Do some deer just taste bad?

[Bszweda]

So I just got done eating venison tacos from a first year momma doe I shot on the Missouri Opener(high temps) died quick. The deer tasted good! However before I started eating I was worried that it was going to taste bad, because of last years deer. A 2 1/2 buck that I shot during the rut (low temps) died quick. That deer tasted so bad I actually had to throw out the meat), because it was a struggle to get through a meal.(depressing after putting in a lot of effort) I did take the deer to different butchers. I don't understand why such the big difference in taste. Do you think its because of the different butchers? Or do some deer just have that gamey taste?

 

[4wanderingeyes]

A lot of butchers don’t give you back your meat. Especially during busy seasons. With that said, an old musky buck sure tastes different then a young doe.


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[4wanderingeyes]

A good butcher won’t leave any fat from the deer, and it also helps to cut out the bones on the steaks.


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[Someday isle]

I think it could be both. Care of meat after harvest is critical to taste in my opinion. The butcher could obviously have an Impact on that. But it also could be related to the deers diet or other environmental factors.

 

[buckdeer1]

I would say most butchers don't give your deer back,This is something to ask about for sure also you really don't want them cutting bone instead they should cut meat off bone then cut steaks.I would always make sure sure that they are USDA inspected also

 

[MickT]

This is exactly why I almost quit deer hunting until I started rolling my own. A processor, now matter how good they are, will never take as good care of your deer as you will.


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[4wanderingeyes]

You can pretty much buy all your own equipment used for a few hundred bucks, and you could save money off just a few deer.


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[Someday isle]

I have a lot of respect and admiration for you guys that do your own. I've done two deer "the hard way" like that. Honestly I'm not good enough at it and don't have the skills, equipment or facilities to do a decent job. I do have a couple processors that I've had great results from so it's worth it to me to have it done by a professional.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I can dehide in about 5 minutes or less, and have the meat off the bone in less then 10 minutes. After that cleaning the meat and cutting steaks takes about a half hour.


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[yoderjac]

So I just got done eating venison tacos from a first year momma doe I shot on the Missouri Opener(high temps) died quick. The deer tasted good! However before I started eating I was worried that it was going to taste bad, because of last years deer. A 2 1/2 buck that I shot during the rut (low temps) died quick. That deer tasted so bad I actually had to throw out the meat), because it was a struggle to get through a meal.(depressing after putting in a lot of effort) I did take the deer to different butchers. I don't understand why such the big difference in taste. Do you think its because of the different butchers? Or do some deer just have that gamey taste?

I've harvested many deer during my lifetime. I have found a slight taste difference between big woods deer that eat browse and acorns and farm country deer eating crops, but not much. When I was young, I took deer to a butcher, and I got some bad tasting venison. Since I started processing my own deer I've learned a lot and avoided bad tasting deer. The biggest factor in taste is how the deer is cared for.

1) Shot placement - The best is an arrow thorough the vitals. There is very little bruising of the meat and no introduction of bacteria from the entrails into the meat. A shotgun slug or rifle shot primarily kills through hydrostatic shock. This can cause significant bruising. Any shot that goes through the paunch is problematic. That introduces bacteria and usually means having to wait for the deer to die before trailing.

2) Fast field dressing - The sooner heat is removed from the body cavity the better. Heat, moisture, and bacteria are the spoilers of meat.

3) Transport of a field dressed deer - Exposure to creeks, dirt, etc. while dragging out deer can introduce bacteria. Never wash out a deer in a woodland stream. You will likely introduce much more bacteria than you remove.

4) Fast skinning - Not only is it easier to skin a deer when it is warm, it also helps remove heat.

5) Fast refrigeration - As soon as I skin a deer, I quarter it and hang it in my reach-in cooler.

6) Aging and proper temperature - Aging meat tenderizes it. You want the temp to stay above 32 and below about 38. This low temperature slows the multiplication of bacteria and thus spoilage while allowing the enzymes in the meat to break down the muscle tissue tenderizing it. I find young deer in my area don't really need to be hung to tenderize at all. For more mature deer I like to hang them for about a week.

7) Preparation - Cow fat is liquid at your body temperature but deer fat congeals at body temperature. You can get a tallow taste in your mouth if it cools. Remove as much fat as possible when preparing a cut. Heat the serving plates. Serve venison with a hot drink rather than a cold one.

When my wife serves venison to non-hunting guests without telling them, they tell her it was the best steak they ever had and ask where she bought it.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

I can dehide in about 5 minutes or less, and have the meat off the bone in less then 10 minutes. After that cleaning the meat and cutting steaks takes about a half hour.


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I cheat. I cut the back straps out and steak those. Everything else is burger. If I'm eating it there is very little fat that goes into the grinder. No way a butcher could take the time I do removing the fat and still make a $.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Big bucks go in the grinder for me, smaller deer I will steak the back straps and the rear roasts get smoked and cut into roast beef sandwich meat. The rest goes to scrap.


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[Buckly]

So what's the secret to keeping hair off the meat? That's my biggest issue and a reason mine go to the processor but, I might start doing my own again. Although I have had good luck with all the deer I've put through a processor, years ago I did get one back that was very bad taste and had to throw out.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Being I hunt out of state, I hang my deer, if it’s cold enough they stay hanging until the day before I go, I dehide them then, and just pick off clumps of hair, then cut the meat off the carcass, into a cooler. Then when I get home it all gets rinsed off before it hits the table to be cut up and cleaned.


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[yoderjac]

So what's the secret to keeping hair off the meat? That's my biggest issue and a reason mine go to the processor but, I might start doing my own again. Although I have had good luck with all the deer I've put through a processor, years ago I did get one back that was very bad taste and had to throw out.

I've never had much problem with hair in the meat except around the area of the shot where a slug or bullet can drive hair into the meat. Other than that hair has not been a problem for me. Now that I have my own farm to hunt, here is my process for what it is worth. Depending on your setup, your process will be different but their may be some things you can garner from this.

1. After I make the shot, if I don't see the deer go down, I wait about 15 minutes in the stand and then go to the impact spot and assess it. When bowhunting, I can get a lot of information from the arrow. I then mark the spot, walk back to wherever my ATV is parked and head back to camp.
2. I change out of my hunting clothes and into my retrieval clothes. This helps slow me down which is a good thing. I then head back to the impact site and begin tracking.
3. I don't field dress the deer any more. I typically have a short drag to some trail or open area where I can get my ATV. It has a Great Days deer loader on the front to help save my back. I take the deer back to camp fully intact.
4. I use a hoist setup in my barn to lift the deer by the neck and weight it.
5. Next I use a Butt-Out to pull out the lower intestines and tie them off. Keeping dropping away from the meat is important. A long narrow fillet knife works well for loosening connective tissue around the intestines if necessary.
6. I then place a plastic bin between the legs. I used to use a gut hook on my outdoor edge skinning knife to open the deer up to the sternum after removing the testicles or utter. I always found it a pain in the butt to keep a gut hook sharp. Recently I found that the make roofers blades for utility knives that work just like a gut hook. I bought a bunch of these replaceable blades for a utility knife so I don't need to sharpen gut hooks any more.
7. I let gravity help drop the entrails into the bucket. I use my skinning knife to cut through the diaphragm. I typically keep the liver and heart.
8. Once the entrails are removed, I lower the deer, place a gambrel between the legs, and hoist it up inverted. I then skin the deer.
9. Once skinned, I use a sawsall to cut off the legs and then cut the deer in half right down the spine. All of the cuts are made after that area has been skinned so the saw does not cut through hair.
10. I then use a hose to squirt down both halves of the deer. I pick off any excess fat, and stuff as I squirt.
11. I place a meat hook just above the last rib and then cut through the spine just above the hip bone. I hang the front quarter in my reach in cooler and then do the same for the other front quarter.
12. I place a meat hook between the tendon and leg bone where the gambrel was and hang the hams in the cooler.

I've have very little hair issues except possible at the impact site of the bullet or slug. In that case, I cut out that section since it is usually very bloody and bruised anyway. Anything that is fit for human consumption but not ideal goes into soup. This includes the hip bones and such.

We typically make a few different cuts of meat. First are ham stakes. I bought a bandsaw type meat saw from Harbor freight years ago. I made a bunch of improvements to it and it works pretty well. I used a cutting board and drawer slides to make a new sliding table that has significantly greater movement distance than the original. I modified a bar clamp by affixing a cutting board to it to make a fence. I use it to cut the lower legs in to ham stakes.

I fillet the back straps out. My wife likes to cook these whole and then slice them for family dinners. We don't usually do roasts. I cut everything else off the deer by hand. We make cubes of the larger sections for soups or stews. Everything else we grind. If you want ground meat to make patties you probably need to add beef or pork fat, but we don't. No fat need be added when ground meat is used for spaghetti sauce or chili or things like that. If you do want to make patties, one way to add fat is to simply mix it with ground beef.

While the saw I got from harbor freight does have a grinder, it would often clog and was a pain to clean. We got one of the larger Cabelas grinders that works great. It is very easy to clean and I've never clogged it.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[MickT]

Early on, grinding was misery. Then I found out about keeping everything cold. When I stop grinding to pack, I roughly clean it and the entire head goes into freezer. Also freeze the meat until it is firm, almost crunchy, but not quite frozen, and the grinder will eat through all the silver skin you care you feed it.


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[JFK52]

I have been going to the same local processor for the past 25 years. I always get my own meat back. Jim is an old school deer processor/butcher who takes pride in his work.
My helper on the farm processes all his own deer and he has it down to a system. He gets help from his entire family from start to finish.
I agree with everything "yoderjac" has said on this thread. All my deer are taken in from the field immediately and worked on at a station with a manual hoist and overhead hanging area. I have lights as the work is always at night and running water to rinse out the insides as soon as the guts are in a disposal barrel. The deer hauler on the back of my Suburban fits under the overhead cable system making for easy unloading and reloading. As I got older, I got smarter about how to do this entire process.
I am always amazed about how poorly some hunters take care of their deer once they are harvested.

 

[Red Picqua]

I quite often don't even gut the deer. the only time I gut them is on an ill placed shot where if hung the guts will come out. If it is in the boiler room, they are ALWAYS not gutted.

1. hang em up upside down
2. peel the hide back to the neck.
3. debone the hind 1/4's
4. peel the back straps out.
5. take off the front shoulders. (Generally junk because of the shot)
6. find the area where the tenderloins are, cut out those small vertebrae/ribs, peel them out. guts are forced down so not much pressure.
7. any past the front shoulders is a waste of time, and even the front shoulders are just peeled out and sent to the grinder.

the stuff I read up there that Jack does is almost comical. I have this whole deer hung and deboned in the matter of an hour. packaged and in the freezer in the next hour. 2 hours at the very most to the point I hung the deer.

funny someone said big bucks go to the grinder. I have never experienced big bucks being bad. Matter of fact the biggest buck I have ever shot 6.5 and was 166 inches was one of the most tender. I also do crop damage permits and the system stated above is how you process 20 deer in a night. When you have a trailer load of deer that you are hauling back, you need to have speed to get through them all. I couldn't even imagine doing that system above from Jack. Wow. I would still be doing it!!

And I have seen young does and old does taste good and taste marginal. I have yet to find an answer on how or why venison is tender or not. I would say the majority is always good??

Some may say.. you need to peel off the neck meat and take the rib meat. to each his own. If I want more venison, I just shoot more deer. simple rule. Hinds and straps are where the money is at. anything else is a waste of time.

 

[bueller]

The fat is what tastes "off" on a deer. I shot a mature buck post rut last year and the meat was mighty lean and tasty. On the contrary our mature doe have so much fat on them that it takes me much longer to trim it all away before cooking.

 

[Bill]

Some may say.. you need to peel off the neck meat and take the rib meat. to each his own. If I want more venison, I just shoot more deer. simple rule. Hinds and straps are where the money is at. anything else is a waste of time.

I always try to get some meat beyond the hinds and straps but you're right. It's a lot of time for very little meat after you get the good cuts out.