>>806452For example, lamb chops are heavenly, but cutting deer chops with a saw smears bone paste on the meat which IMO does not taste good at all. I keep all the large leg bones for doggo and the rest of the bones goes back into the bush for the crows and coyotes to pick at.
The exception to fat is bear fat which is goddamn amazing and if you throw that away you are committing a crime. If you hunt bear, learn how to render the fat and use it for pastry cooking bliss.
Lot's of hunters call the loins backstraps. Let's use loin which is the proper butchering term.
The way I debone and cut meat is super easy. Basically I just cut away muscle groups from the skeleton with a filet knife.
I keep tenderloins whole and I cut loins off in one long piece and then cut into foot long lengths. I wrap and freeze these pieces whole. These are mostly used as steaks because they are tender as fuck. Loin and tenderloin will always be the most premium meat on the animal. When I'm ready to cook them, I cut these long pieces across the grain into steaks of whatever thickness suits me at the time.
The large leg and shoulder muscles are kept for roasts. When working with these, try to trim as much of the connective tissue and "silverskin" away. Again, these tissue scraps make for great dog food. We don't want to be wasteful do we?
Some of the leg and shoulder muscles are very large so the can be cut into various-sized roast pieces. These cuts also make great jerky because they are easy to slice along the grain into thin strips. Plan ahead and keep a couple very large cuts too, because a large elk shoulder roast is great for corning or making into pastrami for example.
I usually keep the flanks whole and some of the largest neck pieces which on moose and elk can make good roasts on their own.
The rest which consists of small leg muscles, the shanks (forelegs), rib meat, neck meat, and any other scraps I cut into 1" cubes which gets ground into burger or kept for stew.
