Processing venison/equipment needed/cleanliness?

[BLACKJACK]

Thought this would be a good time to ask this since a lot of people have recently butchered deer. Looking for some tips on butchering a deer, not the nut and bolts of skinning and cutting up, lots of info and video out there on that, looking for info on what you use for cutting boards, buckets, tubs, etc. AND HOW YOU KEEP EVERYTHING CLEAN.

I have a heated shop and have butchered a couple deer in the past but it seems like I spend a lot of time cleaning up and scrubbing the work bench, cutting boards, buckets, etc. before and after the process, carrying soapy water from the kitchen – it gets to be so much work and hassle that the majority of the time I just take it to the local butcher shop. But as I get closer to retirement I can foresee having more time, would like to step up to the sausage making and smoking.

Any hints and tips would be appreciated. I did read thru Dark Clouds post on How to process your own venison, lots of good information there.

Two specific questions:

1) Do you wrap in white paper or vacuum pack?

2) Midway thru the process, if you need to clean your hands to sharpen knives etc, do you just use a bucket of soapy water and a towel or what??

Thanks for the info.

[nofishfisherman]

1. I wrap most stuff in double layer of freezer paper. Always seems to work well. I also buy a lot of larger packs of chicken, steaks, chops, etc and divide them up and wrap the smaller portions in a double layer of freezer paper. They seem to stay good for longer than it takes me to eat them, 6 months at least probably longer. Vacuum sealing will give you a longer shelf life but not sure how much.

2. When I'm working on a deer I keep my kitchen steel handy and I just give the blade a quick wipe down, run it across the steel to sharpen it and then wipe the blade back down again before going back to cutting.

As for keeping things clean. I usually set up in a garage (either my place or friends place). We cover the floor with plastic and work surfaces with newspaper and then put cutting boards on top of that. Ideally you'd like to have dedicated cutting boards for raw meat. Whether these are dedicated to deer butchering only or any meat you might work with.

For bowls i like to use metal of glass because they clean up better. I just use bowls from the kitchen.

Once everything is done the knives, bowls, cutting boards, etc are all gathered and wiped down and then brought into the kitchen for a good cleaning.

Then the newspaper from the work surfaces is thrown on the ground and everything gets wrapped up in the plastic sheets that were on the floor and bagged up and thrown away. Then we'll go over the work surfaces with warm soapy water and hose out the garage if any blood good through or around the plastic on the floor.

Cleaning up is always the worst part.

[Alagnak]

Rubber maid meat tubs- buy a 3 pack or two 3 packs. Get lids for a couple of them for after you mix your spices/meats. They stack nice, are the right size for 25# batches, and clean up easily, pretty cheap, and will last you forever. I'll get into this more in a second but if you had too you can set up two of them next to eachother as a hot water wash sink and a rinse sink if you don't have those options out in your shop.

Hot water- putting a utility tub w/ hot water in my shop helped out a lot on what you're talking about. Before that I would keep a big pot of water on the wood stove in there and that was fine too but it's nice to wash the big meat tubs and other large items out in the shop and not inside- some don't even fit in the dishwasher anyway. If you have a water source but no hot water those little on-demand hot water heaters are reasonable.

Rubber gloves- I always have blue 'milkhouse' gloves on hand. I put one over my kevlar mesh butcher glove/meat hook hand and when it gets nicked up or I am taking a break I just peel it off and toss it- so I have pretty clean hands 99% time without washing up every time you take a break.

Food prep surfaces- I have narrowed most all surfaces to stainless steel and poly butcher board surfaces (manageable sizes to keep them mobile so it's always a good surface for my knives). I also lay down a pc of butcher paper- wax up- on top on the whole table then throw a poly board on top of that. So the only thing I really have to wash are the smaller mobile poly boards. I toss my scraps on a pile on the paper to the side of the board, throw my good pc's in one rubbermaid tub, ground scrap in another, and when I'm done for the session I crumple up and throw away the pc of butcher paper, wash the poly boards in the utility sink and bleach wipe down the tables at night before I go in. A pretty fast process. Don't really need water at all for the tables.

Freezer paper vs. vac bags- I like using butcher paper for soft/uncooked whole meats (cut steaks and roasts (I wrap roasts 2x). There's certainly a skill to wrapping correctly and getting out the air. Freezer paper is much cheaper than vac bags and I'm confident with it for those items. Loose items after processing (snack sticks, dogs/brats, jerky) I like to vac bag so I know the air gets out. Jerky I wrap first in plastic wrap so the bags don't puncture) and finally- any ground meat I put in the plastic meat tubes/bags- super cheap and no air but butcher paper or vac bags works fine as well.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Here's how we roll, don't know if it's right or wrong but it's how we do it. We party hunt and all the guys that hunt together butcher together. It's kinda fun.

1. Turn on garage heat and radio.

2. Skin everything. Get the hides and ALL THE HAIR out of the building. Sweep things up good. For me this is huge.

3. Set up table. What I do is put a 4 x 8 sheet of polypropelyne on a table. I also set the legs of the table in 18" long chunks of PVC pipe to get the table higher so you're not bent over all day.

4. Scrub poly sheet with hot soapy water.

5. Set up another smaller table I have and bolt the grinder to it.

6. Wife brings out a pail of hot soapy water and a pail of regular hot water.

7. All knives and bowls are washed in the house, and then brought to the garage, by the wimmin.

8. Cut off quarters and plop em on the big table. Cut out backstraps and other hanging trimmins and plop on table. When nothing is left but a carcass, it goes outside for the dogs. Again, out of the building.

9. Get to cuttin, use soapy and regular water from time to time to keep things clean.

10. When a bowl of trimmins is full, the wimmin grind it up. Package right away and put in garage fridge.

11. When steaks, chops, straps, blah, blah are ready, they get vacuum packed. No paper for us.

12. When all finished up, clean everything with hot soapy water.

For us the real big thing is to get the unwanted stuff out of the building right away. By unwanted stuff I mean legs, heads, hides, carcass.....that kind of thing. I hate hair floating around everywhere.

Having that big sheet of poly on the table is uber nice. It's one big arsed cutting board and very easy to keep clean. It wasn't cheap but we all pitched in years ago and it's been used a lot. Very much worth it.

All the people around the table cutting stuff up has a bucket on the floor next to them. this is where all the fat, bones, gooey stuff goes. Once kind of full, they go outside and get dumped on the ground for the dogs.

Here's a pic of my "Big cutting board." I have more and better ones, but unfortunately the nekked girl calendar shows up in the background of them. Not very appropriate.

[MNHunter65]

1. We always use a double layer of freezer paper for steaks and roasts, because they don't seem to last too long in the freezer. Once we get sausages made, we foodsaver them.

2. Lately we have been wearing rubber gloves while butchering (like doctors or mechanics wear.) If we need to run in the house or whatever, we just take them off and throw a new pair on when we're ready to continue cutting. Plus it makes it a little more bearable on the fingers to handle cold meat.

I have a 6' poly folding table that we use for butchering. We also use large cutting boards. We usually just use cookie sheets for the meat until we're ready to package. The table gets cleaned with a mild bleach solution and then rinsed clean. Everything else goes into the kitchen for a good cleaning.

It's a lot of work, but I like knowing that my deer is well taken care of and I am getting the most meat possibly from it.

[B-man715]

I used to do it the way you describe all out in the garage. It was a pain.

Now I just skin and debone in the garage. All that you need is a skinning knife, boning knife, and a large meat tub.

Here is a quick description of my process:

1. Hang the deer and put down a chunk of poly under the deer.

2. Skin the deer.

3. De-bone everything while hanging. This includes the front shoulders while still on the carcass, and put all of the meat into a tub and cover it. Not a single inch of countertop will get dirty.

4. If I feel the need to age the meat, simply put the tub into a fridge for 2-7 days.

5. Go to a home improvement store and buy a couple pieces of remnant counter top(say 3 footers) Place a piece or two on top of your kitchen countertop and finish trimming the meat directly on them. I also use one for grinding, stuffing, filleting fish etc.

Work on a couple chunks of meat at a time to keep the rest cool in the fridge. If weather permits, I will even keep the tub of meat out on the deck as I process in the house.

When it comes time to cleanup, wipe the equipment down with paper towels and water, then once with a weak bleach solution.

The pieces of countertops also keep the wife happy by not marring up the nice ones with all of the butchering equipment

[BLACKJACK]

Lots of good ideas so far!!! Must be a slow day at work!!!

Like the idea of using the disposable gloves!!

When cutting the deboned venison up, do most of you cool it down for a day or two or do you just go for when its been cut off the deer?

How about on the grinding, do you cool it or freeze it first?

Now to get the wife to buy into it!! Thinking that I may even be able to talk her into using the kitchen, deboned meat in tubs, some big cutting boards on one side of the sink, her wrapping on the other side.

Do any of you ever start a frying pan and have samples as you go??

[Eric Wettschreck]

Do any of you ever start a frying pan and have samples as you go??

Darn straight. We don't use a frying pan, we have a little gas hibatchi (or however you spell it) in the garage and nibble away all day long. Pretty darn wonderful.

[Borch]

Lots of good ideas so far!!! Must be a slow day at work!!!

Like the idea of using the disposable gloves!!

When cutting the deboned venison up, do most of you cool it down for a day or two or do you just go for when its been cut off the deer?

How about on the grinding, do you cool it or freeze it first?

Now to get the wife to buy into it!! Thinking that I may even be able to talk her into using the kitchen, deboned meat in tubs, some big cutting boards on one side of the sink, her wrapping on the other side.

Do any of you ever start a frying pan and have samples as you go??

If making sausage I like it about half frozen as it grinds better.

We always fry up sausage and make necessary adjustments in the recipe.

[Gordie]

I heat soapy water with a turkey fryer doesn't take long and you can turn it down low to keep warm if need be. I also use a big weed burner to get rid of the hair.

I vacuum seal some of the stuff and use freezer paper on some then we use up the freezer paper stuff first because the vac sealed stuff keeps longer.

I have got to get a few more tables myself and love the PVC trick Eric uses.

This year I did all my cutting and grinding in the kitchen and used the gas grill on the deck for taste testing. Wife got home from work just after we were finished and never even knew about it until my boys said something.

[CANOPY SAM]

A good friend taught me several years ago to de-bone venison and simply package pieces of large muscle groups in 1 gallon freezer Ziplock bags. Strategically pack big pieces surrounded by smaller and smaller pieces, then squeeze out excess air and zip em' up tight. Just like vacuum packing but for a fraction of the price.

Put the prime cuts in labeled bags, and grinding cuts in bags marked for grinding. You can pre-weigh the bags to the desired weights for different recipes and sausage recipes for future use, then simply take them out when you're ready to whip up various products, thaw and mix with beef, pork, or whatever.

I used to package everything in freezer paper, but switched to this method, and it eliminates a lot of paper waste, consolidates a lot more meat into larger packages, stores and thaws easily, and cuts down packaging time significantly.

Also do the bleach solution cleaning to everything, before and after. Couple tablespoons of bleach to each gallon of hot, soapy water will do. That's for cleanup, but not for hand-washing. You don't want to use anything other then hot soapy water for hand washing, and rinse really well before returning to cutting. You don't want to taint your meat with bleach or hand soap.

Also live and die by the sharpening steele. Put a good sharp edge on a folded steel blade before starting, then just give a stroke or two across the sharpening steele throughout the process...keeps that blade razor sharp.

[Lunker]

My equipment list

Plastic Tarp

Plastic Table

Knives

Large plastic/glass/steel bowls

Pasta strainer (Colander)

Freezer paper, masking tape, marker

I hang my deer in the garage over 5 x 5 tarp ($4) and begin to butcher. Transfer large parts to hard plastic topped folding table where i continue making finer cuts. The finished cuts go into the large bowls. Bowls go to sink where I rinse, transfer to colander to drain, package, and mark. Right into the freezer.

Leaves very little mess. Left with a few large bowls,a colander, and some knives to throw in the dishwasher. Take the plastic table out on the driveway and scrub/hose off. Wrap the carcass up in the tarp and tarp goes to dump. Or carcass goes to "boneyard" if hunting certain places and i keep the tarp.

That's how I do it most places. If we are at our deer camp property, we actually built a large counter-top into the outbuilding with running water and a sink, Fluorescent light bars above, all the supplies right there, etc. Convenient but we are much less worried about a mess there.

[charliepete]

I buy 4 mil sheeting and duct tape it to the floor of my garage. I also duct tape 4 mil sheeting to the top of my garage chester freezer that I use like a table. My wife is always real polite when the sheeting is up because she has seen Dexter. I skin the deer completely, burn of any hair with a propane torch, and then take out the inside loins, the backstrap, and then proceed to quarter the deer. I place the quarters and prime cuts on the plastic sheeting on the chest freezer and bring the quarters one at a time into the kitchen to be deboned on a large cutting board before being cut into steaks and vacum packed. One thing that makes like easier is the new gambrels that have a 'real' hook on both ends so that when you take off the second to last quarter the last one doesn't fall on the floor (been there done that).

[BLACKJACK]

Thanks for the advice guys!!! Gives me some things to think about and plan for.