Waiting for your bow case to emerge from the luggage belt at the airport is similar to the anticipation of tagging your first deer of bow season. But once you actually put a deer on the ground, what do you do next? Do you butcher it yourself or pay a butcher to do it for you?
By C.J. Winand
You like round hamburger patties? No problem. Just incorporate LEM’s round patty maker into your burger-grinding operation.
In a previous issue of Bowhunter Magazine, Equipment Editor Curt Wells said, “Quartering and butchering is a labor of love.” Wells is basically saying that killing an animal and then transforming the carcass from field to table gives hunters a sense of pride that cannot be bought, only earned through hard work and woodsmanship. When you consider everything that goes into a hunt, the time it takes to butcher a deer is relatively short, but it’s a critical element of every hunt.
At my house, my bringing home a deer is always a family affair. Interest really flowered when I first asked my daughters, “Have you ever seen a naked (or skinned) deer?” For whatever reason, the girls enjoy watching and helping me skin and butcher deer, and they love to help me feed deer meat into the grinder and watch it come out as venison burger.
No surveys show what percentage of hunters actually butcher their own deer. Depending on the region of the country and other variables, professional processing of a deer generally costs $70 or more. And no matter how careful your butcher is in handling your deer, chances are your burger, summer sausage, snack sticks, jerky, hot dogs, and other products end up as a combination of many deer, which, understandably, could make you feel a little uneasy.
Some years ago at the Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo, I watched Larry E. Metz butcher a deer in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Only then did I realize how many hunters had no idea of how to skin and butcher a deer properly. The good news is that no matter your level of knowledge, butchering a deer is easy, and it’s a good way to save money and to ensure that you get the exact products you want.
IN THE SPACE of this column, I cannot cover the entire butchering process, so I will focus on the simplest aspect -- making venison burger. If you can cut meat off a bone, you can make excellent hamburger. You need only a good meat grinder, a wise investment if you handle more than a deer or two each year.
To make burger, first cut all the meat off the bone. Fat can give the meat a strong flavor, so remove all the fat. Also remove as much connective tissue -- tendons, ligaments -- as possible. Above all, eliminate all dirt, hair, and other contaminates.
Now run the clean, pure venison through your grinder -- twice. Generally, butchers recommend first running the meat through a coarse grind plate and then through a finer grind plate. After the first grind, I recommend adding two or three bags of Lipton’s Recipe Secrets -- Soup and Dip Mix, and any other seasonings of your liking. Additionally, because deer meat is so lean, I suggest mixing in some store-bought hamburger, or some beef or pork suet. This makes the venison burger juicier. However, some families prefer straight ground meat. Try it both ways to see which you prefer.
If you find it bothersome to convert piles of venison burger into neat, compact patties, relax. Butcher-supply company LEM makes this chore easy with various grinder attachments that form either round or square burger patties. With your favorite spices already mixed into the burger and the burger formed into patties, life is good.
North American Whitetall
North American Whitetail is designed for the serious trophy hunter. It provides authoritative coverage of world-class whitetails, the latest approaches to deer management and advanced hunting techniques.
