Processing Game Yourself

Many years ago I killed my first cow elk. I barely had enough experience to field dress the animal let alone do any final processing so I decided to take the elk to a processor. Four weeks and more money that I cared to pay later I received the meat back. I had requested steaks, roasts, some ground and some salami. For the most part the end product of steak, roast, and salami was satisfactory however on more than one occasion when browning ground for dinner my wife found hair and bone fragment. She refused to use or eat any remaining meat from that elk. I decided at that point to learn to process a game animal and take the money that I would have paid a processor to acquire the equipment over time to process my own game. The end result has been a product that exceeds the quality of that particular processor and over the years has improved as my own processing methods has become refined.

I don’t have anything spectacular in terms of equipment, most was acquired on a strict budget and I’ve strategically upgraded as needed. I found a series of very good processing videos by Dead On Hunting on YouTube and watched them repeatedly. I still reference them and share them with friends who ask me for tips or pointers. Here are links to the series of videos, there are four videos with each video specifically focusing on one portion of the animal in detail.

Part 1: Breaking down the whole carcass into quarters


Part 2: Processing the hind quarters


Part 3: Processing the backstrap


Part 4: Processing the neck and front shoulder


For the most part I follow these videos when breaking the animal down into quarters then the large muscle groups. A couple exceptions are I generally keep the backstrap intact with the loin section and I don’t cut the large roasts or backstraps into steaks/chops before wrapping and putting them in the freezer. I find that I get a better product on my plate if I leave the large muscle groups whole and cut the steaks either right before or right after grilling. In my opinion, the backstrap is best when cut or thinly sliced after grilling. This gives greater control over cooking to specific temps (like medium rare) compared to grilling small individual steaks which tend to over-cook quickly.

I inspect each cut with painstaking tediousness for hair or debris and remove as much fat and silver skin possible. I have limited time to sit down and butcher my game animals, generally two to three hours after the kids go to bed to dedicate to butchering each night so I tend to spread out butchering over two or three nights for a deer. Initially it may have taken four or five nights so I’m getting more proficient but I’m also getting more particular. If you take your time the end product benefits from it.

So let’s discuss some of the equipment that I have accumulated over the last several years. I’ll share some tips and tricks in future posts that I’ve learned with each piece of equipment when we talk about specific uses in making sausage or jerky.

Initially, and for several years, I processed only using a hunting knife and a generic kitchen cutting board. This worked well enough and we enjoyed many years of steaks and roasts. After a few years of just simple cuts of meat and having a surplus build up in the freezer over time. I felt guilty that my family wasn’t utilizing the meat harvested to its fullness so I looked for other ways to utilize the meat.

I purchased a small and inexpensive meat grinder from Harbor Freight. Although there are many bigger grinders with more bells and whistles, this grinder has outperformed my expectations without question and grinds meat pretty much as fast as I can stuff it down the neck. Make sure you print off the 20% off coupon for additional savings too.

I now use a small 6” fillet knife and a slightly larger 8” boning knife rather than using my hunting knives (I still use my wife's cutting board which results in a strict warning to clean it good when I'm all done each night). The fillet knife (wood handle) is great for filleting the silver skin off the meat and minimizing meat loss from trimming. The boning knife (white handle) is great for getting meat off the bone and breaking down the quarters into the large muscle groups.

For many years I stuffed snack sticks using the attachments on the grinder and that worked well enough however stuffing sticky cured meat through a grinder again was challenging and time consuming so I purchased a dedicated sausage stuffer from Amazon. Like the grinder, there are more sophisticated options out there but this inexpensive hand crank model has been a revelation and reduced my stuffed sausage and snack stick production time dramatically.

I was gifted a small jerky gun and I’ve really enjoyed using it. I prefer ground meat jerky compared to whole meat sliced jerky, I find that I prefer the texture and feel I get better seasoning distribution. I rarely made jerky prior to receiving the jerky gun, but now it’s one of the first things on the list and the kids especially enjoy it.

Several years ago I began smoking meats on my grill/smoker and I would borrow a small folding kitchen slicer from my mother to slice smoked roasts into lunch meat. She must have tired of me borrowing it and gave me a similar small Harbor Freight slicer for Christmas a couple years ago. It works ok, but is currently the one piece of equipment that I want to upgrade to a larger deli style slicer.

Initially I simply put meat into freezer bags but over time I learned that when I cleaned out the freezer every year I would end up with random bags of freezer burnt mystery meat that would get discarded because we couldn’t identify the meat or the cut. My current packaging process is to wrap steaks/roasts tightly with plastic wrap followed by wrapping it in plastic backed butcher paper. I have kept steaks and roasts freezer burn free for more than two years using this method. With a Sharpie marker I write the species, cut, quantity, and date on the outside of the wrap so that the contents are easily identifiable. As I have shared with my family I am complimented regularly that my packaging and labeling is impressive and adds to the final product.

I started out with an inexpensive 4 tray circular shaped dehydrator (left) and used that for many years (I still use it for one-off projects). Because I didn’t do jerky often it never was a point of concern or deficiency. However, the jerky gun has dramatically improved the product I can create and also increased my potential productivity and magnified how deficient that little dehydrator was. I upgraded last year to a largeer 10 tray model from Cabela’s (right) and was a great investment and significant upgrade.

Lastly, as soon as I started making sausages, jerky, and snack sticks I needed a way to preserve them long term beyond just sticking them in a plastic baggie, throwing them in the freezer, and hoping to eat them before the freezer burn ruined them. My wife got me a small Seal-a-Meal vacuum sealer for Christmas a couple years ago and now I vacuum seal all sausage, jerky, and snack sticks. I’ll share some fun tips with the vacuum sealer that I do for jerky in a later post.

One would think that the biggest benefit in processing your own game would be the cost. This is a definite benefit but I consider that secondary. The greatest benefit to me is customization. First, I can customize the package sizes. My family is large, and I can create large wraps of steaks so that my wife only has to grab one wrap to thaw rather than juggle several wraps from the freezer to the kitchen. Second, I can do anything that I want with my game meat. I’m not beholden to a butcher’s “house” jerky or sausage recipe. I can grind however much or however little I want and can do so whenever I want. I can slice steaks and wrap them or I can leave all the large cuts whole and cut them later. If I decide that I want to try making something new or try a new flavor or seasoning I absolutely can. The ability to do this has given me the freedom to experiment and utilize every ounce of game meat that I have in my freezer faster than I ever could have imagined. I used to throw spoiled freezer burnt meat out after years of it sitting in the bottom of my freezer… now I’m guilt free with an empty freezer by summertime.

Thank you for reading and hopefully you find this info useful... remember to subscribe or follow to get notifications for new posts!

Next: Processing Game Yourself - Steak & Roast