# Venison Sausage & Snack Sticks



## lazymlazyk (Nov 8, 2021)

Just bagged a buck on Saturday, and I'm working on getting it all boned out and trimmed.  Usually, one deer takes me about one work week to process at home, doing about a quarter per night.  I know,  I know, I'm super slow, but I'm usually pretty picky about getting as much silverskin, tendons, and fat out as I can.  This year I'm thinking about not being quite as picky about getting every last bit of silverskin off, but I'm not sure how relaxed to be about it.  Most of this will end up as burger, sausage, or ground jerky.  Does anyone have any pictures of what their venison looks like right before it hits the grinder for sausage or burger?  I plan on grinding everything twice - once through a medium plate, then through a fine plate.

Thanks!!


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## indaswamp (Nov 8, 2021)

We process 500-700 # of meat every year in February...between 12-20 deer and 2-5 wild hogs. We are very particular about getting all the deer fat and tendons off for grind meat. The thin silver skin we will leave on, but if it is thick we will trim it off.

The hogs, well it all depends on what they have been eating. I will slice a piece of fat off and put it in a frying pan. If it does not smell bad, we will keep it. If it is strong and very gamey, we will trim it off.
All the wild hog goes into the sausage pile.

I looked through the pics. I have posted on our processing days, but I don't have any pics. of just the venison.


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## indaswamp (Nov 8, 2021)

Nice muley...congrats.


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## lazymlazyk (Nov 8, 2021)

indaswamp said:


> Nice muley...congrats.


Thanks! Was the first time shedding blood with the 6.5 Creedmoor. Heard both good and bad things about the 143 EDL-X so I figured I had to try it for myself. One pass-through shot at 165 yards, missed all bones and blew out the top portion of the heart. Left a blood trail Stevie Wonder could have followed!


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## bauchjw (Nov 8, 2021)

Nice harvest! Looking forward to seeing what you make!


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## SmokinAl (Nov 9, 2021)

NICE!!!
Al


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## tallbm (Nov 9, 2021)

lazymlazyk said:


> Just bagged a buck on Saturday, and I'm working on getting it all boned out and trimmed.  Usually, one deer takes me about one work week to process at home, doing about a quarter per night.  I know,  I know, I'm super slow, but I'm usually pretty picky about getting as much silverskin, tendons, and fat out as I can.  This year I'm thinking about not being quite as picky about getting every last bit of silverskin off, but I'm not sure how relaxed to be about it.  Most of this will end up as burger, sausage, or ground jerky.  Does anyone have any pictures of what their venison looks like right before it hits the grinder for sausage or burger?  I plan on grinding everything twice - once through a medium plate, then through a fine plate.
> 
> Thanks!!
> View attachment 515786


Congrats on the deer!  It sounds silly but I get excited for everyone who hunts and posts what they have bagged and then about eating that great meat :)

I do similar to 

 indaswamp
 with my deer.

I learned a good rule of thumb is that if there is some tissue you wouldn't throw in a skillet and eat then remove it from any meat that will be grind, sausage, or steaks.

Now here is a major pro tip.  Don't even try to remove tendon and silver skin from the shank and heel meat.  The shank is on the bone, the big circle below.  The heel is the small circle below.  This is a back leg, the front leg has a different shank and no heel muscle:







For the shank and the heal just cut the meat away from the bone as you see it there and remove any super super super thick white skin/tissue but don't over think it.  The thicker opaque stuff you can leave on the shank and heel.
HOWEVER I remove that type of skin and tissue on all of the other muscles and meat higher up on the leg.  That meat higher up goes into my grind, sausage, or steak cuts.

What to do with the shank and heel meat???? Make braised dishes with it!!!!
All of the silver skin, tendon, and thick skin will melt away into amazing flavor in a braised dish.
It is an massive waste of time to try and remove all the silver skin and tendon from the shank and the heal and then you end up with just enough meat to fit into the palm of your hand.  Move to making braised dishes out of them and then be amazed at how great it tastes.
Shanks may actually be my favorite part of the deer once I started braising them!

I have a post that contains the BEST deer butchering video's I have ever seen and is how I learned to properly butcher my animals.  Same works for wild pigs.

Let me know if you are interested in that link and I hope this info helps :)


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## indaswamp (Nov 9, 2021)

tallbm said:


> What to do with the shank and heel meat???? Make braised dishes with it!!!!
> All of the silver skin, tendon, and thick skin will melt away into amazing flavor in a braised dish.


YEP!^^^^^What tallbm said!
We do stews, chili, or braise in a gravy Osso Bucco style. Absolutely Fabulous!! Still blows me away whenever people just toss the shanks.


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## indaswamp (Nov 9, 2021)

We also remove each muscle...makes fat and tough tissue removal much easier.


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## bertman (Nov 9, 2021)

I've butchered my own deer since I started hunting deer over three decades ago, and lately bring the carcass back home after hanging and process it in my kitchen. I like to get it done in a couple of evenings. Your process sounds like mine (I'm guessing you also have no help!).

I definitely take the silverskin off of my loins, but don't get too picky with other muscles. I've found that trimming a partially-thawed piece of meat before cooking it is much easier. Plus I don't mind spending a few extra minutes prepping the meat for a meal, but I get in a hurry to get the entire deer processed in November.


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## tallbm (Nov 10, 2021)

indaswamp said:


> YEP!^^^^^What tallbm said!
> We do stews, chili, or braise in a gravy Osso Bucco style. Absolutely Fabulous!! Still blows me away whenever people just toss the shanks.


Yes it hurts to see people toss them out.  I once saw a giant elk shank in the waste meat barrel at a hunting ranch once.  I was tempted to dig it out but knew better because I wasn't sure how long it had been in there out of refrigeration and that barrel probably doesn't get cleaned to thoroughly so I knew better.  It was like my bicep and shoulder combined though!

I usually remove the initial outer layer of opaque tissue from the legs before I break down the muscles into their individual roasts. I easily get like a handful or two of that slimy tissue.
Like 

 indaswamp
 I then clean up individual roasts.

I have a deal with my brother that I give him backstraps because I rarely bread and fry anything these days and that is the best way to have them.  It's a good deal for me because I don't clean them up.  I just cut them to fit the vac bags and seal em and he takes em.  Saves TONS of time when deboning like 9-14 animals that are in ice chests, usually by myself. 
I make a mad dash usually over 3 days (12hrs a day) to get them from the ice chests into the fridges, that's the worst part of it all.

Here's a post I put together that has the BEST deer butchering and processing videos I've found. It was an act of God to dig through all of the crap out there on the internet/youtube to find proper quality and not people just hacking meat with knives all the wrong ways haha.

The video's taught me the proper way and I evolved from them so I know it can help people out there. I feel a bit foolish doing some of the things I learned watching others do in my life but now I have it down the right way hahaha :D

(oh one caveat, I agree with 90% of what the guy says and does but he is plain wrong about the shank and heel muscles.  Do not grind or jerky them, that is a waste.  Save for braising lol )





						Great Venison Butchering and Processing Videos and Info!!!
					

I promised I would do this post as a result of a conversation in another thread where the info was asked for.  So here it is!  If you've ever looked for a youtube video on butchering a Deer or a Wild Hog you will know how hard it is to find a decent video containing any quality information and...




					www.smokingmeatforums.com


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## archeryrob (Nov 16, 2021)

I find home processing to be a acquired skill and set of tools gathered over time. I have done it with next to nothing and something things I have now I wouldn't do without.

Meat lugs and a basement fridge - I can fit an entire deer boned out into two of these meat lugs. A nice buck is a stretch compared to a doe, but it normally fits. I put the fish, back strap and rear muscle groups into one lug. Boned out front shoulders, neck meat and shanks in the other. I grind or can the shanks. I like these as I can rest the meat a couple days in the fridge, let it drain some. Pull it out and trim and vac seal or what ever I want to do and if I don;t finish, back in the fridge until tomorrow night.

I am picky as hell on trimming deer meat. You are chasing mule deer and they are probably lean. Our eastern deer are fat as pigs in some places. Does with 1/2" of fat on the rump and my buck from last year with 3/4" on top. Deer fat out here carries the gamey taste and is just unpalatable to eat. It has a different consistancy and just feels like it greases your mouth. A little tendon in the grind or canning, no big deal, but fat, oh no! Deer ribs here have a meat skin between the bones, 1/8" or more of fat over it, a layer of flank meat and 1/8" or more of fat over it under the skin. It is god aweful trying to get that small piece of flank meat out. Many times I'll fry it for the dogs and be done with it.

Ground medium once is fine for me. I do fine for brats, but not for summer sausage. That might be a personal preference. But I also use a mechanical mixer with my LEM 12 so I get a better protien extraction that you will hand mixing. If that is the case fine might work better for you.

On another note, I shot one deer with Hornady SST rounds in 30-06 and swore I'd never shoot another one in anything I am eating. I hit the front shoulder and destroyed all meat with in 1.5" on each side of that hole. the bullet went into the heart and opened it like a flower and the round never exited and I could not find it in the lung area. Too much destroyed meat and too much expanding lead in my food for my liking. Now I have gone to all lead flat meplat rounds in the 30-30 and probably a small meplat to almost semi spire point for the 30-06 for hand casting and loading. I got to work up the 30-06 round this spring.


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## tallbm (Nov 16, 2021)

archeryrob said:


> I find home processing to be a acquired skill and set of tools gathered over time. I have done it with next to nothing and something things I have now I wouldn't do without.
> 
> Meat lugs and a basement fridge - I can fit an entire deer boned out into two of these meat lugs. A nice buck is a stretch compared to a doe, but it normally fits. I put the fish, back strap and rear muscle groups into one lug. Boned out front shoulders, neck meat and shanks in the other. I grind or can the shanks. I like these as I can rest the meat a couple days in the fridge, let it drain some. Pull it out and trim and vac seal or what ever I want to do and if I don;t finish, back in the fridge until tomorrow night.
> 
> ...



Great input!

I dont fool with flank or ribs, goes to the animals or the coyotes. Same with necks on our little bodied deer, its all the kind of connective tissue that makes it not worth it.

As for hunting, I switched to non-lead for deer hunting just in case I want to hunt in areas that have restrictions AND like you I don't like vaporized lead from high caliber rifles going all over either.  I eat too much wild game I hunt and don't want to be consuming any lead if I can avoid it much less how many grains of lead transfer into the 5-7 wild animals I take each year.
For a wild pigs... I shoot them in the eye/ear/head so I don't care if it's lead or not that portion doesn't get eaten.

I can say the Barnes non-lead bullets are way easier to work a load up with than the Hornady GMX and other nonlead bullets.  Barnes bullets are usually very very accurate for me too, crazy accurate.  Hornady seems to have gone with a Secant Ogive bullet design and OMG it's a picky bastard to dial in with handloads.  The GMX drops em though after you shoot up 200 finding an acceptable load.  Non-lead also seam more susceptible to a barrel warming up some.  Three shots group well then shot 4 and 5 can move out over an inch with that little bit of heat build up from shots 1-3.  Just sight in slooooowly.

I hunt non-lead in 30-06, 300 Blackout, and just landed on a load for my new 308. 
I plan to work up non-lead loads with my 30-30 (Hornady Monoflex), my 5.56, and my 6.5 Creedmoor.  Some day maybe even my Mosin Nagant but I seriously have to put in some work pillar and glass bedding it so I can get groups smaller than a pie plate hahaha.

I love hunting season!!!


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## archeryrob (Nov 16, 2021)

tallbm said:


> I dont fool with flank or ribs, goes to the animals or the coyotes. Same with necks on our little bodied deer, its all the kind of connective tissue that makes it not worth it.


This year I took the neck sides off the buck I shot and save each side cut in half as 2 neck roasts per side. I would stab them with a fork and marinade in Oil and apple cider vinegar with brown sugar and soy sauce. Man that Vinegar does wonder tenderizing that. Then butcher twine it into  roast and toss on the grill. Superb the first day, but tough if reheated. So, got to eat it all the first nigh off the grill. 

But the flanks and ribs get the same around here. I would love to roll that flank meat, but it is such a PITA to cut all that fat off. I can trim and entire rear leg quarter almost in the same time frame.

I'm am going self sufficient and using lead to make my own bullets. I tried doing the lubed plain lead rounds and that went south in 30-30. 50 yards dead on. 100 yards and they are starting to fly off. Powder coated and just as right as rain. I am taking my 30-30 with hand cast loads this year and have a side holster for the 1858 with a 45 colt conversion cylinder in case they get "Too close"  Hand cast and plain lubed in the 45 colt. Lubed with rendered deer, so there Mojo in that, right?


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## tallbm (Nov 16, 2021)

archeryrob said:


> This year I took the neck sides off the buck I shot and save each side cut in half as 2 neck roasts per side. I would stab them with a fork and marinade in Oil and apple cider vinegar with brown sugar and soy sauce. Man that Vinegar does wonder tenderizing that. Then butcher twine it into  roast and toss on the grill. Superb the first day, but tough if reheated. So, got to eat it all the first nigh off the grill.
> 
> But the flanks and ribs get the same around here. I would love to roll that flank meat, but it is such a PITA to cut all that fat off. I can trim and entire rear leg quarter almost in the same time frame.
> 
> I'm am going self sufficient and using lead to make my own bullets. I tried doing the lubed plain lead rounds and that went south in 30-30. 50 yards dead on. 100 yards and they are starting to fly off. Powder coated and just as right as rain. I am taking my 30-30 with hand cast loads this year and have a side holster for the 1858 with a 45 colt conversion cylinder in case they get "Too close"  Hand cast and plain lubed in the 45 colt. Lubed with rendered deer, so there Mojo in that, right?



Yeah flanks and ribs are not worth the effort.  I usually take does and spikes and a big one is 90-95lbs so there really is no neck roast it's all about like the flank meat so toss it.  I keep the neck "back strap" meat though.

I've shot powder coated subsonics in my 300BLK, not sure if I fired them at 100yds or not but never had issues with them.  Tried some in my 30-30 and they wouldn't even hit paper at 25yds.  No idea what was going on with them and wasn't going to be firing more since I had no clue where they were flying.  Blew my mind they wouldn't hit paper at 25yds  

Thats my cast lead experience.  Powder coat is awesome though.  Again I'd pop feral hogs in the head with em no problem.


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 16, 2021)

lazymlazyk said:


> Just bagged a buck on Saturday, and I'm working on getting it all boned out and trimmed.  Usually, one deer takes me about one work week to process at home, doing about a quarter per night.  I know,  I know, I'm super slow, but I'm usually pretty picky about getting as much silverskin, tendons, and fat out as I can.  This year I'm thinking about not being quite as picky about getting every last bit of silverskin off, but I'm not sure how relaxed to be about it.  Most of this will end up as burger, sausage, or ground jerky.  Does anyone have any pictures of what their venison looks like right before it hits the grinder for sausage or burger?  I plan on grinding everything twice - once through a medium plate, then through a fine plate.
> 
> Thanks!!
> View attachment 515786


Beautiful kill brother.  I too work slow on processing, but get faster after every deer.


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 16, 2021)

I actually just got done processing some venison and elk.  Made Venison Bangers, Sage and Coffee Elk, and Wisconsin Red Venison Sausage.


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> I actually just got done processing some venison and elk.  Made Venison Bangers, Sage and Coffee Elk, and Wisconsin Red Venison Sausage.


Nice!!


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## lazymlazyk (Nov 17, 2021)

archeryrob said:


> This year I took the neck sides off the buck I shot and save each side cut in half as 2 neck roasts per side. I would stab them with a fork and marinade in Oil and apple cider vinegar with brown sugar and soy sauce. Man that Vinegar does wonder tenderizing that. Then butcher twine it into  roast and toss on the grill. Superb the first day, but tough if reheated. So, got to eat it all the first nigh off the grill.
> 
> But the flanks and ribs get the same around here. I would love to roll that flank meat, but it is such a PITA to cut all that fat off. I can trim and entire rear leg quarter almost in the same time frame.
> 
> I'm am going self sufficient and using lead to make my own bullets. I tried doing the lubed plain lead rounds and that went south in 30-30. 50 yards dead on. 100 yards and they are starting to fly off. Powder coated and just as right as rain. I am taking my 30-30 with hand cast loads this year and have a side holster for the 1858 with a 45 colt conversion cylinder in case they get "Too close"  Hand cast and plain lubed in the 45 colt. Lubed with rendered deer, so there Mojo in that, right?


Nice!! I took a deer last year with a 30-30, every other round was one I had cast....unfortunately, I didn't get the best shot on it the first time so lost track of which one put it down.  They say with cast you can "eat right up to the hole!", so there should be less waste even if you do hit a shoulder.  Very cool you used rendered deer fat/oil for lube!  I've only experimented with a beeswax/Vaseline mix, then went to powder-coating.  Found a pretty sweet load for my 30-06 using the same bullets I cast for my 30-30, but the powder was just Unique so not much velocity there, and because of the huge meplat, the rounds wouldn't feed from the magazine.  Just a good plinking load.


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## archeryrob (Nov 17, 2021)

sounds almost like we need a shooting sub-forum for wild game.   Before we take this thread over hill and dale with different subjects.


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## lazymlazyk (Nov 17, 2021)

I'm down!  Let's make it happen!


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## Sowsage (Nov 17, 2021)

archeryrob said:


> Deer fat out here carries the gamey taste and is just unpalatable to eat. It has a different consistancy and just feels like it greases your mouth. A little tendon in the grind or canning, no big deal, but fat, oh no!


Our whitetail get a lot of fat on them. Especially early season. Ive cut 1" or better off many deer. Although here they have all the corn and soybeans they can eat...  Young does I leave the fat. Its incredible how much diet can change flavor. I dont feel the deer around here have much of a game taste at all. Old bucks I'm pretty picky when processing but thats about it.

Heres a little fat trim from one


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

Sowsage said:


> Our whitetail get a lot of fat on them. Especially early season. Ive cut 1" or better off many deer. Although here they have all the corn and soybeans they can eat...  Young does I leave the fat. Its incredible how much diet can change flavor. I dont feel the deer around here have much of a game taste at all. Old bucks I'm pretty picky when processing but thats about it.
> 
> Heres a little fat trim from one
> View attachment 516474


Nothing like that here in TX, they don't have to get fat for the winter with it not being so cold and genetically don't get as big bodied to survive the winters.  There is a term for how animals in colder climates generally build more mass to survive but I can't remember what it is.  In any case it is the opposite in warmer climates lol.


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

archeryrob said:


> sounds almost like we need a shooting sub-forum for wild game.   Before we take this thread over hill and dale with different subjects.



I'd totally be down for a hunting, harvesting, & foraging type sub thread.
Kind of covers everything for hunting, trapping, and just getting food from nature.  I think the mushroom guys use the vegetable forum but could totally post in a hunting, harvesting & foraging forum.  Same for those that shag wild berries and tree nuts and such.  I swear my mother is obsessed with going out and foraging pecans wherever she sees them hahaa.  She seriously has a small chest deep freezer full of gallon bags of peeled pecans all foraged locally.

Plus, most forums that are centered around firearms are very toxic.  Our forum here is centered around cooking and is one of the best I've ever encountered online.  It would be an amazing place to share this kind of discussion since it has a clear guiding purpose... to eat :D


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