Jerky & Sausage Buck

[Nitemann]

After not drawing a tag in the initial draw and having no hunts this fall I decided to put in for one of the left over tags. I was lucky enough to get a whitetail tag down on the border as my second choice. From the start my intentions were to use my custom XP-100 pistol in 6.5 CM and shoot the first buck that provided an opportunity. I shot this little guy at 1:00 PM opening day while he was feeding on a hillside at 188yds. After not hunting whitetail in  over 25 years I had forgotten how small there bodies were. Not a trophy but will make some great jerky and sausage.

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Jerky and sausage ? Come on man that's like putting prime fillet in a crock pot with beer and corn nuts ????!!!!!!!

[oz31p]

Nice shot but dang those are pretty tender cuts to grind and cover is seasoning.

[Nitemann]

There may be a steak or two and some red chili but I make some pretty awesome jerky and sausage (grin).  I shot a fork horned muley out of his bed last year that I thought would be tender so I cut most of the best steaks to keep. It was without a doubt the toughest deer I've ever tried to eat and ended up in sausage. We'll see how this guy is before going down the sausage road.

[Couzer]

Call me crazy but I’m with you man, I grind my entire deer, backstraps, tenderloins and  all!!! And I’ll bet that my entire deer is consumed faster than most people on. I eat jerky, and a lot of it. This year I got almost 75lbs of pure lean meat, deboned, and processed.

[trphyhntr]

26 minutes ago, Vowell said:

Call me crazy but I’m with you man, I grind my entire deer, backstraps, tenderloins and  all!!! 

you're deranged. 

[Couzer]

24 minutes ago, trphyhntr said:

you're deranged. 

Hi my my name is Devan, I’m addicted to jerky.

[Juniors]

Great job with the specialty pistol!  Congrats. 

[eastvalleyjerry]

That's like grinding up Veal haha. Cool you got it done with a pistol. Nice job!

[Nitemann]

It didn't quite all go to sausage (out of the smoker and chilling down now). The traditional tenders for breakfast.

[broadhead]

That's a breakfast right there.

[Coach]

Nothing wrong with making jerky, burgers, sausage - whatever out of a buck like that. I would recommend, however, backstrap, eye of round, tenderloins get special treatment. Shoot me a PM if interested, lots of prime meat on that guy. Personally, I end up with mostly jerky out of some of the better cuts, just because my family eats it all that way - and burgers...Simple trick for turning any game meat into the best hamburgers ever - and I've cooked tons of these for my sons' football & baseball teams and you just can't get 'em off the grill fast enough. 

Clean and separate all the meat really carefully to remove all fat, connective tissue, anything white. Separate into top & bottom rounds, keep the eye of round for better use, Wrap in cellophane getting all the air out, and then butcher paper. I usually end up with a bunch of wrapped meat labeled, "choice hind", "backstrap", "front shoulder", "neck" and "grind". Where grind is pretty much everything too good to toss, but doesn't really fit anywhere else.

So, the "grind" is the obvious first to go in, but always some of the really good, clean top/bottom round goes in there too. 

Go to WalMart and buy a chunk of bacon ends. They're usually cheap right where the pork is sold.

Let your grind meat and other cuts thaw about half a day, then start putting it through the grinder, mixing in the bacon ends as you go. You'll be feeding in super clean, fat free game along with fatty, smoked pork belly, essentially. The burgers that come out are the best I've had. 

[Nitemann]

Coach, that's pretty much how I used to do it. After separating everything out everybody still only wanted sausage and jerky so rather than go to all the trouble of handling things twice deer and lope go straight to sausage and jerky and gone in no time. Elk, that's a different story, steaks and burger only.