How to Make Deer Taste Like Beef

I'one thousand often amazed at the people, deer hunters included, who tell me they just don't like venison. That statement is normally followed by a qualifier: information technology'south tough; it'south gamy; it's dry. And so on.

I've eaten a lot of good deer meat. Only I've eaten some really bad deer meat, too. I'm only a self-trained butcher, but I've been processing five to vi deer a season for the improve part of 20 years. When information technology comes to cooking, I'm no Scott Leysath or Michael Pendley, either, but my wife, kid, and I practise eat venison in some grade 2 or three meals per week, year-round. I think we eat pretty expert.

Some things consistently make venison actually tasty. And some things will ruin the flavor, too. Here are a dozen of the worst offenders.

1. Poor Field Care

In the real world of hunting, things happen. We all brand bad shots on occasion. And while we know not to "push" a deer that's been hit marginally, realize that the longer information technology takes for the animal to dice and the farther information technology runs, the more adrenaline and lactic acid builds up in the animal's system and muscles. Ever had a drinking glass of skillful-tasting acid? I didn't remember so.

The faster a deer hits the ground and can be field-dressed, the meliorate the meat will be. Some of the best-tasting deer I've ever had take been shot in the head with a gun. The animal is killed instantly, and the meat is uncontaminated by blood and entrails from the breast cavity. That said, head shots are risky. The lungs remain the best place to aim.

2. Failure to Absurd Quickly

Internal bacteria rapidly takes over after death, expelling gases and causing the animal to bloat. That's the first step in decomposition. This process is accelerated in warm weather. Larn how to field-dress a deer, and get to it ASAP. Removing those organs is the offset step in cooling the beast downwards.

On a cold night — in the mid-30s or lower — a deer can be left hanging skin-on overnight. In especially cold weather condition, some hunters like to age a deer in such a manner for several days (more on aging in a bit). I live in a warm climate, and most of the deer I shoot in a season's fourth dimension are during early bow season, so I don't have that luxury. When I find my deer and get it field-dressed, I plan on having it skinned, quartered and on ice within the hour.

3. Shooting the Incorrect Deer

Modern deer hunters are in melody with deer herd management. We've learned of practices that contribute to the health of a herd, including which deer to shoot. Given the adventure, almost of us want to shoot a mature cadet with big antlers. Me included.

Old bucks are perfectly edible merely rarely the best. Muscles get tougher with use and stringy with age. An sometime buck that's spent a full autumn fighting, rubbing, scraping, and chasing does will be lean. Look chewy steaks. Same thing goes for an old doe that's burned all her summer calories producing milk to nurse fawns. I commonly brand hamburger, sausage, and hasty out of such animals.

For steaks, you tin't beat a young, crop-fed deer. Deer that spend a summer munching on corn and soybeans have an easier life — and more than fattening food sources — than those that spend a lifetime wandering the big timber in search of scattered mast and scan. The tastiest venison I've ever eaten came from a 1 1/2-year-onetime forkhorn shot through the neck nearly a picked cornfield during early bow flavour.

That immature deer had zip to do all summertime except become fat. Am I saying to whack every young buck that walks past? No. Simply I am saying if a deer for the freezer is your goal, young bucks from the early flavor are usually adept eating and accept more meat than does to kick. If yous want to shoot one and it's legal, go for it. You lot don't owe anyone an apology.

4. Failure to Age / Purge

I've been told that crumbling venison on ice is a mistake, just I don't purchase information technology.**

The mercury rises to a higher place 50 degrees on nigh days of deer season in my area. That's too warm to let a deer hang, then icing them down is my only selection. I line the bottom of a cooler with a layer of ice, add my deer quarters on top of that, and then cover them with more water ice.

I go along the cooler in the shade with the drain plug open up and on a downhill incline. That'southward very important. The idea is to let the ice slowly cook and bleed from the cooler. This not merely keeps the meat cold, only purges an amazing amount of blood from it. Do this for at least two days, checking the ice a couple of times per day in especially warm conditions. (Note: If yous do this without a drain plug, you'll get the opposite event — deer quarters that are substantially marinated in bloody, muddied water. Does that sound tasty? Didn't think so.)

5. Muddied Knives and Ability Saws

A deer's legs are held together just like yours: with ball-and-socket joints and connective tissue. Acquire where these are, and you tin can cut an entire skinned deer apart within minutes with a expert knife. Laying into a deer'south legs and spine with a power saw puts bone marrow, bone fragments, and whatever mess was on the saw blade into your venison. Would yous flavor your steak with bone fragments and forest shavings? Didn't think so.

I keep 3 sharp knives handy when I'm cleaning a deer. One is for field-dressing. This 1 will be a stout knife with a drib point for prying through bone. Some other is for skinning. Though a skinning blade with a gut hook is nice to have, I've been using a long-bladed fillet knife the last couple of seasons, and it works beautifully. These knives can exist honed to a razor's edge and quickly resharpened. Other than chop-chop dulling a knife's edge by slicing through hair, skinning is not taxing on a pocketknife's blade, so a flexible fillet pocketknife works fine. Finally, I bandy over to another knife — again, with a heavier blade — for my quartering. The point to take from all this is to keep your knives separate and so y'all reduce contamination of the meat with blood and hair.

vi. Poor Trimming

Unlike beef fat, deer fat does non taste skilful. Neither does the sinew, silver skin, and other connective tissues belongings the various muscle groups together. Venison, whether destined for steaks or hamburger, should exist trimmed gratis of anything that's not rich, red meat.

7. Burger Is Too Lean

Ironically, because fat needs to be trimmed abroad for the best flavour, venison often becomes too lean for hamburger purposes. Patties fabricated for grilled double cheeseburgers oft fall apart soon after hitting the hot grate. The solution is to add together some fatty, either beef or pork, when you're grinding venison. Nosotros use inexpensive bacon, mixed at a charge per unit of 5:one (5 pounds of venison per pound of bacon). It makes our patties stick together, and the bacon adds a great flavor.

viii. Using a Cutting-Rate Processor

Some commercial deer processors exercise a great job. But some practice not. I in one case took a deer to a processor, filled out my paperwork, and watched him disappear to the freezer room. He weighed my animate being and returned with a corresponding amount of packaged, frozen venison. "We mix all our meat together and package a lot of burger at in one case," he said.

For all I knew, the deer I was getting could've been gut-shot, left to hang in 90-degree oestrus, and and so dragged along a blacktop route en route to the processor. No thanks. Insist on getting your ain deer back when yous take processing work washed.

9. Marinade Problems

"Get-go, soak for 48 hours in Italian dressing …"

Information technology's enough to brand a venison lover cringe. Await, Italian dressing and BBQ sauce sense of taste fine, but y'all'd ameliorate exist a ravenous fan of them if you're using them to soak venison steaks for two days. At the end of those two days, your steaks will gustation just like … Italian dressing or BBQ sauce.

There's nothing incorrect with a little splash of flavor enhancement, but try lighter flavors that complement the season of deer meat, and continue the marinade time short. My usual maximum is three or four hours. A favorite marinade for grilled venison steaks is a mixture of olive oil, a spoonful of balsamic vinegar, a spoonful of Worcestershire sauce, some minced garlic (with the juice), a squirt of mustard, and salt and pepper to sense of taste.

10. Cooked Besides Absurd, for Also Long

Venison recipes, especially grilled recipes, often call for removing the meat after a couple of minutes per side. For many, the effect of that is "This is raw and gross." And and then they place it back on the grill. After a while, it turns grayness, chewy, dry … and however gross.

Grilled venison is best when eaten with a medium-rare interior, but the exterior needs to exist cooked. In gild to practise that, your grill needs to be hot enough to instantly sear the meat surface and lock in those flavors and juices. Flip your venison steaks 1 time. If you don't take dainty grill marks after iii or four minutes, the grate isn't hot plenty.

11. Improper Packaging and Freezing

Freezer burn down doesn't aid the flavor of ice cream or annihilation else, deer meat included. Modern vacuum packaging systems are handy and relieve on space, but I've used some that resulted in freezer-burned meat later a few months. If you're buying a vacuum-sealing unit, go a proficient 1.

We bundle our deer the old-fashioned way, first wrapping each portion in articulate plastic wrap, and so covering that with heavy-duty freezer paper. Every packet is clearly labeled, and then we non only know what cut of meat is inside and when it was killed, merely also which deer it came from. If 1 animal proves especially tough, we know to use that meat for tiresome-cooking recipes.

12. Getting Too Fancy

There's no large mystery or hugger-mugger to cooking venison. Treat it as you would treat very lean beef, and yous'll get outstanding results day in and out. We substitute deer burger for beef hamburger in virtually everything — chili, tacos, sloppy Joes, burgers on the grill, spaghetti, and who knows what else. We never plan on a "wild game dark" at the house. We just plan to melt dinner, and that usually means wild game by default.

(**Editor'southward Note: We originally posted this article in October 2012. Information technology's been updated with some new photos. I however stick to all the communication here, too — except that I have come to prefer dry-aging venison in a fridge or walk-in cooler whenever possible, over aging it on ice in a cooler. Still, dry aging is not always an choice, and when it'due south not, deer meat on ice tastes just fine. — Will Brantley, author)

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Source: https://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/articles/12-reasons-why-your-venison-tastes-like-hell

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