Processing Deer Meat
Donna Minter
ITT-Tech

Processing Deer Meat
Within the 24 hours of shooting the deer remove the tenderloins (inner lions) located on the inside of the ribcage. Be sure to hang the deer in a shady area, therefore the critters cannot get to it. Rinse out the cavity with cold clean water to make sure all or as much fecal matter, urine, gut contents, and as much blood is removed. The next step should take place 48 hours or up to a week depending on the climate. If the day time high temperature is 45 degrees you can go 4-5 days but if the temperature is staying in the mids30’s the deer could hang for a week. The longer it hangs the better meat quality.
First make all the skin cuts, so that there is limited amount of hair on the meat. Also cut the front legs off just above the knee, do both legs and brush away the hair. Use the knife to help peel away the skin, grab on the skin and pull it down towards the shoulders. Slow down once you near the shoulders because you will need to make sure you are skinning over the shoulder meat and not cutting the meat off the deer with the skin. The front legs of the deer aren’t attached to the body by any sort, only muscle. Carefully run the knife around the front legs from the knee end, this helps pull the leg skin off. Once the skin is freed from the leg it can be removed like pulling an arm from a sleeve. The only meat to cut will be near the backbone where the muscle holds the shoulder on, therefore just cut the shoulder off by holding it away from the body and cutting the connecting tissue.
With the front legs gone, skinning will be easier. It will get harder to skin the farther you go. Once you near the head, just cut the neck meat around until just the neck bones are holding the head on, use a saw to complete this. Now start on the back strap by making cuts below the pelvis. Cut along the back bone of each side, all the way to the rib cage. Once you free that thick tissue off, start at the top and cut to release the back strap off the back bones and ribs. Sometimes it’s helpful to ask someone to hold the back strap because it will pull down on its own once you begin to pull it. Now began to cut off the hindquarters by cutting along the bottom of the meaty part (cutting into the pelvis). The aim will be to cut all the meat off the pelvis until it’s only the hip socket holding the leg on. At this point, you can either cut up the meat from the legs or store in the fridge and age, or freeze.