appreciation of the sport as a whole. There is more to hunting than climbing up in a box stand one morning, shooting a deer, throwing it in the truck, and dropping it off at a processor for someone else to deal with.

I do the straps, catfish, and hind quarters, but I take the front quarters to the Mininites (ms?) just for their ring bologna, it's incredible, and I can't duplicate it.

Originally Posted by hardydk1

I have never taken a deer to a processor. Maybe I have a different view on this than some people, but I feel like if you are going to take the time to hunt an animal and take it's life, the least you can do is be the one that cleans it. I think this gives one a greater appreciation of the sport as a whole. There is more to hunting than climbing up in a box stand one morning, shooting a deer, throwing it in the truck, and dropping it off at a processor for someone else to deal with.

I agree with you, but I do understand that some people don't have the equipment nor the space to process deer on their own. If one does have the means and/or resources then I think they should do the deed themselves.