My first time butchering a deer I watched two YouTube videos, bought a $40 knife set from Amazon, and told myself “how hard can it be?”
About four hours later I had a kitchen that looked like a crime scene, two garbage bags of bone-and-silver-skin scraps, and some very confused-looking chunks of meat that were definitely not the beautiful backstrap medallions I’d imagined.
The short answer is: it’s harder than I thought. But not in the way I thought.
The First Attempt (A Comedy of Errors)
I started with the backstraps — the easy part. Got them out okay. Then I moved to the quarters and things fell apart. I kept cutting through silver skin instead of separating it. I didn’t understand the difference between muscle groups, so I was making random cuts based on nothing. The game bags were a mess. I’d gotten blood on my refrigerator handle somehow.
The worst part: I trimmed too aggressively trying to clean everything up. Probably lost five pounds of good meat to over-trimming. I’d cut away gristle, fat, and a quarter-inch of meat with it because I didn’t know where to stop.
What I Learned on Deer Number Three
The second deer was better. The third one was when I actually felt like I knew what I was doing. Here’s what changed:
- Aging matters. I don’t have a walk-in cooler. What I do have is a cheap fridge in the garage and a temperature controller. Let the carcass hang at 34-38 degrees for at least three days, up to a week. The difference in tenderness is real. First deer I processed the same day — it was tough, and I didn’t know why.
- A bone saw is a waste of money. I bought one for my second deer. Used it once. A sharp boning knife does the whole job, and you keep more meat off the bone. The only thing a saw does is spread bone dust into your meat.
- Separate by muscle group, not by body part. Don’t think “front quarter.” Think: tricep, shoulder roast, shank. Watch a butcher break down a cow — they follow seams, not cuts. Same thing on a deer, just smaller.
- Grind the ugly stuff. Go with a coarse plate first. I wasted so much trim on my first deer because I thought if it wasn’t a clean roast, it was garbage. Nah. Neck meat, shank meat, trimmings — grinder. Add 15% beef fat. Best burger you’ll ever eat.
The Tool Setup That Actually Works
After three deer I settled on this:
- One good boning knife, semi-flexible, 5-6 inch blade. Victorinox or Dexter. $30. Not the $200 hand-forged Damascus thing.
- A steel for honing. You’ll touch up the edge every fifteen minutes. Wet meat dulls blades faster than you think.
- A small paring knife for detail work around joints.
- Game bags and a clean work surface. I use a folding plastic table covered with a disposable tablecloth. Not fancy, but washable.
- A medium grinder — the Kitchener #12 works fine for one or two deer a year. If you’re doing more than five deer a season, step up to something faster.
- Freezer paper and masking tape. Vacuum sealers are nice but freezer paper works and costs nothing.
The Part I Actually Enjoy Now
Here’s the weird thing: I used to dread processing. Now I look forward to it. It’s the last part of the hunt — the part where the animal becomes food. Not a picture, not a rack on the wall. Food you’re going to cook for people.
The first time I served venison burgers from a deer I shot, field-dressed, aged, and butchered myself — that was the meal where hunting made full sense to me. Every part was mine. The shot, the drag, the knife work, the grinder, the grill. Nobody else touched it.
If you’ve been paying a processor for years, I’m not knocking it. But try doing one yourself. Even if you screw it up. Even if you lose some meat to stupid trimming mistakes. You’ll learn more about deer anatomy than you ever will from a diagram, and the next one will be better.