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Tips and tricks for Tasty Eats

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MKotur325

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Can't tell you how many times I've heard people tell me, I can stand the taste of rutting critters, Deer, Elk... whatever.

My 2 tips for tasty eats:

My first tip is, when you dress the Critter, Especially Rutting Critters (we all know the distinct smell of Rutting Mule Deer), before you do much else... Remove the Scent glands at the Hock, and any matted hair around them, typically 5-7" in all directions. Skin it out, take off more than you think you need 1-2", Discard! With this trick in conjunction with 5-8 days Aging, Whole if possible, I can no longer tell a taste difference between rutting and non rutting Deer.

This has now become standard process for all big game critters, in our camp.

Second Tip, Age in the largest pieces you can get out. For our family, that generally means elk in halves and deer whole. Sometimes you just cant make that happen, I get that. The biggest pieces you can. The process of Dry aging is better the larger the pieces, and for Commercial meats, Aging is almost always done bone in. I know there is a full thread on aging, so no need to delve...

Anyhow, those are my tricks... Can't wait to see some of the others.
 
Advice needed on meat storage

I am hunting in Wyoming then heading to New Mexico for an elk hunt, question is if I get an elk in Wyoming what do I do with the meat til I head home to Minnesota? Any ideas? My first hunt will be near Pinedale, Wy. If I could store it near Denver or south I could pick it up on the way home without going way out of the way.:confused:
 
Most Game Processors will have meat lockers available to rent. See if you can find a refrigerated one instead of Freezer. You can dry age elk for a surprisingly long time at 40 degrees. Beef can be aged this way up to 60 days.

From my experience in restaurants and with venison, it's not great for the texture to freeze, thaw and re-freeze meat. If the option you find in Denver is Freezer space, try and keep it frozen for the drive home.
 
My wife likes to brown antelope or deer burger and then rinse the meat off in a strainer. It really seems to take away the gamey taste.
 
I've come to the conclusion that some animals will just taste gamey no matter what you do. Here's an example. These two bucks were shot within about 10 min of each other. Both were taken care of exactly the same way, skinned, hung and then cut up a week later.

picture.php


The buck on the right was tasty, the one on the left was basically inedible, hands down the worst game meat I've ever tried to choke down. I gave up after trying 3-4 packages of steaks and burger. Defrosting the meat would stink up the whole house. I ended up turning him all into sausage/salami... and giving it away. Really strong sage smell to the meat. I've only had a few gamey animals, the buck above, another mule deer buck and a spike bull elk, which was flat out terrible... I've eaten a lot of critters over the years and always take super care of the meat as priority #1.

I don't think there are any tricks, to making sure meat tastes "good" other than keeping it clean, dry and cooling it out. The rest is just an effort in believing that some process is going to make your meat taste like beef. YMMV
 
Nothing can take away the rankness and terrible taste of a rutty mule deer buck. No more dirty dishrag flavor for me. I will just shoot whitetails and enjoy eating my kill.
 
I think diet figures into the taste of a critter almost as much as species. I think mule deer get a bad rap often times because of the country they occupy.

I've shot mule deer on the open sage-covered hillsides of Southwest MT and they really do taste sagey. I've shot em in the hills around where I live, and they taste completely different. This year I shot a muley that spent most of its life in a hayfield near my house and it was one of the better tasting deer I've killed. It was 5 1/2 years old and ruttin and not nearly as gamey as some of the younger sagebrush muley does I've killed.

I know there's a correlation between species, rut, and taste, but there's also a lot of nuance in terms of meat taste versus the country that produced the meat.
 
Nameless Range said:
I think diet figures into the taste of a critter almost as much as species. I think mule deer get a bad rap often times because of the country they occupy.

I've shot mule deer on the open sage-covered hillsides of Southwest MT and they really do taste sagey. I've shot em in the hills around where I live, and they taste completely different. This year I shot a muley that spent most of its life in a hayfield near my house and it was one of the better tasting deer I've killed. It was 5 1/2 years old and ruttin and not nearly as gamey as some of the younger sagebrush muley does I've killed.

I know there's a correlation between species, rut, and taste, but there's also a lot of nuance in terms of meat taste versus the country that produced the meat.
Click to expand...

Yes, The deer around here that feed on ag land are much better than the sagebrush diet animals I have eaten. The best are the ones who eat off corn fields all summer.
 
wyoming556 said:
Typically we do. I prefer pork at 10%.

When I make sausage I buy the big package of bacon ends and pieces from Wal Mart. Seems to give the meat a nice flavor.
Click to expand...

Untrimmed Pork shoulder gives the meat a much better flavor that beef fat. Never tried the bacon as normally it has been salted and smoked. Might have to try it in some burger to see if it makes a better bacon cheese burger.
 
This plus get rid of the pizz patch ASAP. Try to get them bled out good if you can.
We learned from a master and I cannot remember a time we have ever had a nasty tasting buck other than some of them stink have stunk so bad I have gagged up toenails.


MKotur325 said:
Can't tell you how many times I've heard people tell me, I can stand the taste of rutting critters, Deer, Elk... whatever.

My 2 tips for tasty eats:

My first tip is, when you dress the Critter, Especially Rutting Critters (we all know the distinct smell of Rutting Mule Deer), before you do much else... Remove the Scent glands at the Hock, and any matted hair around them, typically 5-7" in all directions. Skin it out, take off more than you think you need 1-2", Discard! With this trick in conjunction with 5-8 days Aging, Whole if possible, I can no longer tell a taste difference between rutting and non rutting Deer.

This has now become standard process for all big game critters, in our camp.

Second Tip, Age in the largest pieces you can get out. For our family, that generally means elk in halves and deer whole. Sometimes you just cant make that happen, I get that. The biggest pieces you can. The process of Dry aging is better the larger the pieces, and for Commercial meats, Aging is almost always done bone in. I know there is a full thread on aging, so no need to delve...

Anyhow, those are my tricks... Can't wait to see some of the others.
Click to expand...
 
Since we started cutting our own meat we have not tasted a bad piece of meat. My tip is to age it yourself if weather cooperates and cut/wrap and grind it yourself (we don't add any fat at all). I would not have believed the difference before we started doing everything our self. We love antelope but always hear complaints from everyone about how bad it tastes. I believe ours taste great because they are dressed and skinned as soon as we walk up to them. they are then deboned at camp and put into coolers unless it is 30-40 degrees outside then we debone the next morning.
As a lot of you know it is a ton of work (especially moose) but well worth it
 
HowaHunter said:
Since we started cutting our own meat we have not tasted a bad piece of meat. My tip is to age it yourself if weather cooperates and cut/wrap and grind it yourself (we don't add any fat at all). I would not have believed the difference before we started doing everything our self. We love antelope but always hear complaints from everyone about how bad it tastes. I believe ours taste great because they are dressed and skinned as soon as we walk up to them. they are then deboned at camp and put into coolers unless it is 30-40 degrees outside then we debone the next morning.
As a lot of you know it is a ton of work (especially moose) but well worth it
Click to expand...

I agree. We eat as much pronghorn in this house as we can. It just tastes great. I do all the processing - sometimes with a buddy of mine - and we love it. The steaks are to die for. To me, getting rid of the nasty stuff, getting it cut and cold asap, and butchering it well is the real trick.

And I agree on whitetail being better than muley.
 
Djfan said:
I agree. We eat as much pronghorn in this house as we can. It just tastes great. I do all the processing - sometimes with a buddy of mine - and we love it. The steaks are to die for. To me, getting rid of the nasty stuff, getting it cut and cold asap, and butchering it well is the real trick.

And I agree on whitetail being better than muley.
Click to expand...

What they said. I have processed and eaten a lot of both mulies and white-tails. Both have been good, but white-tails are definitely better over all. They even smell differently when they are field dressed.

However, I have never had a mulie that I could not eat. I do all of my own processing and know what works.

As far as getting rid of all the glands/bad hair etc., extreme care has to be taken so nothing gets on the knife to be spread to the good meat. That can be worse than leaving it alone. The glands do not have to be removed. They will come off with the skin anyway. I don't mess with them, as I cut the legs off higher than that anyway.

Skin, de-bone the meat and cut out any bloodshot etc., asap and get it cooled. This is especially critical with antelope meat. Mine goes from the field straight to a cooler with ice and it is as good as any meat can be. I personally believe that commercial processors screw up more meat than anyone else because they just do not have the time to spend on it and do it right.
 
Tip #1: Process your own meat.

Tip #2: Don't use a bone saw.

Tip#3: Don't make hamburger

Tip#4: Wrap it in plastic wrap, tightly, then ziplock bag it, then freeze it.

Enjoy.
 
I would say start by processing y our own game. You know for sure what your getting back. Second a chef gave me this tip. Salt your meat heavily for two hours with kosher salt in the refrigerator on a rack over a pan. The blood and fat is where the game taste comes from and the salt draws out the blood. After salting it run it under water to rinse off the salt ,dry the meat and cook how you like. It will not be salty at all. I have done his with all my game meat and it turns out great. As far as cuts for burger or your scraps salt them too. Rinse and grind . I mix mine 2/1 with ground pork or beef......good luck.....:cool:
 
-always process yourself, if you can age it some great but temp range is under 40degrees, if warmer just process it and get it froze or atleast iced, dry ice if needed to get home on long trip.
-grind, we have found just pure ground game lasts longer and tastes better, if you want/need to add any fat do so when you cook it not while its sitting in the freezer. olive oil works great as a substitute on plain burger meat. in freezer we found beef fat vs pork fat mixed with ground game, beef lasted longer but pork tasted better, but lasts much longer if no fat added so we stopped adding.
-package it GOOD for freezer, get all air possible out and 2 barriers are better than 1, vacuum sealer is real nice especially with getting all that extra air out of burger packs.
 
Before I got my vacuum sealer I put the meat in ziplock freezer bags, then wrapped in wax lined butcher paper. One trick the guy who showed me how to butcher was to dunk your freezer bag of meat in a bucket of water just to the edge before it goes under. That removes any air in the bag, thus reducing the possibility of freezer burn.
 
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