TerribleTed you are more observant than I. The 5# Northern shows plastic gears. My feeling is that you are making the right call, we can't trust plastic to do the work that metal will do over the expected life of this device. Back to square one! The LEM 5# is all metal construction.I suppose the piston will be some type of plastic on all these type stuffers. Glad you spotted that!
The percentage of live weight to dressed weight will probably vary from person to person or processor to processor. Lots of folks want the deer cut similar to a beef and that is the usually the easiest job if an electic meat saw is used. This increases the "take home" weight by all the bones that the coyotes and buzzards usually feast upon. I think most people who really enjoy venison are prone to muscle bone their deer or have it done by a processor. It makes a world of difference in the final product. We usually don't weigh our deer unless he is a whopper so the ratio, live to dressed, would not even be an accurate guess. We seperate all the muscles in the hams ,removing all silver skin and junk that we don't want to eat, then cross grain cut everything about 1/4" for fry meat. The tender loins are pulled and usually wrapped with bacon and broiled or grilled. The backstraps are cut from the deer and all silver skin is fileted just like when you clean a bass for the frying pan. The straps are then cross grain cut into 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" chops. To me this is fine eatin'! Then unless the wife wants some lean ground meat, both shoulders, brisket, rib meat, neck and all the shank meat(less all the fat I can trim off without too much effort) goes to the freezer after being weighed and packaged for sausage processing later on. Can't even make a guess on the ratio of a hog, I know they usually dress better than a beef. We are blessed not to be bothered by any wild porkers right now. Hope it remains so, as they sure tear up a lot of stuff- deer feeders, food plots, hay fields and what ever gets in their way.
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I debone it all. Steak as much as possible but the straps stay whole but for the skin I fillet it off to. I hunt public land so we know the weight of every deer. They age and weigh them all some even gut them for you so they can take samples.
I hardly ever batter and deep fry venison. Unless i am doing country fried steaks. By the way use cream to make the gravy.
I will take the strap cook some onions and mushrooms then add butter garlic and some olive oil. raise the pan temp then put in strap steaks. I like venison rare or grill the strap. I debone the neck shoulders ribs. Then as i steak the scraps go in to the mix. I clean all the steak and roast no Gris or silver skin. Then even the burger is put in a veggie bag rolled up and wrapped in butcher paper.
I weight every package
date
and label.
I try to rotate what in the freezer
TerribleTed; It seems like we are on the same page more or less. Venison is a wonderful meat and the longer it is cooked the tougher it gets. The 1/4" fry meat is in the old black skillet exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds-peanut oil smokin' hot. The bonless chops from the straps get about the same on each side and they are rare and delicious! The chops are usually seasoned with Everglades seasoning or on occasion a hickory smoked salt. The chops are seared in a small amount of olive oil and are let rest for a few minutes be the devouring takes place. Also use the fry meat for venison stew. It is browned then put in crock pot with onions, mushrooms and potatoes sliced thin, needless to say the meat cooks almost to pieces. Nobody complains! Making me hungry describing it. Tomorrow's dinner after church will be peas, rice, cream corn, fried corn bread, quick fried venison ham, gravy and ice tea. The fry meat is usually seasoned the evening before it is cooked. Tomorrow's will be seasoned w/Everglades and dredged through flour, put in fridge till time to cook.
Last deer I killed (seems like it was 20 years ago), I decided to cut out some of the bigger muscles for roasts. Glad I did, too. Threw them in the crock pot and made either pot roast, stew or stroganoff, some of the best I'd ever had. Prior to that we always cut out the loins and backstrap, and then had cube steaks made of the bigger muscles, and sausage or hamburger made of the rest. I won't do that again! Cube steak is alright, but using them roasts in the crock pot are a whole lot better!
Take a roast dependent on ageing wrap or layer with bacon and tooth pick it to the roast. place that on the grill. I always let the roast age 3 day in the fridge just laying on a plate uncovered before i cook them --beef to.
My daughter's love the strap marinated in teriyaki then grilled. I love cubed streak because I love chicken fried steaks.
that's also good with hog back strap.
