GRANT: You know, when I was young, my family didn’t know any better. We just kind of
hacked the meat off and cooked it in hams or big chunks. But there’s a lot better
way to remove the meat from a deer. I like to work on a deer hanging up and I start on
what’s called the ball roast, the front part of the ham. One thing that makes your
job a lot easier is having a sharp knife and keeping it sharp. So you don’t want to be
digging into a bone. You’re going to fillet the meat off – not putting the blade of
your knife right on the bone.
GRANT: I start by removing the ball roast and I feel where the end of the white connective
tissue and the meat starts, and make an incision there just going in deep enough and stopping
right before I hit the femur bone because that would dull your knife. I simply go down
the edge of the femur bone, but not digging into it with my knife, and muscle groups will
just separate themselves. I go down to the end of that muscle – leaving some of the
connective tissue on the deer. There’s no need ‘cause I’ll just have to cut it off
once I get inside. And with that simple cut, I have a perfect ball roast that Ms. Tracy
likes to make barbecue out of.
GRANT: Next, I’m gonna remove what’s called the rump roast and again, I’m gonna follow
the layer of the muscle. Right here there’s a bunch of connective tissue. Your family
doesn’t want to eat that anyway, so I’m gonna follow the muscle line right through
here; cutting down to the femur and then go right in here at the hip joint and free the
meat up from the bone.
GRANT: After I free the rump roast down both sides, I simply go in right by the edge of
the femur – freeing it right here – so I’ll be able to peel it off.
GRANT: Once I’ve freed the rump roast from the femur and the hip bone, I simply get behind
it and pull back and it will kind of separate itself naturally, exposing where I need to
make an additional little cut to free it from the bone. And I can just free it up right
on the muscle group there; and I’m going right between the connective tissue and another
muscle group that comes out with a great big large roast that I’ll just trim up once
we get inside and be ready to put in the freezer.
GRANT: Removing the rump roast accomplishes two objectives – first, it exposes this
interior muscle that’s as pure as a tenderloin, no connective tissue in it and super tender.
It’s actually shaped like a tenderloin. I call it the hidden tenderloin. I simply
take my knife; follow the connective tissue very carefully around and fillet it out. When
finished, you can see it’s the same shape, same muscle texture as a tenderloin. Getting
four tenderloins out of a deer instead of two – well that’s a big bonus in my book.
GRANT: Of course, the lymphatic system collects stuff the deer is trying to get rid of, any
infections or bacteria that it wants to get out of the body. So if you cook the whole
ham as one piece, you’re going to or your family is going to eat this very large lymph
node and the whole lymph system going through there. But by exposing the muscles, it’s
easy just to take that out and discard it.
GRANT: The lymph node in the ham is very large and full of ugly stuff you don’t want to
put in your body. But it’s easy just to expose it, trim it out and save the best meat
for your family. With the lymphatic system removed from the ham, I follow the muscle
line once again down to the femur, fillet down the edge of the femur. This muscle will
simply come off very easily and you’re wanna go deep because it fits way up in the pelvic
socket there – the pelvic girdle – and you can leave some really good meat there.
But by simply following the muscle line in. See how it’s peeling off this secondary
muscle here? You can see where it separates right here. It comes out as a large, pure
roast. And I’ll simply go inside, trim off this sheath of connective tissue and have
pure meat to vacuum seal for my family to enjoy this winter.
GRANT: There’s a nice muscle interior to the ham right up against the pelvic girdle
that is great for stew meat or to put in the hamburger bowl of all the meat you’re gonna
grind up for hamburger.
GRANT: And by following, again, the layers of connective tissue, you’ll come out with
pure meat instead of grinding up all that con- all that connective tissue which can
give the flavor of wild game, or a tainted taste, that some families don’t enjoy. After
I remove the major muscles, I can come back and remove the minor leg muscles, put them
in the hamburger bowl for the grinder.
GRANT: Next, I progress down to the back-straps. The big loin on the outside; the tenderloins
are on the inside. I simply take my knife right along the edge of the phalanges, or
the top of the spine coming up, and hug that bone ‘cause I don’t want to waste any
of this loin meat.
GRANT: I do the same process going down all the way to the neck.
GRANT: Then I cut right where I left off from removing the ham muscles and carefully start
peeling that back away from the ribs. Once I have made the incision along the spine,
I just start filleting the back-strap off of the ribs – careful not to waste any of
that great meat.
GRANT: At this point, I often go ahead and remove the large connective tissue, or what
the Native Americans call sinew that they would back their bows with. You’ll follow
this down to where it simply runs out and gets very small at the end – saving every
last inch of that back-strap. A little back-strap goes a long ways when you tell mom you gotta
buy that new gun or bow for next bow season ‘cause she’s gonna want more of this in
her freezer.
GRANT: So, we removed the loin or the back-strap. Now we want these tenderloins – the prize
cut of all deer. You know, if the – if the deer is healthy, there will be some fat on
top. Here’s a lymph node right here.
GRANT: These little dark things often cause people to have questions. Those are simply
little pools of collected blood that slide out of the system here and there and the lymph
system will return it.
GRANT: I’ve simply trimmed this sheath muscle down so I can get better access to the tenderloin.
The tenderloin goes much higher than a lot of people realize and they cut it off here,
leaving two to three inches of prize meat in the carcass that goes to the gut pile.
GRANT: At this point, I just go ahead and remove some of that fat and lymph nodes from
the outside so it never makes it into the cooler or goes into the house. Simply get
it started and tug a little bit and it will come right off, exposing pure tenderloin.
You can see the bottom of the tenderloin right here and I’m gonna start working it and
just peel it out.
GRANT: Pure, hormone-free tenderloin. Probably worth about $5,000 a pound. I think my wife
ought to let me get a new four-wheel drive pickup just for that.
GRANT: It’s important to know in the shoulder that there’s not a bone to bone connection.
The shoulder is not connected to the rest of the skeleton through a socket. So, you
simply can take your knife – once again, follow the major muscle group on the inside
– and the whole shoulder will come off in your hand.
GRANT: You can see that I’m just separating the major muscle group here, following up
the easy line, right around the top of the shoulder bone because there’s no bone to
bone connection here. And you can see where we’ve already removed the tenderloin right
here. And there’s the whole shoulder without ever putting my knife blade on a bone.
GRANT: You can cut through here with your knife and find the middle of the socket, but
you’ll stand a chance of dulling your knife. I typically just take a meat saw – cut this
off right here – and this whole slab can go in a crock pot with some potatoes and onions
and make a great venison stew.
GRANT: I hope you have a chance to review some trail camera cards or estimate the age
of some bucks this week as you prepare for deer season. But most importantly, take some
time to get outside and find a quiet place and listen to what the Creator is saying to
you. Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv.
GRANT: Through the years in different hunting camps I’ve been in, I’ve had several people
ask me to show them how I take the meat off or debone…(Fades out)