Getting gameness out of venison

[rutjr]

Improper handling aside, deer has it's own flavor kinda like lamb that may be a little stronger than beef or pork. I've checked in deer before and someone brought in this buck that stunk so bad you could smell it before you saw it, he was in full rut. I can imagine him getting mixed in with other deer at the possessors and spoil the whole load.

 

[bowhunthard88]

I will say that deer has it's own flavor, same for most animals that eat a different forage base. Taste can even differ slightly area vs. area. Most "gaminess" seems to be attributed to meat/game handling, at least in my definition of that word. If you're trying to mask the flavor of the actual venison, that's a different story... I have somewhere, no names, that I hesitate to eat venison because it has a billy goat-reminiscent flavor that is off-putting; that same place is also somewhere I won't mention it...

I have found silver skin on or off really doesn't change much as long as it's removed prior to cooking/eating. I usually remove the silver skin prior, but I also vacuum pack everything, which helps eliminate most freezer-burn. Although my venison is typically in the freezer for less than a year.

I also am a big proponent of hanging deer to "age" the meat, but again, not so much a flavor thing as it is a texture/tenderizing process. I've hung deer for up to 3-4 weeks in a controlled environment with no negative effects. Unfortunately; I no longer have that convenience and I skin/debone while warm, let the meat rest/cool/drain for a day or two in the fridge (or cooler, not covered in ice or sitting in water), clean/prep/package, and then let the packaged meat rest in the fridge for 1-2 weeks before freezing.

I will also say, that if I want a STEAK, it's gonna be a beef ribeye. A good steak has to have marbling! I do like venison steak a lot, but it's not beef in that respect. I cook more with the venison, some exceptions of course, and usually eat plain beef as a main course with minimal dressing. I have a wicked venison cheese-steak recipe...

 

[woodsdog2]

One thing I know to be a fact from my own experience with venison, which I eat a lot of, is that when butchering never cut through a bone. Debone all the meat. This may sound crazy but we struggled for years with gamey tasting meat until a good friend of mine who has butchered deer for years said never cut through a bone. The marrow in venison gives the meat a gamey sour taste, we don’t even cut the pelvic bone or the sternum, we use the buttout tool for the pelvic and reach up inside to cut the air way loose.

I agree with this wholeheartedly!!! I never cut the pelvic bone just cut around the anus and pull back up through. Remove silver skin and get it processed as quickly as possible. I also think diet has more to do with it than people realize. Now that we have a more acres dedicated to corn and soybeans locally the overall taste of the venison is more beef like. Before, when there wasn't as much ag and more native browse, the deer tasted "gamier" but this is my opinion. But the last several years the venison we've harvested has been absolutely excellent.

 

[thedutchtouch]

If you can shoot a deer and gut it, you can butcher your own. I know because I've done it three times so far. The first one I didn't do a great job, the third one was much better. Investment was a 15 dollar victorinox knife, that's it. Tons of YouTube videos for tutorials, think of it as paying yourself whatever your processor fee is for one night of your time.

To answer your question more directly, you can mask it to some extent with stronger marinades, my wife complained less when I used teriyaki marinade than any other flavor I've tried thus far. Honey and sesame oil compliment/change the flavor as well, though can get too sweet. Ultimately though it comes back to meat handling, was just this one doe off and other deer from this year/same processor ok?

 

[LtMoe66]

What’s the purpose of harvesting wild game if you cannot handle the way it taste? Doesn’t make any sense. But to answer your question, butter milk.

Also try soaking in 7up soda. That works also.

 

[Pic1]

My personal choice, and been this way since I started but mainly due to deer numbers in the areas I hunt, I only shoot bucks. 3-4yr olds to spikes or fork horns I find none of them gamey no matter how rutted up they are when i kill them. These are not corn, bean or crop fed deer. They're browse and acorn fed swamp bucks.

And call me nuts but I drag them to the truck with the guts and field dress at home hung from chainfall by the horns over a steel 35 gal. drum lined with a trash bag. First thing I do is remove front legs below the shank, and rear legs above the tarsals.

After opening the chest cavity dropping intestines, stomach, the heart, lungs and liver, the next thing i do is TIE OFF AND REMOVE THE BLADDER. Then I carefully cut/tie off the anus. Pulling it up thru the inside while cutting only enough to remove it and the male junk with it and the intestines which are still all connected. I never split the pelvis or hide between the hams and whatever fat is in this area i leave until the meat has chilled. Unless I happen to hit paunch I never rinse out a chest cavity with a hose. I let the lung blood be the rinse. I take out a 3"-4" piece of esophagus and cut the skin up to center rib cage. I then spread the chest cavity open with a 1" x 2" cut the correct length to really spread open the rib cage.

Provided it is 40 deg. or below I'll let it hang 4-5 days and if warmer I will quarter it into trash bags and leave it in my fridge set to 35 deg. to age for the same period of time.

I'll work on a quarter or two a night. Deboning everything and removing all sinew. Steaks, roasts, and grind remaining. Then vac seal. No band sawing anything and no plastic wrap or meat wrapping paper.

Agree with what others have said no guarantee you are getting your same meat back from a processor or how things are being done unless you are there to witness it.

It's my opinion that much of the gaminess experienced starts somewhere in the field dressing process. Where the bladder gets nicked and meat is tainted by the urine. Or the same in the case of a gut shot deer which unfortunately sometimes has to be left overnight. All those stomach acids acting like a heated marinade to permeate the tissue. Second biggest factor IMO is properly aging the meat.

My method is a lot of work, especially with big deer but to me well worth it. Been doing it this way for almost 30yrs. and I'd choose my venison over any grass fed beef and have had some say they couldnt tell the difference from reg beef. I know the meat I have left to thaw to bring to cook on the beach come labor day this yr, will be fought over and taste just as good as it did last.

 

[Weldabeast]

I haven't killed enough deer to have experienced a gamey tasting 1 yet but maybe the deers are like hogs....certain hogs will just be foul. They look health but the flesh will be borderline rancid on some of them.

I have had venison that someone else gave me and it didn't taste good. He uses a processor. I did all the work on the deer I've killed and knock on wood all taste delicious.

Whole quarters and other meats goes in the cooler and I get bag or 2 ice on the way home if it's warm/long drive. Once home I get all my frozen water bottles out of my deep freezer and add as many as I can fit inside. It usually stays in there for a week cause I don't have the time/energy during the week and wait till the following weekend. Open the cooler drain 1 or 2 times a day allowing any liquids to drain and remove melting bottles and replace with frozen...u want if filled up all the way with as little negative space inside the cooler as possible... Poor southern mans aging. The times I have cooked a backstrap on the day of/following day of the kill my wife and daughter both comment on a slight gamey taste but after the cooler "aging" they no longer say it has a off taste...heart is the same way...the girls say it has gamey taste but me/my son like it a lot

 

[Iron_llama]

One thing I know to be a fact from my own experience with venison, which I eat a lot of, is that when butchering never cut through a bone. Debone all the meat. This may sound crazy but we struggled for years with gamey tasting meat until a good friend of mine who has butchered deer for years said never cut through a bone.

I've never heard that, thank you. I've almost always split the pelvis and sternum. I haven't noticed unusually gamey flavors. I've also made bone-in neck roast and osso buco, which are both delicious.

 

[Iron_llama]

The discussion of brining the meat is interesting. Reminds me of kosher meat. Besides being slaughtered according to the Old Testament, there is a prohibition on eating blood, so observant Jews kosher their meat. They use kosher salt to kosher meat by covering all sides of the meat and letting it sit long enough for the salt to draw out the blood, then rinse it. Obviously the process is more involved than I'm describing; but if the carcass has gone sour maybe the blood has 'turned', and the bad taste you're experiencing is not the meat, but the blood within the meat.

I'm also reminded of the old-timer talk of 'bleeding' deer. A double-lung hit results in rapid exsanguination, but if you watch British hunters on the Outdoor Channel, they take a lot of head/neck shots and bleed the deer by cutting through the neck into the heart, and working the foreleg to pump blood out.

 

[Apex7]

I've been hunting since I was 12 years old I'm 63 now and never had a piece of venison that you guys call gamey.

 

[Arrowsquirrel]

I've processed around 90-100 deer in my life and love venison. I have had butchered 2 maybe 3 deer that were incredibly gamey. The other times were years ago and I just kinda always assumed it was something I had done. This last season the buck I shot I could tell right away just had way more odor to the meat than normal. I was very particular with the meat and processed it the same night. A couple nights later I tried some backstrap steaks and the were tender but very very gamey. Ended up making him all into sausage and it tastes great. Still don't know what was different. I've had enough mature bucks that taste awesome to think it's just a old buck thing.

I've just concluded it's just a few deer out there that just eat too much fast food or something nasty like pineapple on pizza.

 

[Apex7]

I've processed around 90-100 deer in my life and love venison. I have had butchered 2 maybe 3 deer that were incredibly gamey. The other times were years ago and I just kinda always assumed it was something I had done. This last season the buck I shot I could tell right away just had way more odor to the meat than normal. I was very particular with the meat and processed it the same night. A couple nights later I tried some backstrap steaks and the were tender but very very gamey. Ended up making him all into sausage and it tastes great. Still don't know what was different. I've had enough mature bucks that taste awesome to think it's just a old buck thing.

I've just concluded it's just a few deer out there that just eat too much fast food or something nasty like pineapple on pizza.

Bucks during the rut do have a stronger taste . That's why I have them processed into hotdogs, hot sticks or kielbasa. They are loaded with testosterone at that time of the year.

 

[Arrowsquirrel]

Bucks during the rut do have a stronger taste . That's why I have them processed into hotdogs, hot sticks or kielbasa. They are loaded with testosterone at that time of the year.

I've had a lot of people tell me that and used to believe it, just because it makes sense but just haven't seen it myself and I've eaten steaks off quite a few mature bucks taken during the rut. The buck from this last year was taken over three weeks after the rut and is by far the worst deer I've experienced.

 

[Apex7]

I've had a lot of people tell me that and used to believe it, just because it makes sense but just haven't seen it myself and I've eaten steaks off quite a few mature bucks taken during the rut. The buck from this last year was taken over three weeks after the rut and is by far the worst deer I've experienced.

I should have said some bucks have a different taste.

 

[GeoFish]

I've processed around 90-100 deer in my life and love venison. I have had butchered 2 maybe 3 deer that were incredibly gamey. The other times were years ago and I just kinda always assumed it was something I had done. This last season the buck I shot I could tell right away just had way more odor to the meat than normal. I was very particular with the meat and processed it the same night. A couple nights later I tried some backstrap steaks and the were tender but very very gamey. Ended up making him all into sausage and it tastes great. Still don't know what was different. I've had enough mature bucks that taste awesome to think it's just a old buck thing.

I've just concluded it's just a few deer out there that just eat too much fast food or something nasty like pineapple on pizza.

You may be on to something. I would assume what they eat will change how they taste.
Grass fed beef or corn fed.

 

[wmahunterfl]

Try a florida deer. Sometimes they are excellent and others well. But aging on top of ice and draining off water does help.

 

[bowhunthard88]

I just listened to a podcast that brought up some really good points. One of the points was that the flavor profile changes with temperature, and a rare to medium-rare temp will always be less "gamey" than a medium to well-done piece of meat. The podcast was Beau Martonik with Matthew Cosenzo.

I've personally never really processed a deer that wasn't palatable and numbers don't really lie. However, I have tasted a few from others...

 

[wmahunterfl]

one trick I have learned put quartered deer on top of ice and second I buy those frozen bags of mixed pepper and onions and when slow cooking use about 1/2 the bag. For some reason it helps. If I do not do that the spouse will not eat it.

 

[Iron_llama]

one trick I have learned put quartered deer on top of ice and second I buy those frozen bags of mixed pepper and onions and when slow cooking use about 1/2 the bag. For some reason it helps. If I do not do that the spouse will not eat it.

I put onions, peppers, jalapenos, and garlic in the slow cooker with my venison. Sometimes also root vegetables. My go-to is somewhere between Italian beef sandwiches and tacos guisados. I guess if the meat is really gamey I can cut it down with beef and pork to make sausages. I made brats once out of a particularly fragrant javelina that turned out great, about 70/30 pork/wild.

 

[Halfstep]

The majority of what is called "wild taste" in deer meat is blood that is in the meat. Once you slice it up for frying, slosh the meat around in water. Do this a few times and until the water is slightly pink and isn't red anymore. You can't get the blood out when the meat is in quarters or in big chunks. But once you slice it up in small pieces for cooking, you can rinse the blood out easily. Rinsing the blood out will make a big difference in the taste of the deer meat.