Nope. She was mostly steak. We have a walk in cooler and we hang em for at least a month. Tender and flavorful steak that falls apart in your mouth. We don't cut em up until they have fuzz on em. I laughed at it until I tried it. You can make steak out of the whole critter. No such thing as tough. We didn't have to shoot any this year because we got 4 roadkill deer that were fresh or still alive. We didnt hit em, but we are eating em. I like pigeon a little better than venison.
here is my brother's deer from deer season. It was shot during gun season in November and was cut up on January 19th. It had a heavy pellicle (dry layer) on the outside, but was perfect on the inside. It had some surface mold that I wiped off with a damp cloth before cutting. This is what it looked like after wiping the mold off. And yes, the back legs made excellent melt in your mouth steak. The fork fell right through it. I am also including a picture of dry aging meat in a commercial aging room. Anyone who didn't know what was going on would walk away in disgust, but the meat is amazing. the meat doesn't look like anything you would ever want to eat, until you cut it open. A lot of sausages and cured meats are covered in mold during aging as well, but most people don't know that.
The raw steak in the center of the plate is the same steak that's cooked in the next picture. It is a flavor bomb that puts a stupid smile on your face. You can't eat it without making "good food" noises, lol. The burger is fabulous. The meat dries as it ages and that makes it soak up the flavor and liquid it's cooked in.
Wow, that's a colorful hindquarter! What temp do you keep it at during that process? Talking about mold on meat... Father in law has friends in Iowa. Country ham is a bit of a big deal in VA. Fil's buddy (who met these folks hunting their place in Iowa with fil) sent them a couple hams for Christmas one year. Eventually talked to them and asked them about the hams. They said "oh when we opened them they were covered in mold so we had to throw them away..." Those were two fairly expensive hunks of meat they tossed.....
It is set to 34* with a 3* rise between compressor cycles, so 34-37*. I used an inkbird temp controller for the compressor and a penn thermostat to shut the compressor down if the fins freeze up. All controls were removed from the air conditioner I am using and the inkbird runs it all with the penn on the compressir circuit and the bulb on the fins. Sorry to hear about the hams. That's a lot of work and months of waiting down the drain.
2 of my best ones. 7 pt on left, 205# live weight, 9 pt weighed 185#. We have an almost perfect 8 or over the TV. There have been some big ones taken in our county. This one was taken on property that borders our place. Wonder how many times he walked by our stands...
This is "as seen" in the 2022/2023 hunting thread. Bow season starts here in Hunt County Texas Saturday. I'm a rifle hunter, but just trying to get everyone excited for this year.
For shooting one heck of a nice buck, the guy looks pretty unhappy. First day of archery in my area starts tomorrow. I have to work, so no sitting in the stand for me. To be honest, I'm not too pumped up for this season for some reason.
I saw a nice buck beside the road next to our place this morning. Hope we can see him during gun season.
