Posted: 11/15/2025 10:35:31 AM EDT
| Hoping to get my 1st deer this season. If I am lucky what are some good cuts/butchering recommendations for the deer processor? I know some people like venison sticks and ground venison but I'm hoping some of you can recommend an "order" I could place with the deer processor? My family likes steaks, roasts I'm guessing back straps and tenderloins? Would it be best for me to try to extract the back straps at the time of harvest? |
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I keep the two big roasts out of each hind quarter for roasts, jerky, pastrami, canned venison, etc. Backstraps for steaks. Breakfast strips get eaten seared, blue rare with onions and garlic. The rest is ground with pork trim for burger. ETA the burger gets made into...well, burgers, plus snack sticks, meat loaf, etc. and used in any dish subbed for ground beef. I don't like buying ground beef. |
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We make ours into smoked brats and ring bolonge. Everything else is Hamburger and honey BBQ sticks. The Hamburger I mix myself 50/50 with cow burger. The roasts sometimes get tough so we tend to grind them up keep some steaks out of the back straps though. I usually buy ground beef at Sams club in bulk to get a good deal 50/50 mix no one even knows it's venison. Straight venison is good too but some people are more sensitive to taste. |
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Backstrap/loin & tender loins, sirloin steaks, neck, shoulder/chuck & rump roasts, bone in shank steaks or leave whole for shank roasts, flanks either steak or cube for stew meat, the ribs saw in half & smoke/grill them, tounge & cheek fry up a for breakfast sides with overeasy eggs. When you bone/scrape along with all bits & pieces dor jerky or grind up for burger. What you do with heart, liver, kidneys & rest of guts is you're own choice, dogs will eat the hell out of them. The brain you save for when you tan the hide. |
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I grind everything but the backstraps and loins. Ground mixed with pork fat so it doesn't dry out when you cook it. Used to do a basic cut with roasts and steaks but its just easier to grind it all up. Gets ate faster at my house too. I make bologna, jerky, snack sticks, sausage from it then taco meat, chili, burgers, etc. |
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Maybe not the advice you want, but try to self butcher at least once. It's a great thing to learn and really simple. I watched some butchering videos and got a couple good knives. It's super easy if you've got a few feet of counter space and a large cutting board. It's pretty boring for some people, but for me everything gets turned into a roast or stew meat and vacuum sealed, except the backstraps for steaks - I always eat them before they need freezing. I do it in fairly large pieces as well. I think my wife and I processed my last deer in an hour. If you want snacky stuff you know is good from a specific place with a good recipe, by all means, use some of your meat for that, but even that stuff is better homemade and you know it's your deer, not a community grind. Edit: here's a video. They have other whole deer videos too. I can't remember which is the best one to watch. https://youtu.be/PDdq0gVpvBI?si=NYuuaI9TIcbiwICJ |
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We process about 12 deer a year. I have no shame in grinding a whole deer. Something people don't realize is that there is not really alot of meat on a whitetail. Especially a decent doe which can be 100 lbs dressed. Your only going to get 50 lbs of meat. If you like ground deer (We do - we don't buy any beef all year and strictly eat vension for our red meat) when you have all the cute things like jerky, snack sticks and summer sausage done. They use all the best cuts for that. That all comes out of the rear legs and the better portion of the front legs. Then everything left over is ground. The shanks, neck, skirts, rib meat, and all the trimmings, then people wonder why their ground deer taste bad. If you like ground meat you can save your backstraps and then grind the whole deer up and not have to add any fat to it and you will have some quality ground venison. |
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First off, I highly suggest butchering your own deer. There's nothing better than going field to table. Really doesn't take that much equipment and the time it takes is well worth it. It's not hard at all...I was doing it at 12 years old with some pointers. Watch a few YT videos and you'll be golden. It really depends on what you want. The back straps and the inner loins are where it's at for eating as steak. Keep these medium rare at most and they will be juicy and delicious. If you want meat for jerky, keep the top/bottom rounds whole to slice. You can also turn these into pastrami, or have them ground. Font shoulders aren't much for anything but ground /canned. I know some people that will smoke them whole. I personally process all of my deer. I've never had one at a processor. I keep the back straps and inner loins for steaks. I don't cut them into steaks, I cook them as 8" hunks to medium rare and then slice and serve. WAY easier to hit the right temperature that way. As steaks is VERY easy to over cook them. If I take a roast it's the sirloin tip roast. The top/bottom/eye rounds are either canned or used for Jerky. Everything else is canned. We do not grind anything, I personally think it's a waste of time and energy. Canned venison is delicious and takes up zero freezer space. We get a half beef a year so we have TONS of ground beef, zero need to grind venison. Canned venison can be used for everything ground can with the exception of burgers or meatloaf. Everything else, it works just as well but it's a shredded texture instead of ground. |
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Been doing my own processing for close to 40 years. I like steaks and as many as I can get. Backstraps: depending on size of deer, I cut into 2 or 3 sections and package whole. This way I can either cut steaks later if needed or cook whole. Rear quarters: I separate all the major muscle groups; top round, bottom round, sirloin all get cut to steaks. Eye of round stay whole. Front quarters: Whole shoulder bone in roast or ground depends on size and how many I still have whole. Shanks both front and rear: Kept whole and they are awesome in the crockpot for 12 hours and makes great pulled taco meat. Neck: gets ground Trimmings and Rib meat and other connective muscles get ground. All ground gets frozen as 100% version. I mix pork when I decide what I'm doing with it. Snack sticks/summer sausage etc gets pork mixed when I make it. I like no pork mixed for chili and taco meat. Tenderloins and Heart never make it more than a few hours before they are consumed. It's always my 1st meal or 2. |
First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.-Roland Deschain, of Gilead
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The big muscles in the hams are as good as backstraps. Backstraps, tenderloins, I grind a lot of the rest and make sausage. The neck can be ground or made into stew meat. I mix fat with the grind to make sausage, but my grind is always 100% deer meat (I don’t generally mix with beef or pork for general use). I have a deer hanging in the cooler that needs to be butchered this weekend. I’m going to take the top part of the backstraps with the ribs and make some “tomahawk” chops (I’ll French the ribs and throw that in the grind bag). I’m also going to crosscut the shanks and do deer shank “Osso Buco”. These are just some new stuff I want to try. The most important thing: get the guts out ASAP. Rinse out the carcass well. Cool it quickly. When you process, take ALL of the fat out and get rid of it. Remove as much of the silverskin and connective tissue as possible. Keep your meat cold. Vacuum seal, get all the air out, and freeze, and it will keep all year. If you treat the meat right, it won’t be gamey or have nasty, inedible bits in it. In my opinion, 99% of the people who claim they don’t like the taste of deer meat don’t process it correctly. |
Not fly enough to be halal....
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I just butchered two deer this week. I usually go with backstaps, roasts from the back quarters, then stew meat and ground from the rest. The roasts can be used to make jerky down the road. I found de-boning the quarters then making the individual cuts to be quickest/easiest. |