Deer Processing in Montezuma - 23 FEB 2014
So it's a Saturday in February and we got nothing better to do than process our deer that we had harvested last year. Davey, Re-Phil and I head south at 0600. We are to meet at Rob Vincent's house before 0800, since he has all the equipment to process the deer with, and he cooks us breakfast, and he puts up with us. That last one - that's the important bit.
We arrive and have breakfast with Rob's Dad, Meg's boyfriend Jeremy, and Rob. Mush, homemade bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, fresh homemade sausage patties, homemade tomato juice, and coffee. Win.
We start processing about 0845. We mix roughly 70-30% deer to pork ratio based on weight. This is not exact. Sometimes it 75-25. But we attempt to get a 25# mix together each time since that is what fits in the stuffer. Sometimes we have made too much in one batch. No biggie. We keep going...
We started with the salami. We put the deer and pork chunks of meat into a bin, and then stir in the seasoning and preservatives. We then coarse grind the batch. We switch to a finer grinding wheel and run it through again. We add water (or beer) to ensure we have the right consistency and put that batch in the stuffer. We get just over 1# of meat into the sleeves for salami. We ground four batches for salami. Here's a picture of one box that is ready to be smoked.
When the salami was finished, we started on the brats. We do the same thing, but make a thinner (more water / beer) batch and add cheese. We stuff these into pork intestines and hand roll them to whatever size we want. Here's a shot of on intestine stuffed and ready to be rolled into "bun" sized brats.
We arrive and have breakfast with Rob's Dad, Meg's boyfriend Jeremy, and Rob. Mush, homemade bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, fresh homemade sausage patties, homemade tomato juice, and coffee. Win.
We start processing about 0845. We mix roughly 70-30% deer to pork ratio based on weight. This is not exact. Sometimes it 75-25. But we attempt to get a 25# mix together each time since that is what fits in the stuffer. Sometimes we have made too much in one batch. No biggie. We keep going...
We started with the salami. We put the deer and pork chunks of meat into a bin, and then stir in the seasoning and preservatives. We then coarse grind the batch. We switch to a finer grinding wheel and run it through again. We add water (or beer) to ensure we have the right consistency and put that batch in the stuffer. We get just over 1# of meat into the sleeves for salami. We ground four batches for salami. Here's a picture of one box that is ready to be smoked.
When the salami was finished, we started on the brats. We do the same thing, but make a thinner (more water / beer) batch and add cheese. We stuff these into pork intestines and hand roll them to whatever size we want. Here's a shot of on intestine stuffed and ready to be rolled into "bun" sized brats.
The Yuengling is clear to make out. Not sure what's in those jars.
That's one huge wheel of deer meat!
We stuffed about 75# of brats and then switched to snack sticks - like Slim Jim's (TM) only better.
The brats were finished, so we stuck them into Ziplock (TM) baggies and brought them home. We each ended up with about 80 brats - 4 to a bag.
The salami and smoke sticks will have to be smoked (cured / cooked) before they are ready to eat. Rob will smoke them over the next two week-ends for us.
We processed about 200# of meat in about 6 hours. The work was not hard and the hazing was enjoyable.
Shout out and Thank You to Vincent for hosting us, for breakfast, and for smoking the rest of the deer. Couldn't do it without you, Buddy!
Here's to enjoying the spoils of hunting until we do it again next year!
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