How far have you gone to use your elk trimmings?

[44hunter45]

I'm doing a kitchen experiment. I'm looking to increase how much of a kill I put to use.

I am rendering out the fat from my cow elk taken in August. The process is like doing beef or pork, except you have to wash the product down a couple of times with boiling water. I do this in a triple boiler (Soup pot with two nested colanders. ) You then reduce what is in the bottom of the soup pot. I pour it into a large glass bowl and let it settle. On top you get beautiful white tallow for bullet casting, soap, candles, etc. In the bottom you get collagen gel. In the middle you get something like bone broth.

What I'm left with is a mash of mixed meat protein and softened gristle/sinew. Unspiced, it has a bitter aftertaste. Color wise, it's an unappealing "greige". Playing with sausage spices, I can make it tasty really good. I reminds me of liverwurst color and texture wise, but tastes like breakfast sausage.

Historically, I have reground this into patties of dog food. But we are dog bereft at the moment. I'm sitting on a few pounds of this by-product.

Has anyone gone this far and tried stuffing something like this? I'm thinking I could make an interesting elkwurst.

 

[Deez Nutz]

I applaud your resourcefulness but......





My wife renders tallow from beef fat and I wouldn't very badly want to eat the leftovers. I suppose if it doesn't bother you it couldn't hurt you?

 

[44hunter45]

I applaud your resourcefulness but......

View attachment 387684

DM sent

 

[rjthehunter]

Elk or deer tallow is a no go for me.

My fiancé and I just got done rendering the fat from my bear I shot last week, but that is a much different kind of fat!

 

[44hunter45]

Elk or deer tallow is a no go for me.

My fiancé and I just got done rendering the fat from my bear I shot last week, but that is a much different kind of fat!

No tallow in the leavings, I wouldn't be asking this question if there were. Even a little bit would ruin it.

The tallow is all put up for my cast bullet lube. I also have a friend that likes it for soap making.

 

[44hunter45]

I'm going to the source. I emailed Hank Shaw today about this. I want to see what he says about it.

 

[Potsie]

I give that stuff to our chickens. They turn it into eggs.


Good trade.

 

[44hunter45]

I give that stuff to our chickens. They turn it into eggs.


Good trade.

Ha! MRS45 informed me that our old chicken coop is to be converted back to a storage shed. Guess who gets to do that? Step one, shovel chicken crap out to the garden.

We buy free range eggs from a gal at church for $3/dozen. That is a good trade right there.

 

[mevertsen]

I know someone who uses up the tendons and all to make gellatin of sorts. Not sure about the fat rendering from elk or deer.

I make lard from my pigs' fat.

The pig lard is easy and is still a lot of work, or at least messy anyway.

I take the meat off of the bones of deer.

I let the scavengers have the rest.

I certain applaud the effort though.

 

[gouch]

My daughter got a new kitten one day and for reasons I don't remember the little thing was at my house while I was butchering something. Deer or elk, I don't remember. The kitten loved the smell of that raw meat, so I kept throwing it little scraps all day long.

The cat got really sick awhile later, so she took it to the vet. The vet scolded her and asked her what the hell had she been feeding the poor thing. It had worms he had never even seen before.

Oops! I guess cat food is a bad idea.

 

[buffybr]

I've been doing all of my "at home" wild game butchering since 1965 when I shot my first deer. I used to save and eat the heart and liver, but now they go into the dog food bucket. Even for my burger meat, I trim off anything white and as much silver skin as I can, and that all goes into the dog food bucket, along with a little fat. Large pieces of fat go to the dump.

I cook (outside) everything in the dog food bucket, then coarse grind it and freeze it in zip sandwich bags to later add a little flavor to my dog's dry food.

I have enough other things and projects to do that I don't need spend time rendering wild game fat.

My GF and I went to Hawaii last month to celebrate our 25th anniversary and I took one day to shoot an axis deer and brought all 30 pounds of his meat home. Yesterday I processed 20 pounds of that meat into burger. (Don't ask what the cost per pound that burger was!) I bought beef fat at Safeway (at $1.98/pound) that came pre-packaged, and I had about a pound that I didn't use, so yesterday I threw that onto my house roof. The magpies cleaned all of that up in about an hour.

 

[brymoore]

I’ve ground scraps into dog food.