Book suggestions for butchering wild game

[Gammaboy]

After I dropped my moose off today I realized how much 490 pounds was going to cost me and decided I better learn to cut my own game. Does anybody have a favorite book to recommend? Lost of stuff on youtube but my mind drifts off watching a screen.

Thanks

[3blade]

steven rinellas guide to hunting, butchering and cooking wild game.

That being said, it ain't rocket science and doesn't require a book. You get a sharp fillet knife and take the meat off the bone, following muscle lines. Backstraps and tenderloins cooked medium rare as steaks. The roasts are in the hind quarters and easily recognized if you are so inclined (its the rectangular piece). The shanks are the best stew meat, or osso bucco. The rest is stew, burger, sausage, jerky, or taco meat. Bones for broth, heart for stuffed heart or ground meat, liver and tongue for the dog (two or four legged ). That's how I do it anyway.

A lot of what and how you cut is gonna be influenced by your preferred preparations. There's no right or wrong.

Main points: get it skinned and taken apart, and cooled to 3 degrees asap. Don't saw through bones and smear bone chips, marrow/spinal cord on meat, use a knife on the joints. It's best to hang the legs and wait until rigor has past (about 24 hours), but if it's hot, get at it. Buy a good vacuum sealer and use it. Don't stack fresh meat in the freezer, spread it out in a single layer.

[kujoseto]

I'd recommended the book 3 blade just wrote above me We eat a ton of ground meat. I now have a grinder but no moose or elk... working on that. The grinder was easy to hunt at cabelas. The game: not so easy. I plan to grind a good proportion.

[ex811]

YouTube is God...

[Hogie135]

It’s not hard. I learned from YouTube and trial and error. I get about equal amounts of steak and ground out of an animal. I don’t know the specific cuts of meat but like 3Blade said. Follow the muscle groups and separate them. From there make whatever your heart wants to make. Save yourself the cash.

What the wife and I do is quarter the animal and straight into the freezer. Thursday or so thereafter we take a quarter out, thaw and Friday or Saturday night we have a butcher night. Sit down with drink of your choice. Music and assortment of knives and have at er!

[rottie]

If you ever need a hand, drop a line. I am no expert but having being cutting / wrapping my own for 25 years or so. It isn't hard , as others stated follow the muscle groups, then cut to portions.
I am in Lacombe as well

[RedZippa]

I would recommend checking out Hank Shaw's Buck Buck Moose cookbook. Amazing information on cooking wild game in a wide variety of dishes. Very, very cool book.

In Calgary, the library has a bunch of books on butchering domestic and wild game that are quite helpful...maybe a library near you might have something. Rinellas book is also at the library.

[madball]

Randy Newberg just posted a great 3 part youtube series on it. It's excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh9Hnd3WSvM

[sns2]

Originally Posted by 3blade

steven rinellas guide to hunting, butchering and cooking wild game.

That being said, it ain't rocket science and doesn't require a book. You get a sharp fillet knife and take the meat off the bone, following muscle lines. Backstraps and tenderloins cooked medium rare as steaks. The roasts are in the hind quarters and easily recognized if you are so inclined (its the rectangular piece). The shanks are the best stew meat, or osso bucco. The rest is stew, burger, sausage, jerky, or taco meat. Bones for broth, heart for stuffed heart or ground meat, liver and tongue for the dog (two or four legged ). That's how I do it anyway.

A lot of what and how you cut is gonna be influenced by your preferred preparations. There's no right or wrong.

Main points: get it skinned and taken apart, and cooled to 3 degrees asap. Don't saw through bones and smear bone chips, marrow/spinal cord on meat, use a knife on the joints. It's best to hang the legs and wait until rigor has past (about 24 hours), but if it's hot, get at it. Buy a good vacuum sealer and use it. Don't stack fresh meat in the freezer, spread it out in a single layer.

Follow this advice and no books are required ^^^

[Koschenk]

Originally Posted by 3blade

steven rinellas guide to hunting, butchering and cooking wild game.

That being said, it ain't rocket science and doesn't require a book. You get a sharp fillet knife and take the meat off the bone, following muscle lines. Backstraps and tenderloins cooked medium rare as steaks. The roasts are in the hind quarters and easily recognized if you are so inclined (its the rectangular piece). The shanks are the best stew meat, or osso bucco. The rest is stew, burger, sausage, jerky, or taco meat. Bones for broth, heart for stuffed heart or ground meat, liver and tongue for the dog (two or four legged ). That's how I do it anyway.

A lot of what and how you cut is gonna be influenced by your preferred preparations. There's no right or wrong.

Main points: get it skinned and taken apart, and cooled to 3 degrees asap. Don't saw through bones and smear bone chips, marrow/spinal cord on meat, use a knife on the joints. It's best to hang the legs and wait until rigor has past (about 24 hours), but if it's hot, get at it. Buy a good vacuum sealer and use it. Don't stack fresh meat in the freezer, spread it out in a single layer.

This.

[CptnBlues63]

Originally Posted by rottie

If you ever need a hand, drop a line. I am no expert but having being cutting / wrapping my own for 25 years or so. It isn't hard , as others stated follow the muscle groups, then cut to portions.
I am in Lacombe as well

Nice offer!

I would take him up on this offer. I just looked up where Lacombe is and you're much too far away for me to invite you up here, or me to go there or I would have suggested it. This is much better though as he's closer. Like rottie I've been doing my own for ages........as have my hunting partners.

Like 3blade and others have suggested, you just pick the muscles apart. We don't do anything fancy, we make roasts and the rest goes in the grinder (hunting partner has a 1 hp industrial type grinder...it's prob 50 years old but still works like a damn) and we always wrap in butcher paper. My hunting partner has a vacuum sealer device and we did use it one year but it was a lot more hassle than butcher paper. Butcher paper and masking tape are cheap cheap and I've pulled roasts out of the freezer that were 3 years old and didn't have a touch of freezer burn (always wrap real tight).

Having said that about the vacuum sealer, I would like one to use for fish filets! They're perfect for freezing meal size portions which for the wife and I is either 3 or 4 filet's.