I have really enjoyed doing my own meat for the past several years and honestly feel I do a WAY better job than the shops I used before . I've got the basic equipment and do a few here and there for my buddies I hunt with in which we split the meat . But I don't think I would do much as far as charging people. Its just me doing it and I don't have a designated area so by the time I set up (in the wife's kitchen ) , process and then clean everything up I have a little to much time in it . What I really need is a bigger grinder, that takes the bulk of my time right there with the one I have. But it sure is satisfying doing my own though and not wondering if my fresh and well handled game is mixed with somebody's spoiled meat or rank ole boar hog.
Sounds familiar! We've been processing deer in the kitchen probably goin' on 35 years. I love it, wife, she's still on the fence, but maybe she'll get over it in another 20 years.
We have a 3X3 piece of 5/8" lexan that we place over the counter next to the sink. The grinder and stuffer are on an oak cart that stays in the utility room till needed and the finished product is as you said "totally ours", if anything is wrong it's my fault.
I have helped a lot of folks over the years learn to muscle bone a deer and not have to endure the standard cuts from a processor. Silver skin, fat, glands, hair and dirt are not on the menu at our camp! It's a lot of work but it's well worth doing your own processing.
Last Friday evening a family brought 2 back straps to me to show them how to cut them. They had sent the rest of the deer to a processor for sausage. I told them they had sent some mighty good fry meat to become sausage when they let the hams go. They just didn't know. (Cool thing about this was the deer was killed by their teenage daughter, her 2nd!)
Always good to hear that folks are doing their own meat processing.
Treefarmer
When I first started it, breaking down the hams just confused me . They seemed like a big flabby hunk of meat. But with the help of youtube I learned how to separate the muscles and get the different cuts.There ain't much from my hams getting ground.
One thing I have learned about processing..people don't understand how much meat they should get back. I am very frugal with how I trim an animal, and probably get more meat off of a carcass than 99% of other people, especially most processors. One guy brought me an 80# hog and wanted 20# of Italian, 20# of country sausage, the backstraps & t-loins cut and wrapped, and the hams deboned for roasts..Before I put a knife on it, I made it clear there wouldn't be that much volume of meat
Tell me about it... I shot 2 hogs yesterday totaling 270 lbs. And once I got them cleaned I only had 116lbs. With the bone.
