Gettin rid of gamey taste in deer, anyone know?

[Johnny Reb]

I've tried soakin in milk over nite and no luck
    Curious if the age or the fact that ther in rut mite make deer taste strong, all the hormones in ther system, mite be just me but some deer aint gamey at all,just a thought.
  Any body got a fix for this?

[Don Stokes]

Grind it up and make chili?

[Al Dente]

It starts with field dressing, making sure not to puncture any part of the stomach, intestines, or bladder.  Then, cooling it as quickly as possible.  I always found that an overnight soak in milk took away any semblence of gaminess.

[Steve in Canton]

Try buttermilk instead of milk,

[Johnny Reb]

GOTCHA, will do ,   Thanx ya'll.

[TJenuwine]

America's Test Kitchen, on PBS, did a study with over 1000lbs of beef to come up with a fool-proof way to get perfectly cooked meat. The key is to get the temperature of the meat safely up to room temp before you apply heat. They did this by thawing the frozen meat in the refrigerator and 10 minutes before they wanted to start cooking they placed the meat in a zip-lock bag with all air removed. Then place the bag in 100 degree water, (usually as hot as your tap gets)this gets the meats temp up around 70 degrees. They found that there was a different chemical reaction between the connective tissues/fat when the temps were spiked quickly and released that gamey flavor plus made the meat tougher. Remove the meat before it's desired wellness is reached and cover with foil for 5-10min. The cooking continues while the juices are locked in the meat. I've tried this on every kind of cut from roasts to tenderlion and it really works. They also included different marinade techniques and strongly suggest using only salt and pepper to season before cooking apply your "flavoring" during or after cooking. Just try it you'll be amazed.

[tecum-tha]

It is in the butchering of the deer.Al Dente is right about the field dressing. Then bone the meat out! Do not saw through any bones, the bone marrow has this rancid flavour and gives it away with contact. The same with all the fat. Cut it off. It carries the same rancid flavour. It`s structure is not like beef or pig fat. Sheep fat resembles deer fat the most, that`s why you roast lamb dry. Even the hamburger meat should have removed all the fat you can get. You will never get that done by a processor, you have to do it yourself.

[Al Dente]

Absolutely Tecum-Tha!!!  I forgot to mention the fat/tallow/marrow issue. Being a prey animal, deer fat is very concentrated, as it runs a lot, and the fat that is stored in the animal contains a concentrated amount of nastiness.  And as stated above, bone out the meat, without cutting trough any bones.  The "smear" that comes along with the knife blade will most definitely give an off flavor.  Just the meat, no fat or bone.

[Ray Hammond]

but more than even what's been mentioned, is that the "gamey" taste can also be attributed to how quickly you get that deer cooled down prior to doing something with it.

If a deer rides in the back of a pickup in the south for an hour, it's going to be gamey...but it's not anything other than the onset of bacteria- when you kill a warm blooded animal, as soon as it hits the ground the body temp begins to rise...because the blood stops circulating and there's no way for the heat build up of their digestive system to be dissipated.

I typically carry two bags of ice in a cooler in my truck - the cavity is opened, and the bags of ice are inserted as soon as I can possibly do it.

Don't leave your meat wet either...water soaked meat = bacteria growth.

I have people who are non hunters eating venison in my home all the time- who inevitably say " why this doesn't taste gamey at all". I don't tell them why what they've had before tasted and smelled as it did...but I won't use a processor for anything if I can help it.

I can tell you some horror stories about the way many of these places treat "your" deer.

[Dave Bulla]

Yup, keep everything sanitary when field dressing or cutting up your deer and if possible, let it age for at least 3 days.  A week or two is better but most of us can't do that.  I see you're in Tennessee so I expect most times you have to cut your deer up right away.  If there is any way possible you can pick up an old refrigerator and stick it in your garage or basement, you can remove the shelves and hang the quarters from a deer inside to age.   In a setup like that, I'd go closer to the two weeks than the three days.  It will form almost a shell on the outside when the outer membrane dries and may seem wrong but when you cut it up, the inside will be perfect.  I've had very noticeable benefits in as little as 3 days.

Also, it's dead on about the "don't cut the bones".  When I was a kid we used to have our deer cut at a local processor and we used to have to scrape each side of a steak with a knife to get the marrow and bone meal off the steaks before cooking them.  I always thought deer meat was supposed to taste strong back then.

It wasn't till I started cutting up my own and didn't own a good saw (so I had to just debone) that I figured out deer meat can be just as mild as elk or beef.

[tecum-tha]

When I hunt TN,a lot of the checking stations have a 20ft cooling container. It is usually $5 a day.
These things cool down your deer real quick and you can pick it up the next day real cool before processing. Aging is always good,if you have the possibility,like mentioned above.
Sonner or later,I will build my own little game cooler,too. Especially for early deer season.

[Brent Hill]

I gettem open quick, guts out and ice in the cavity and cover the outside of the body inside a big cooler.  Like Ray, I will bring a couple bags in the cooler to camp just in case I take one. Ice in my cooler is my good luck charm.  I will reice daily and drain the blood stained water of until processing.   Works with deer and pigs.  Never have had gamey meat.  Bhill

[Tsalagi]

One thing, if I may say so. Keep the hair off the meat as much as possible. The WORST bowl of chili I ever had was antelope chili. I couldn't figure out why it tasted to so bad and made me cough---and then I noticed the hair floating in it. The ravens got that bowl of chili and I politely declined any further food from that co-worker. Later heard they were drunk while processing the animal. I counted myself fortunate not to have gotten food poisoning.

[jerseyboy]

Over the years i have found that the longer you can let a deer hang and age the better tasting and tender the meat becomes. If its cool enough i have let deer hang as long as two weeks and it was the best i ever had.Of course if its warm as it usually is in bow season you will need a refrigerator to hang it in. DO NOT lay deer down in a frig. the meat will spoil.

[Earl E. Nov...mber]

I agree with the processing,, Bone the meat, Remove all or as much silver skin as possible, and all the fat.. However you can still screw venison up by over cooking which many do..
Sear the meat first and cook to medium well, serve hot.. Excellent

[Don Stokes]

I think the original question was about how to correct it once the damage is done. I'm not sure there is a good solution to that problem. Most of the suggestions are preventative in nature, and they're right on!

I field dress immediately, right where the animal falls. If there's a water source nearby, I dunk the carcass to get the cooling process started as quickly as possible. When I bring the animal out of the woods, I skin it immediately and hose it down thoroughly. I know some people will disagree with that step, but it has worked the best for me. Get all the hair off, and all the excess blood inside the body cavity. If it's not cool enough to hang outside, which it rarely is in MS, I remove the backstraps and quarter it, and put all of the meat in a cooler on a thick bed of ice, arranged so that no water from melting ice will pool on the meat. I cover the meat with more ice, tilt the cooler and open the drain plug so that the meat NEVER sits in water. The old refrigerator idea is even better. In a week or 10 days I cut it up, trimming it closely and removing all the fat. If I want summer sausage or anything other than steaks and burger, that's when I take it to a reputable processor, one you KNOW will take good care of YOUR meat.

To save processing time and freezer space, instead of cutting the steaks while I'm processing, I freeze the big muscles whole, and cut them up when I'm ready to use them. That gives me the option of making roasts, steaks, stew meat, or whatever I am hungry for at the time. The meat holds up better in the freezer in bigger pieces, too.

I bought a 1000 watt grinder from Northern Hydraulics that will grind anything I put in it without bogging down. I remove the majority of the "silver skin" sinew, but a little bit left on won't taint the meat, and speeds up processing time considerably. Getting it off is the most time-consuming part of processing. I do get ALL the fat off- that's where the bad taste is concentrated.

The grinder also has sausage-making attachments for links and brats and such, but I haven't tried that yet.

[Flt Rck Shtr]

I also agree with what the others say about the field dressing methods and trimming off every piece of fat and silver skin. I run all of my steaks through a tenderizer at least 3 times. I've feed it to alot of people, even some critics that said they don't like deer steak and not so much as a single complaint of gamey taste.

[rp65]

Meat handling is very important and try seasonings if you like.

[longbow fanatic 1]

Try buying Allegro Game Tame Wild Game Marinade. Place meat into a ziploc bag w/marinade into the refrigerator, turning it ever hour for four hours. That should tenderize and help remove the gamey taste.

[rg176bnc]

Every thing said here is dead on.  One thing I do is quarter the animal and place it in a cooler w/ ice for 3-7 days depending on the weather. (colder I go longer). Leave the drain hole open so the water can drain.  

We have a well where I work so I rinse mine daily and fill back up w/ ice.  Along w/ the other measures here the gameyness should go away for the most part.