Pre hunt freezer clean out. How do you do it?

Hummer

Hummer

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It's an annual effort that intensifies a couple months before elk season. At the same time we're packing the deep freezers with garden veggies and orchard/vineyard fruits, we work diligently to use up game meats and other stored foods to make space to hold another elk and possibly a deer, pronghorn or bear. Even so, a couple years ago I had to add a second chest freezer to hold our stores. We're finishing up the 2012 elk and still have a lot of 2013 elk steaks and meat to grind packages in the freezer.

Mrs. Hummer typically cooks roasts, soups and stews to package for quick meals at home and in hunting camp. We also make lots of fresh elk-pork sausage in a dozen or so flavors. Last weekend we mixed up an elk-pork summer sausage recipe which I stuffed and smoked yesterday. I cut the time and smoked hot but it still came out delicious. Tonight we cut it into 1/3 and 1/2 pound sections and vacuum sealed ten pounds for future use.





Do you guys go through the same clean-out-the-freezer business every year before season? How do you deal with it?
 
I try and eat more faster and freeze less veges (I can more then I freeze). Had a dinner party the other night and used up 12 trout.

good luck to all
the dog
 
With just my wife and 7 year old son, the last few years we've ended up with more meat than we can eat.

My wife is going through the same process as you on the assumption that I'm going to actually be successful on at least one or two of my hunts this year. We have several friends and family members that are very happy to take packaged and ready to cook meat from us when we are giving it away. We are down to mostly stew meat, some summer sausage and some deer sticks right now. I don't give any jerky away though!

Each year we do a little better at perfecting what cuts to make into what, this year we messed up on making too much summer sausage and deer sticks and not enough hamburger, we are out of hamburger.
 
Made some brats friday afternoon, just put some deer and a goose breast in some brine to make corned beef tonight and tomorrow its going to be summer sausage making plus grinding some more burger. Maybe even make some more jerky after that. Freezer is almost full yet and the serious hunting is only a couple weeks away.
 
I try to keep a chart with boxes of what I have taped to the top of each freezer. When I take something out I put a check in a box. It allows me to know what is in the freezer at a glance and helps me use up the oldest meat first.
 
My family eats venison about 4 nights a week so always get through the venison I shoot. Do give a fair bit way too, and barter as well.
 
Jerky is the quickest way to get rid of lots of meat. We make sausage, jerky, snack stix etc. Another way is to can it. The older meat can be canned and lasts for years. Canned meat is fantastic.
 
I wish I was organized enough to have charts of what was in my freezer. Normally we go through a mad scramble of "we have to hurry up an eat this stuff before we add more" around the end of September. But last year I only got a small doe whitetail in Michigan so we had done a lot of rationing with our venison this past year. Just finished the last pack of steak meat in some goulash last night.
 
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