Deer processing at home.

It is a great video. It's a lot easier than many people think. It's just time consuming if you are picky about your cuts. I have been butchering my own for years and still come back to this video or some like it for a refresher every now and then.
 
Same here. Do mine at home if its not too warm. Time consuming, but honestly most of the time is packaging...if you have a helper doing that it saves a bunch of time.
Cleanup sucks too if your grinding and doing all that. The more deer you do at a time the better it is. I try to do at least two at a time.
 
All you really need for knives is a good boning knife, I have a Victorinox, and a good fillet knife for removing silver skin. other nice to have stuff like a vacuum sealer, grinder, and sausage stuffer will come with time.

I recently picked up this fish table for processing. It’s at the right height, easy to transport, and takes up little space in off season. I just left the faucet off as I have no need for it.

Bob

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I have always processed my own deer. I just bought a book. Today of course we have youtube. I love to do it. I also consider part of the entire process of hunting.

You really can't screw it up. Here is my favorite instructional video. This guy makes some very good meat out of things I would just make into hamburg or stew meat. It is next level butchering. He ain't kidding about that tenderloin in the butt section. It is incredible. Oh, and never debone a neck. Cut the whole neck of and put it into a slow cooker with plenty of liquid and spices. It will blow you away. Then there are the ribs. Oh my..... better than pork or beef.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2UsVd9d8vI&t=522s&ab_channel=GrowingDeer.tv
 
I buy all my knives at the hyde/dexter russell factory outlet in southbridge. They are factory seconds and cheap but there is nothing wrong with the steel once you put a good edge on it.

You need a thin flexible boning knife, a medium stiff regular knife, a larger knife for steaks and a curved skinning knife.
I like an additional stiff boning knife as well for certain areas, and to not have to resharpen.

If im caping I use a replaceable blade surgical type scalpel. Its faster, more control and easier than any fixed knife. And you dont have to stop to sharpen, just replace the blade. My taxidermist uses a scalpel to skin his whole deer
 
Anyone use the golf ball trick for skinning?
I thought about using it last year but you need a warm carcass and my two deer were quite chilly during shotgun season so I skinned and boned on a gambrel. If I killed one, say, a week or 2 ago I would try it.
 
The group of guys I hunt with used to just send them off to a butcher and we’d all pitch in for the bill. Last year we did it ourselves but I could only stick around for a few hours to help. It was 5 deer and they were at it for hours. This season, assuming we shoot more than a few again, I’d be perfectly fine with sending them out to a butcher again just to save time. The more time I leave my wife alone with our two little ones, the more hell I catch!
 
Deerdaughter and I have done 2 (roadkill) an no, it isn't hard. Got a folding table about 3x5 and cover it with plastic. We skin and quarter after its been hanging for 3 or 4 days and then bring it in to do the cutting in the kitchen. We take 2 or 3 nights doing a little at a time boning it as we go. All the meat is in the fridge so we just take out what we're going to work on and then it's into the freezer. We get a lot of crock pot meat because we don't have a grinder. We save some for jerky and steaks for the grill and roast size for the oven or crock pot. I have 5 or 6 Victorinox 6 inch boning knives with the curved blade that work pretty well. Razor sharp makes getting the silver skin off easier. We may be a little too picky with that cause it takes the most time and we try not to lose any meat. These pics are last years doe. The fat on the hindquarters was close to a half inch thick. Backstrap pic and a hindquarter ready for separating and silver skin removal.

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