Butchering - Silver, tallow, and tendons

[Pucky Freak]

Here is one way to process game, my preferred method because it’s quick and the finished cuts are to my liking. Feel free to critique.

2-year-old WT buck, taken 11/2. He had quite a lot of tallow still on him for being in the early rut, so butchering was slower than expected.

As mentioned in my hunt log, I aim to remove 100% of the tallow, but about 85% silver and 90% tendon tissue in order to expedite the process.

First cut is neck/brisket

Anything thick enough to grab between 2 fingers gets removed

And when it’s thin enough to tear it gets left on the meat - blue circle is just starting to tear. Grey circle is thicker and gets cut off.

Quick V-shaped cuts with a very sharp knife are my friend to remove tallow and a small amount of surrounding meat.

Finished cut has a small amount of silver and connective tissue, and is ready for the grind pile or wrapped as a slow-cook recipie cut.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Next up another example of quick v-cut to remove tallow.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Anything you can grip gets cut


Again, I’ll pull off, then cut, as much silver as I can before it tears, and the little remaining is left on the meat

 

[Pucky Freak]

Whole shoulder silver and tallow before


And then after when 10-15% of silver (mass, not surface area) is left. I’ve found that this thin stuff (silver) cooks off or grinds up no problem. Try to get every little piece off takes forever.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Rear ham before


And after, with as close to 100% of tallow removed, as it really has terrible mouth texture if any of it remains on the meat

 

[EYJONAS!]

I gotta start processing my own stuff I supply and demand is a real bitch right now in the meat cutting game and they know it. I just popped 400 to get my bull cut and wrapped

 

[Pucky Freak]

Lastly, we’ll take a closer look at tendons. This first cut removes a strong majority of tendon tissue, and wastes just a little meat. The remaining white tendon tissue above the cut gets filleted off the like fish skin, leaving just a tiny bit of translucent tendon tissue at the far edges of where it transitions into the flesh (white circle)


Halfway done removing tendon, silver and tallow...


And finally the finished roast. The little remaining white stuff cooks off in a slower cook roast, OR you can slice this 90 degrees to the grain and have some great streaks!

That’s it - hopefully someone found this helpful, or can show me an area I could improve

 

[kwyeewyk]

I'd say that's about how I do it, I used to try to remove all the silver too and not only does it take forever but you end up wasting more meat too.

 

[brockel]

I gotta start processing my own stuff I supply and demand is a real bitch right now in the meat cutting game and they know it. I just popped 400 to get my bull cut and wrapped

That’s a good grinder right there

 

[EYJONAS!]

That’s a good grinder right there

Dude, I know....I felt violated when it happened

 

[F250]

Pretty much the same method and goals for me too.

 

[Slm864]

I gotta start processing my own stuff I supply and demand is a real bitch right now in the meat cutting game and they know it. I just popped 400 to get my bull cut and wrapped

I have always butchered all my own game. I enjoy doing it and it ensures your getting it exactly the way you like. I use the same methods @ElkFever2 described very nicely. I did take my elk 2 years ago to my butcher though and he only charged me $70. He does several elk a year in between beef and thought it was a fair price. No complaints on my end.

 

[shootbrownelk]

I have always butchered all my own game. I enjoy doing it and it ensures your getting it exactly the way you like. I use the same methods @ElkFever2 described very nicely. I did take my elk 2 years ago to my butcher though and he only charged me $70. He does several elk a year in between beef and thought it was a fair price. No complaints on my end.

For $70.00 I'd never butcher my own elk again. Wow, what a deal.

 

[EYJONAS!]

Yeah I need to do something the pricing is absolutely ridiculous. It's exactly why I started doing my own skulls to.

For 250 id do that which is what I usually have payed. You guys wanna hear something that'll make a guy sick....... one time I payed 650

My cousin got a bunch of specialty shit done and he was over 1k

 

[lpshunter29]

Thanks for sharing.

I did my own goat this year and made quite a few mistakes in this regard.

Didn't look into prices beforehand but it sounds like I'll be perfecting home butchering over the next few years...

 

[Art Vandeley]

Yeah I need to do something the pricing is absolutely ridiculous. It's exactly why I started doing my own skulls to.

For 250 id do that which is what I usually have payed. You guys wanna hear something that'll make a guy sick....... one time I payed 650

My cousin got a bunch of specialty shit done and he was over 1k

They charge more than what’s on their list price in my most recent experience. I just had 2 quarters (skinned) made into breakfast sausage at a local place. Ended up being close to $13/#, when their list price is $7.99/#. Didn’t realize till I got home, and for the difference in $20-30 I didn’t call them on it.

 

[2rocky]

They charge more than what’s on their list price in my most recent experience. I just had 2 quarters (skinned) made into breakfast sausage at a local place. Ended up being close to $13/#, when their list price is $7.99/#. Didn’t realize till I got home, and for the difference in $20-30 I didn’t call them on it.

often the price of Sausage making is the rate plus cost of pork they add to the game meat. Most Sausage is 50% pork shoulder, 50% game meat and spices. My last batch of 30# of sausage was the rate plus 15# of shoulder at $2.99 per pound

 

[Bambistew]

Good stuff. I tend to leave on some of the outside "casing" tendons and silver skin and stopped cutting steaks a long time ago. Roasts freeze better and last longer. I just trim off when I pull out of the freezer, and cut into steaks, chunks or roast it up whole. I tend to leave in quite a lot of the smaller tendons, depending on how its cooked, they will either just soften and basically dissolve, or can just be cut out when eating. One of my favorite cuts is a neck roast out of a pressure cooker... I don't find they have any off putting flavor when tendons are cooked with the meat. Chunking as roasts, and leaving in tendons saves a lot of time when packaging too. I do trim off all fat, except on sheep... I leave some on, it cooks up well unlike deer/elk/moose/bou.

 

[Jmnhunter]

Great pics and explanations!
Only thing I would do is keep the shanks as is and slow cook them in a dutch oven later and all of the tendons break down!

 

[PsRpOiGrRiAtM]

Great tutorial. We've always processed our own, as my family were meat cutters for 2 generations. However, it's only been in the last couple years that I've grown to appreciate cleaning the meat up as much as possible, like you're doing, and have found that the taste of the meat has improved greatly. Growing up, I just expected deer to taste like deer. Pan-fried until it was gray all the way through. Now, I have a little more sophisticated (ha!) palate, and my wife and boys sure do enjoy backstrap and tenderloin medallions that are free from tendons/silver. Thanks for the tip on the v-cut for the tallow.