Jerky Making - I just failed!
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About five years ago I made some batches of venison jerky and they came out excellent. I used ground venison and a jerky shooter and the oven. Since then I've been making sausage and burgers. This year I took a couple of deer, my friend shot a 346 bull elk, and another friend gave me a bunch of moose meat.
I had a few packages of the ground moose meat and figured I'd make some jerky. Now the meat is a few years old but vacuum packed. The butcher ground it without real care and there is a ton of ground up silver skin mixed in the meat. I used the Back Woods Jerky Seasonings, mixed it up and let marinate over night. Then I cooked in the over for two hours (flipping once ) at 200 degrees. It tastes like a venison steak of an animal that wasn't cared for properly. Real strong gamey taste. I'm thinking it is either the sinew in the meat or not enough seasonings. I heard somewhere you have to add more seasonings when you do the ground meat method. What do you guys think and any tips would be appreciated.
I bet venison fat got ground up with it.
I don't know anything about moose, but deer does not seem as stable in the freezer as beef or pork.
"Butchers" don't, or can't, wave a magic wand over the meat to make it taste good or bad. Some animals are just "twangy".
I've never much cared for Backwoods seasonings. I tried it a couple of years ago with ground deer and didn't like the result. It was the first time I'd ever used ground meat and a jerky shooter, always used strips before. This past year I went back to my old seasoning recipe but tried it on ground and it came out all right. A lot of mine will have some sinew and silvers ground up in it. I try to keep the fat out for sure as it doesn't dry well.
Like Dirk said, grill a burger and that will give you some idea if it is just the meat. A good change of seasoning might help you like it did me.
Get the silver skin out... especially with venison!
A friend of mine that butchers deer always has Jerky in the works. I don't know what seasoning he uses but it is fantastic. When he does my deer all the silver skin is removed as well as the tallow. It is vacuum sealed. His little daughter always has a hand full of deer Jerky. Her black lab will do anything for a little jerky. He will sit, heel, lay down and minds her perfectly. Then she give him a small piece of jerky. He has a machine/oven just for making jerky and keeps it going all the time in deer season. His jerky is tender and he uses sliced meat, not ground.
This is why I butcher all my game myself. This way I KNOW what I'm getting. I was taught by my hunting elders that what I do in the first 5 minutes of when I gut a deer in the field will have the most impact on how the meat will taste. If it's scrap from a commercial butcher, you have no Idea who's game scrap you're getting, and no idea of how they took care of it in the field.
For sure, and if you combine that with meat that wasn't properly cared for in the field it becomes flat inedible.
My dad and grand dad taught me to field dress deer and rabbits right away. That is why I never leave a deer in the woods to blood trail in the morning. I carry lights and cat eyes to mark the trail at night and have field dressed many deer late at night. When the weather is cold I have field dressed deer that were way back and hung them up a tree with a pulley thing I got in Main when I was a kid. Now that I have a Gator, I don't have to drag and can go get em at night with no problem.
Sounds like we came from the same hunting family!
Ok that's what I thought. I had the same idea, make a burger and see how that comes out. If that's gamey then I'll use it to make some hot sausage and go heavy on the seasonings like I do with big old boar hogs. I was frankly surprised with all the ground up fat in the meat since I butcher all my game and take the time to remove all fat and silver skin.
"...what I do in the first 5 minutes of when I gut a deer in the field will have the most impact on how the meat will taste."
And that is why meat processors get blamed for bad tasting meat. Some dummy destroys their own meat before they even get it off the mountain and then belly ache about the "butcher"...
Meat quality on the table is soley the hunters responsibility.