 Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. We are back at Battle Springs Ranch. As promised, we're gonna do a meat breakdown video today with something I call Redneck Special Forces, Mr. Petey. The way he broke down the deer last time, I watched this process. It was the cleanest I've ever seen. Like zero hair, zero juices on the meat. It was seriously extra. I can't promise zero hair, I cannot promise that. We're gonna try our best. It was really good. And I actually took notes. I watched the video back. I made a whole list of the steps. At least on this first one, I wanna get Petey to kinda show me how he breaks down different muscle groups of the deer. Show you guys that this is something you can do at home. I think probably more important than learning the hunting techniques is learning how to break down your own meat and make it taste as good as anything you get from the store. That's pretty important. If anybody's ever told you that deer meat's way too game meat, it's just because it wasn't taking care of problems. Exactly, and I've definitely had those. So I've done myself learning, learning. So we're all gonna learn today. So we got three does, and we're gonna start by taking the skin off. Skin has been on for a week, I think nine days. Something like that. And you can always, after we skin this deer, you can let it hang with the skin off for another, I mean, at least the week. That's what you typically do? Yeah, yeah. It'll just firm up a little more aging and it's not gonna hurt anything to not do it. You have less waste because it's not as dried out, but I think you get a little more tender product and a little more flavorful product because of that aging process. But this is still a great way, what, nine, 10 days, whatever it's been. You can tell. Yeah. It's darker. I always go, so the grain of the hair is going this way. I try to go, try not to cut that hair in half as much as you possibly can. That's what knows. That's what actually starts releasing the hair worse. Oh, okay. So if you came down across it and cut in all those, it's just gonna release more hair. All right. So I, you know, you can see it's going this way. Still gotta come across it some, but come up there, come up there, and then you just, feel, feel, and then down. Power down. Show us the first steps of going skin off, just going up the, the shanks. And also, sharpest knife to... Doing a clean job. Clean job, and safe. Really, I mean, if you've got a dull knife and you're sitting there wailing away with it, you're more likely to catch yourself with a dull knife than you are sharp knife. Okay. All right, so that was step one. Split the back. You go ahead and cut through the meat there. But yeah, you can hear that the fat capsule is just cracking. And the other thing that makes it a lot easier is tension. Whether you're cutting meat or skin is tension. You can see that connective tissue. I mean, pulling on it makes it to where it separates that skin and the hide from that muscle. And that, we talked about it a little bit when we hung these deer. That's why, one, I like to get the hawks off because they pee on them. So I don't want that in my cooler. Okay, yeah. So I get the hawks off, but also it makes it better and easier for you when you got them hanging by a gamble to go ahead and skin it down past that. And that way we're just right here and we don't have to worry about our gamble being in our way. So this little tendon right here that is what you want to be careful and don't cut. Because that's what's important in your deer. You can see how easy this skin is coming off. It just, when it sits there in ages, it's either right after you kill the deer, it skins really easy or letting it hang for, you know, this week, 10 days or whatever it is. It's a lot easier to skin your deer. It's almost like a fried chicken. And we've already broken the tail during the skinning process for the hang. That's coming off easier than I expected on the back. Yeah, once we get past this flank meat right here, this will be honest, I never keep any of the flank meat. It's just, I never have it. Unless it's like a Wisconsin 200 pounder. Yeah. Now we have a skinless deer. Come over here, back straps first, first move. Yeah, this is what I wanted to ask you about, was where, where do you stop? So you see where that hang quarter comes down right there. And kind of, that's kind of your fall line. But I always start, I'm not candid, I always start going down the spine, start right there, you can kind of see that. Okay. Basically down to the neck. So there's this layer of skin right here, this will help you. So I've got to cut off there, there's this layer of skin, you can put your hands up underneath. Okay. And that's with helping to, oh, okay. It'll show you that back strap a lot better. So, and then there's the shoulder. Okay, so it's just the silver skin there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's, you gotta remove that anyways. Yeah. So. I go ahead and get it. That's probably easier to see after it's been hanging. Yeah. And so I usually take this front shoulder off first, because it'll let you show, show you that whole strap. So once you get that, like, off there, I grab some of that skin, and I start coming down with it. Just get it, and that's that front shoulder. Oh, okay. All right. Work down the ribs. So right there's its ribs, and it's shoulder. So then. Okay, yeah, I've never done that before. So here we're gonna get some of that neck meat with that shoulder. So if you guys missed that, there was a, there's a piece of skin that goes over the sinew. We're saying it's skin, it's just, it's a layer. Yeah. It's not actual skin, it's a layer of some sort. We took the skin off. Connective tissue. Yeah, connective tissue. And it basically runs all the way down and even connects to this front shoulder. But it reveals the ribs, and it shows you the back strap really good. Yep. Okay, and that connects. And there's no joints in these front shoulders. It's just muscle and connective tissue that keeps them on there. Which is so amazing to me that. Yeah, the way that they run and everything else, there's no ball joint, no socket, it's just muscle. As a bow hunter, I mean, looking at that, that just tells me like, you can definitely go with that front shoulder. Yeah. That's the cool thing about butchering your own animals is you learn the anatomy so much better. And you can sit there and manipulate that shoulder and arm and look when they got it back, when they got it forward, where's that blade at? That big blade on them? I just don't see anything that would prevent me from taking that front shoulder shot. Some people say don't do it. So once we go with those front shoulders and de-muscle them, that's when you can see how it laid against the deer and how that one ridge on that blade muscles is what you really don't want to hit. So we can see where that kind of, where that back strap in that hind quarter kind of start and stop. And I just come straight across. You can kind of feel, pull your finger in there and you feel that little knot. That's that little bone right there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where you know you pretty much at the top because that's, it's vertebrae back when it's back side. You just try to pull it from there and then just cut away at the tension. So I cut all the way down and then I just cut the top and then, so how those little vertebrae run. So it's just that little concave. I just. Okay, from the side. Yeah. Once you get that. Just kind of work your knife like this on the side of those bones. If I pull too hard, that stuff starts to tear. Yeah. Okay. See it tear? Oh yeah. Super tender. Super tender. Just let your knife raise across that. All the way down in the neck. Yep. And that's basically all that is is that right there. It just stays connected to your back. Okay, there's that outer connective tissue. Just pulling that down to expose the back strap. I've never seen anybody do that. I said I'd use it to get down here so. And it goes to the shoulder. It falls with that shoulder. Okay. Wow. Look at that. So the beginning cut on the back strap goes down, then go to the front shoulder, take the front shoulder off, front shoulder removed, then take out the back strap. So I always just kind of generally cut. Like I'll cut both, I'll cut down the spine and then I'll cut over here. But I don't know, I don't have a clear lane like you've got here from taking that initial connective skin off. So once you get it down like that, you can kind of study it and see what you're doing. It gives you that pass just like you're saying. Down the spine and then just the concaveness of the vertebrae and the ribs. This is somewhat controversial with some people. Like I said, I don't take the flank meat as much and I don't really mess with the rib meat. I mean, there is a lot of work for a very little product because this fat of deer, it's not good. You've got to trim every single bit of it off and you just, the risk isn't, not the risk. The work isn't worth it. All the work. You're basically flaying off the ribs. So in my book, I'm done with everything, yep. Okay, cool. Yeah, we've got three of them. So it's not like we're struggling to get every ounce here. And so what I like to do is go ahead and get rid of this section just so there's less weight on it. Okay, let's take a look. You can look at the hatchet, do the saws off. Well bam, look at that. Catch two, I'm full of sections. All right, we've got two different kind of gambles. You see this one's got the hook ends and the hook ends on that gamble. This is straight ends. These two work great, but these are awesome for what we're about to do. Because one's going to try to fall off. Yes. Okay. Don't just go cutting meat. Right. So I feel the bone and I'm just working my knife when you just feel. You're on the pelvis right there. On the pelvis bone. You're going around the pelvic area. So I got that started. And you're going to go ahead and take the muscle groups off the leg. No, I'm going to take the leg off. Take it all off. Okay, cool, cool. So we just did that on that side and then on this side. Same thing, I'm following that bone. Okay. Yep, there's that. There's that bone. That ball joint right there on that side. Ball joint is the inside, but yep, I just go. Whoop, right around that. Make a little C cut and then straight down towards the tail. Now I do that. Once I do that, that's when you're using pressure again. So pull up. One, okay. Ah, now gravity is going to be our friend. So you see where we followed that pelvic. There's that ball joint. Yep. Already. Okay, yep. You're just cutting the connective tissue around the ball joint. Yeah, don't just let the actual just the weight of it. There's a caveman steak right there. Yeah, good. So we can see there's very little right on the right there. Awesome. Very little waste. Okay. So same thing with this one. We just have, we're going to use pressure against this one. Just going to pull on the pelvic bone a little bit. This, like I said, I don't have an exact science on this really. I just start feeling it and going. And like I said, cutting against the bone. Excellent. Very little waste right there, guys. Very little waste. Sometimes I cut these off to fit them in the cooler, but it's real nice to have it on there. So I'll put it between my legs. Look at this. Okay, this is pro stuff right here. You can see. Using the pressure. That joint. From your hand to your shank. Your thigh to your calf. You see that? Ooh, okay. All right, yeah, yeah. And then if you tip and, ooh, did you hear it? Yep. That's me popping in that joint. Yeah, you got it first try. All right, so using gravity. Using gravity. Now I, if I was by myself, I'd just walk over my cutting board, hold on. Boom, off the shank. All that's left is that femur. Yeah, if you want any more of that shank meat, I mean, just take it over there. There's our burger stuff. Yep. Make a little burger pile. Okay. So just that right there, y'all, I've learned a lot. Taking notes. Taking notes on those little tricks. It's November, right? It's supposed to be cold, but it's like 70 degrees outside. Yeah. If you have access to a cooler or inside your home to try to keep it as cold, like we just took this off that deer. It didn't take us very long, right? I still want to get this meat back in the cooler to keep it cold. Keep your meat as cold as you can while you process. So breaking these down, the easiest way I can tell you is it's all about seams. Every one of these muscles, there's a seam that separates it from the other muscle. Yep. Looking at these different runs of fat. This muscle right here that I just, I always call it the football roast. I think it's pretty close to its technical term. Just start on that seam very lightly, breaking it open. So you're just kind of doing this all at once, cutting all the seams that you see. Whatever you see. This is the one that I follow. And then so once I get it here, there's this muscle that's tucked in there and on that one. Like I said, this just is the way I do it. And you'll learn the more that you do it, what seams you're gonna follow and make it easier for you. But I don't want to hit that muscle with my knife. And you can see there's a seam with it too. Little lymph node right there. Lymph node, that's like a gland. Yeah. Okay. That's it right there? Yep, that's the lymph node. Okay, sweet. That's something you don't want in your meat. Okay, cut that out. I'll be honest, I've never cut out any glands on the back quarter. Probably just eating them. It's just... And I'm not positive on this, but I think some of that will give that wing and some of your burger and stuff like that. All right. I want the wing and the burger. This is definitely burger. Yep, shank tops. Just roll it over. That sirloin muscle is right up here, right there. Okay. That's the real tender part. Small part, but it's very tender. Delicioso. That right there, I just clean up a little bit of that off of there. Throw it on the grill. Clean a little bit off of there. I keep that, even though that silver skin, I just don't want to waste because it's small. Yep. I don't want to waste it. Man, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, hot grill, medium rare. Perfect. Bye bye. So we got a little bit of burnt down there. I think they call this the inside round steak. It's, I've always just called it the faux paw tenderloin because it looks like a tenderloin, but it's not. And it really is used a lot. It's not a very tender cut. It really isn't. So you go burger on that one? You can go burger or you can, because it looks like a tenderloin and it's actually a pretty cool steak, just clean that stuff off of it. You can hot and fast it and then slow cook it and break it down and it'll be better. But slicing it real thin too, like after you just cook it like this and just slice it thin, it's not bad. That's one of the few, I mean, that's really, one of two muscles you're actually having to cut off the bone really. The rest are just seams. And this one's a little weird because that joint right here, you can feel it. So you got to kind of come up and around. Mm, okay. Up and around that. Famer, dog treats. Okay. Fido. So there's that football muscle. This is the last cut. Yeah, kind of underneath there where it's connecting to this other muscle. Football roast. It's done. All right, yeah, from there, just cleaning up a little bit, some of the skins. Yep, and so like, so this muscle, if you're gonna do it in ground, I would just clean up the outside of all this and then back and seal it or chop it up and grind it. So this is one of my favorite muscles to freeze whole. And you can use it for ground meat. You can use it for roast. You can slice it for jerky. Then it's a pretty good size muscle in that high of a quarter. What about the football right here? What's your take on it? Same thing. You can use it as a roast. You can use it as cutting up for grind. You can slice it for jerky. None of these cuts do I generally cut for steaks except for that sirloin. Okay. This would be your two best options if you wanted to cut steaks, but I like having my back straps, my tenderloins, and that sirloin has my steak, everything else I use for ground, jerky, or stew meat. You can chop it up for stew meat wherever you want. So none of your fat on your white tails do you want and none of that sinew. Sinew will still grind up fine, but... It's different than cows. Like the cow fats, those will just melt in, but with deer it just seems like it just makes it taste gamey. Yeah, they have a word for it. It's like tallow or something. Town, yeah. Yeah, something like that. It's not actual fat, like wax. Once you guys see. So this is the back strap right here. Crème de la crème, size of the tendies. You've got some silver skin on here. Don't wanna eat that, how do you get that off? So you see that silver skin running all the way down it and you can see this meat sitting on top of it, okay? Stuff that's just connected to it, runs down that vertebrae, good for grind, but it's not, you can tell the difference between the loin and this stuff. Just makes it easier on yourself to get it off. Okay, so again, where those muscles are laying on top of that silver skin, like filet in a fish. I go down and don't cut the silver skin and then you just filet it. And so that little muscle is part of that hind quarter muscle that flips over on top. So you just trim that off, throw in your grind pile. That little bit of silver skin in the grind pile is not gonna hurt anything. I just throw it straight into my grind pile. So then you have this. Beautiful loin to throw on the smoker, on the grill. Just clean up a little bit of oxidation, a little bit of this white tallow. Yep, so now just like that fish skin, you got that? And you just filet it. Good to have a flexible knife. Yes. Right there in that meat crafter. I like that knife. Benchmade meat crafter. All right guys, we have got now two, two deer broken down. Here's another look that I just did this one myself. So all this will go in the meat bag. I'll trim these up a little bit more for the burger meat. And then whatever I wanna make into like protein bowls, steaks, soups, we'll just kinda pick out the best cuts for that. And we'll try our hand at making burger meat. We are back in the kitchen to do our final stages of the meat breakdown. Guys, hopefully you've learned something so far. I know I have from Petey. Shout out to him. I learned a lot actually on the initial skinning and cutting. That's the cleanest operation I've ever seen anybody do. And a lot of it has to do with the order of things. The order that you go in the different sections of the body to skin things, to make things easier, make the cuts, make things go very cleanly and smoothly. Same thing on the meat breakdown. I've probably processed between a dozen and 15 deer on my own over the last four or five years and I've come a long way, but I'm still trying to learn everything that I can and make it the best, cleanest, best tasting meat possible. That is the goal. The more advanced I get as an outdoorsman, that's it with my fish and my meats. I want it to be as good as I can get going to the grocery store, in fact, better. Completely new thing. I got a hamburger, a meat grinder. So I'm taking a lot of the cuts that are less desirable and I'm cubing them up into about one inch cubes. I'm gonna vacuum seal those. We'll freeze them and then when we wanna make fresh burger, we'll make fresh burger. One last thing I wanna show you guys, the best thing that I've found to get these, because this does not taste good. So we wanna get that. Basically, we wanna get just the meat on the outside. Instead of sitting here with a knife, and believe me, I've done this, sit here and you just kinda cut away the little pieces and then it just ends up looking like a cheetah of just different fat spots. I like to clean these like I would a fish. So I'll take a spot that has a little thicker section of fat cap or sinew, whatever it is, sometimes combination of both and just treat it as like a crappie filet that I cut all the way off the tail and it's just laying there on the table. You need a flexible knife. It's like a filet knife and that stuff is really tough, really tough. So I'll slide it under the meat and then once I can kinda grab that stuff, I'll get a good grip on it, lay it really flat and I'll just start cutting the whole thing. Lay it as flat as possible and you really wanna pull on it hard. I feel like it broke a little away, yeah. We got most of it off, there's just that little section right here that should just pull off now. Here we go, now we got ourselves a couple of big chunks right here. These cuts of meat right here, I think they're part of the rounds. They got these long grains. They can actually be cut up and used as steaks. That's what I'm gonna do with these. The rest, obviously besides the back straps and the tendies, that's all gonna be steaks. The rest is gonna be turned into burger. So I'll just vacuum seal these whole and then burger the rest. That's it, y'all, we are officially done with deer breakdown. I'm about to take these to the deep freezer. I've just got them in the cooler right now. Everything from beautiful back straps, tri-tips, ooh, that's something different. We got our burger bags mixed up. So I'm gonna make fresh ground meat out of these. I just gotta find me some local beef fat or pork fat to mix in with those and all the rest of it, guys. So hopefully you learned something in today's video. I know I did. And I'm just continuing to learn the breakdown and the processing of the meat. I think it's so important, so important to know this as an outdoorsman, not just to shoot your buck, mount it, and then the meat kind of comes secondary. It's like, ah, you know, get the back straps and I'll do an okay job cleaning. Take pride in your work and that meat is gonna be delish. So I will see you guys on another outdoor adventure soon. Make sure to smash that like button. We got Mule Deer Hunt coming up. So stay tuned, I'll see you out there.