The meat

Here is a pic of the processed meat and the seasoning I have applied. I assure you that I am using more cure than appears in the photo. I take this seasoned meat and place it into my vacuum sealer and seal it up. Then  I place it into the refrigerator and let it sit over night. Tomorrow I will add the marinade and seal it back up for another day. In a day or so I will post the drying of the jerky.

Cutting the jerky meat and seasoning

I can't figure out how to post more than one photo but just hang with me I will one day but till then, lets look at making the jerky, I use a slicer my wife bought for me for like 50 bucks at some closeout store and I love it. Just keep the meat cold and ready to go thru the slicer as the colder it is the better. Set it for 3/8 and slice the muscles across the grain add your cure. Let me be clear here you are eating raw meat here not cooked in a oven or slow cooker and dried at 120 degrees till it will break when you bend it. Def in the range for nasty critters to grow and live causing  some discomfort to your lower bowel. I use a cure that I made, not Nitrates or Nitrites, but 2 cups salt 1 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of garlic and paprika. I like to add a liberal application of coarse ground pepper to this. Check out the next post.

Making deer into meat

Here are the major muscle groups that I will use in Jerky notice how clean the bone is in the picture. You will not get this in your local deer butchering shop. they cut the easy chunks and grind them into burger and loose sausage. Here you get to use all of your deer or most of it anyway, what I don't use I let the Tom Brown have for crunching on. Now here is where I differ from some others. Many people cut their jerky meat into long strips but the grain and fibers of the meat grow along those same lines making eating jerky near impossible, especially with my choppers! I cut mine cross the grain and about 3/8 thick this makes for easy eating and the jerky making easy for me

The process of sausage making and butchering your deer

Okay we have our deer and it has been hanging in the cooler for the past 24 hours or so so let us begin to turn it into something. I want to make sausages of some form and some jerky for the wife and I, so lets look at how we are going to turn those big pieces of meat into what we want.

First you got to have some place to work. either your kitchen or your garage, I have a building built by Sheds are Us that I put white sanitary wall board in and painted the floor a gray. I built a table taller than most as that was the most comfortable for me and covered it with goat hair fiberglass to seal the surface. I never cut on this but work off of it with a cutting board. It is not big but it is perfect for me to process my deer in.
Last post we took the deer and cut it into it's major parts. Let's take a hind quarter and break it down into its major muscle groups for making some jerky. The other parts we will use in our ground meat that we will use in sausage. Using your boning knife take a very cold hind quarter and on the thin side of the haunch cut from the top to the shank Use the tip of your knife to cut entirely around the bone , separating the meat at the knuckle. You now have a big piece of boneless haunch and the major muscle groups are visible to you. Use the tip of a sharp knife and separate at the seams, use your steel liberally to keep your knife sharp. Place the major muscles in the freezer while you bone out the rest of the haunch for sausage meat. Check out the next post for how handle the rest of the meat

getting started with the sausage process

Here we go with our sausage making post. You can tell I have harvested the doe in the picture, it took all day but that is why I hunt, I got to  read a good book, took a nap in the sun shine outside, ate all my food before 8 am and watched the world wake up, now there is my sun rise service and I enjoy it often I tell ya. I am not going to post the skinning and taking apart pics because some may not like that, let me know though and I have no problem posting on how to butcher either. So I got this nice little doe at about 45 yds. with a blackpowder rifle in Maryland. Head shot with a .490 round ball and .20 patch, 70 grains of FFF not a massive load but real accurate in my gun. She dropped instantly and had no Ideal what just happened. The four that were with her another  big doe and three little ones stayed right there and continued to eat, running off only when I went to pick her up.
I like to hang em from the head, my dad from the hind legs, but the key is getting them cooled off quickly. My son who worked in a deer processing shop showed me the quick way to take care of em and I use his method everytime with little mess.
When it comes time to gut the animal I hang it by the neck and starting at the top make an incision just through the skin at the brisket and work the knife down to the anus. I do not cut the gut sack yet and it stays in place. Now I make a small incision and with two fingers just under the sack I slip my knife in and open up the stomach cavity never touching the stomach or intestine as this will taint the meat big time. I have a tub under the deer and the internals just fall into the bucket. Taking a saw I split the brisket and cut loose the lungs and heart dropping everything in the bucket. I then tie off the intestine keeping the deer poop inside and remove everything that is left. Open up the body cavity and rinse it out real good taking a towel to wipe it dry when you are done, as water will ruin good meat fast. Allow the meat to hang and cool in the evening air, but hang em high as critters are looking for an easy meal. I like to drop off my gut pile and hides in an cut field away from where I hunt, but where the foxes and buzzards can find em quick. Believe me when I tell you bald Eagles love a deer carcass and make beautiful pictures, and foxes make good targets!!!
Okay lets get the hide off of the deer. Once again I have the deer doing the Saddam and using a very sharp small knife I cut around all four legs just under the knuckle, and split the legs up to where I cut the brisket. now I cut all the way around the neck and down the throat area to the brisket, staying just under the skin not cutting the meat. Working my small knife I get the hide working down and pull it off, usually it will come with very little knife work down to the hams. Using the same small knife I split the hide on the hams and pull it the rest of the way off. Now my deer is naked, cold, and bare. The hams are attached by a joint and socket so using my butcher knife I cut the hams and use my small knife to take the hams off laying them on the clean hide. The front shoulders are not attached with a socket just tendons and ligaments, follow the meat and they come off in one piece also also going onto the clean hide. Using a very sharp small knife I remove the outside tenderloins (back straps) and the inside loins or the true tenderloin. Next I separate the body from the neck and then the head from the neck saving a killer neck roast. I place all this in pans or hang in the cooler box till I am ready to process into sausages. Next we will butcher the meat!

Lets make some sausage

Okay so you want to make some sausage so let's start at the beginning first you have to get your meat, which in my case is deer meat mixed with pork for the fat. I buy 2 Boston Butts from the bulk store (Sams) and put em in the hanging cooler I have for the deer. I have it set just at 32 degrees and it makes the meat nice and tight to work with. Then I go to the fast food market (my deer stand) and select a deer for the job. I like a nice doe  not a real young one but a nice size deer that will make it worthwhile, the trail cam works wonders here. Now make sure you are ready to do this as deer are not real cooperative always. Sometimes they spook or just don't show up, but you have to be prepared every time you go into the woods so that you can deal with the deer after it is harvested. I keep my meat shop ready and clean so if I do happen to get a shot I am ready here at home, and the cooler box I plug in before I leave every time to go hunt! I worked in a butcher shop as a kid and my dad taught me how to work a knife and turn hanging meat into table meat. It is not hard to do and I suggest reading up on the process if you are going to give it a try. Next lets talk about the harvest. A deer that is wounded releases a ton of adrenaline and causes the meat to tighten up and be tough, so when harvesting I like to go for a spine shot or a head shot, both dispatch the animal instantly and the meat is not tainted. So lets go see if we can find that deer in the picture and get started.

I am back

Okay I have been away for a bit just had to rewind some. This summer was not real good to me had some teeth pulled (9) of em and I got to tell you that set me back physically and financially. You know how good your insurance is when you start to use it, and mine is kinda weak. So I sold my Bonita boat, went into depression, and bought a four wheeler. and paid for my dental work. But I am back in full swing now and ready for the season, so stick with me and get on board cause I got some neat stuff I want to share with all of you.First thing is we are going to make sausages from our deer. I know you all like burger and chili, spaghetti sauce and such but I am telling you take it to a whole nother level and make some sausage. There are kits available at Gander or on line, but I will tell you this if you smoke the sausage you got to use a cure or your meat will spoil. Yes you can make your own cure, but I like to use Prague number 2 for dry salami, and number one for cased sausage. Come on let;s get going with that deer sausage Bill!