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rusty_oxydado
07-19-2007, 07:15 PM
Living in the brush you learn to do things in the best order to do them.
You don't butcher any large animals in the warmer seasons, it is difficult to deal with all the meat before spoilage, and blow flies ruin everything, so the spring and summer is best used for hunting birds, rabit and small game. Besides it is also the best time of the year to go fishing too! (Remember without a fishing pole, you are just another fool standing on the bank.) Small game is easy to take care of and use it up before it has a chance to go bad on you.
I choose to soak my game in a mild salt brine, what soaks in the flesh kills surface bacteria, and flys eggs will not grow in salted meat.
I suppose I could have tried my hand at gardening, but that is too much like playing in the dirt, I was never so poor as I couldn't barter with the folks in the low lands for enough veggies for to can and get me through winter alright.
Oh I did do some canning in the summer, a few jars of saurcrout, corned critter and such. I did some smoking too, mostly just what I was going to get around to cooking soon (smoke is a preservitive,) and all the excess fish (salmon, steelhead, and trout,) I caught. These I strung together and hung from the rafters near the peak of my roof.
Come winter it was another story be it an elk or a deer, I would knock it down and butcher it on the spot. Oh thanks to the guy who invented the block and tackle when it comes to butchering a large elk. gutted, and set to the side tongue, heart, liver, and kidneys set in a pot of salt water to suck excess blood and gall from them, and the intestines pressed clear of their contents, turned inside out and pressed under a stone in the creek to rinse while I busied myselt to skinning and boning the meat.
Getting to the meat was the easy part, packing it to the cabin was another story, It generally took the best part of 2 1/2 days to pack everyting back to camp, and in between each trip there was packing jars with bits and pieces of meat, some measured salt and spice, and set in the canner and off I would go for yet another load of meat
Super large hunks of meat were rolled in salt and cure, wrapped in brown paper and tied up in string, these were hug to cure.
Trim meat mixed with spice and pork fat was ground and stuffed into the cleaned salted intestines as sausages.
As much meat as could be done so was packed into jars and canned, some would be plain meat, some spiced up fancy, some with salsa, some with spaghetti sauce, some with chili, oh well you get the picture.
In the fire pit the cauldren was filled with bashed long bones and water to rneder the marrow out to make some miners butter. somewhere along the line the head would be rolled through the live coals to burn and singe the hair from it, I cut the hed down the center removing the brain, and rinsed the interior cavities of the head, so when the bones had been done in and the marrow was collected, the head went into the cauldren to cook down. (Head Cheese)
All my empty jars filled, the casings packed with sausage, hunks of meat hung to cure, there is still a lot of meat left to deal with.
It is so nice to lay next to the fire pit looking at one side of ribs across from me propped up taking on refracted heat slow cooking them till they are near falling apart tender. Good eating!
The smoke house packed full with bits and pieces of trimmed meat, taking on a light coating of smoke without getting cooked, once the surface is colored and dry it is removed and by the time to goto bed taken and stacked in the cache where the remaining bugs can't get through the smoke induced scab on the meat.
Come morning liver would be the main item on the menu as it does not last long at all on it's own.
All in all this would be enough to survive on over winter, and not much at all would go to waste.
I one even dug a hole in the ground, and stretched the elk hide over and staked it down to it, useing pickling spice, garlic, bay leaves cloves and lot's of salt I made a brine and soaked chunks of meat in this solution over winter, the meat kept very well, but tended to be a bit on the rich side.
Those days are long gone to me today for sure, it was good living like that, now I have many fond memories.

spiritman
07-26-2007, 01:18 AM
I have only ever seen a couple diagrams for butchering game, I just go with the flow kinda. You seem like the right guy to ask for tips, and I could use them.

rusty_oxydado
07-26-2007, 05:05 AM
Spiritman;
You got questions, go for it, I can't read minds, if I can help, you got it.

wareagle69
07-28-2007, 02:53 PM
when you say rolled in salt and "cure" is cure an action? how much salt? where to hang? temp? light? dark?

spiritman
07-28-2007, 07:46 PM
Well how about the order you butcher different sections of a large animal in, or any useful techniques? I have only rarely done any butchering myself, I mostly fish and they are less complex than anything else, one slice and you've got it.

rusty_oxydado
07-31-2007, 02:56 PM
when you say rolled in salt and "cure" is cure an action? how much salt? where to hang? temp? light? dark?

In my youth my grandmother had a counter with a lip running around it's eage to hold her salt and cure (sodium nitrate) She did this so she could toss a whole ham or pork belly on the counter and it could lay on the cure while she took to rubbing the cure into the meat.

Not an exact science in those days, but the meat was wrapped in brown paper and a net was tied around it so it could be hung to cure/age.
After some time the paper was removed, the ham rinsed and patted dry, then the process was repeated, (called freshining.) dry rub, gift wrapped and tied up and hung out even some more.
If the cureing went well, the ham was unwrapped and given several days of cold smoke. Darker brown the better!

My druthers hang in a cool dark room, winter is a good time to do this chore, the heat will induce bone sour, the cure I use is about 12% nitrate, nitrite mix. Salt is a preservitive, the nitrates and nitrite kill bacteria and help to preserve meat, This is the stuff that turns your bacon and ham red when it is cooked.

rusty_oxydado
07-31-2007, 03:17 PM
Well how about the order you butcher different sections of a large animal in, or any useful techniques? I have only rarely done any butchering myself, I mostly fish and they are less complex than anything else, one slice and you've got it.

This is a good question.
If you are in the field, and you are working on the ground it is going to be different than if you was in camp where you could hang it.
Of corse you need to disembowl the animal first, and there is plenty there to process fromthe innards. dropping the gut, I seperate the intestine, and give it a quick flush (downwing and on another side of a log,) the stomach is a nice carring case if you have to carry the offal any distance. I harvest in addition to the the casings the heart, kidneys, and liver.
The offal set to the side, I turn to skinning the animal if it is too heavy to drag back to camp, the hide is laied open skin side up, and as I cut the animal up the skin is a handy sterile surfce to put the quarters on, I roll a sheet around the bare meat and tie this on my pack board so I can haul it back to camp.
The fore legs float along with the scapula (shoulder blade) and are easilly cut free of the carcass, The hind quarters on the other hand are connected to the body by way of the hip socket, and you will need to locate the socket to cut the connecting tendons so you can cut the hind quarter away, no need to get too much detail here, myou are going to botch this up the first few times and then with familiarity you will do work to take pride in, besides pretty work don't taste much different than work that gotter done.
You are now left with the upper and lower back and the rib's, useing the tip of my knife blade and cutting in and around the last vertebra at the ribs, sever the tendons and once you got some movement, twist the back so the cut will open enough for you to cut it all the way on through. Tie the ribs and upper back to the back board, and hand carry the lower back back to camp.
Going back for the hide is maybe your last trip.
Once back in camp then you can do all the nice fine meat cutting.

spiritman
07-31-2007, 03:29 PM
Awesome, thanks for your help!