Elk meat

[Madison COunty]

I am curious how many of you process your own meat and how many take it to a meat locker. I live in Iowa and a lot of guys here process there own deer. Also what is your favorite to do with the meat, grind, make jerky, roasts, steaks, etc?

[Still Hunter]

I do my own. Steaks with the backstraps and loins, and the rest I make stews and spaghetti sauce.

[Toby]

Do our own as well, steaks, stew and grind the rest for sausage, bacon, etc.

[Madison COunty]

You make elk baccon? That sounds yummy

What kind of grinder do you fellas use?

[Fridaythe13th]

We make or own summer sausage and just switched from brats in tubes to brat burger. it easy, fun and a good way to drink beer and tell hunting stories

[>>>---WW---->]

I do my own as well. Steaks out of the backstraps tender loins and major hind quarter muscles. Everything else goes into hamburger. My grinder is the big one from Northern Tool and I hooked an old washing machine motor that I had laying around on it. It will take meat just about as fast as you can put it in. I also have a commercial meat tenderizer or cuber.

[cnelk]

Yup.
Do my own too. Grind burger and make brats.
Take the time to remove the sinew, and my LEM grinder does just fine

[Still Hunter]

I'd love to make some elk burger, but i'm too poor to buy a good grinder. I hear the small or cheap ones won't last.

[Madison COunty]

How many pounds do you get from a average elk? How long does it take you to process one, cut and then grid d the rest?

[Madison COunty]

Yup.
Do my own too. Grind burger and make brats.
Take the time to remove the sinew, and my LEM grinder does just fine

It looks lime you have some tasty stuff there, what is that in the last picture?

[Toby]

Still hunter,

Don't get a cheap one, better off with a hand crank grinder, when I was young, we did all of our meat with one. A lilies more time and effort, but the product is just as good.

[Still Hunter]

I was thinking about that. A little extra exercise never hurts.

[Toby]

We bolted it to a bench and put an extension on the handle, made cranking easier.

[Swede]

I use a meat locker. Usually it is steaks and burger for me. I specify no fat be added to the burger.

[Elkonthebrain]

We do all of our own meat. I use the one horse cabelas commercial grinder, it's amazing how fast it will grind. As fast as you can shove it in it will spit it out.

[cnelk]

@ Madison County

The last pic of a bunch of brats that I vacuum sealed up
I use collagen casings for brats

[Harmy]

I process myself as well (1 6x6 bull, one elk calf (the only one I shot personally), one 4x4 mulie, and one doe pronghorn last fall). It takes me about 8 man hours to clean, debone, cut, package, and clean up for a decent sized cow elk. About 5-6 hours for a mulie. About 4 hours for an antelope. I grind the scraps with a 1 hp cabelas grinder. I also cut up the leg bones and make stock for soups, stews, and demi-glace. I typically make a 30-40 lbs batch of sausage from each cow with the rest in steak form. It seems that a cow provides between 85-125 lbs of meat. I do not have much experience with bulls as I have only killed one spike and one 6x6 and have processed a second 6x6 that a friend gave me last year. I think the larger bull produced about 160-180 lbs of meat total. The spike was probably only 20 lbs more meat than the largest cow I have processed. With my 6x6 the neck alone provided in excess of 40 lbs of meat.

[SilverDollars]

Howdy.

It appears that most here use the backstraps and choice hind quarter muscles for steaks. Then the other meat is ground up into burger and possibly made into sausage. I need to start another post on your sausage recipes. But no one here makes elk jerky? What percentage of steak are you getting versus ground meat per cow size animal?

Thanks

[Still Hunter]

I'd love to make elk jerky. I like the idea of hunting for elk while you munch on elk jerky.

The problem for me is all the salt that's in it. It messes with my blood pressure which is normal without any salt in my diet.