Elk meat can be made into various cuts including backstraps, tenderloins, roasts, steaks and smaller pieces can be cut into stew meat or saved to be ground into burger or sausage.
This meat was trimmed to be packaged as a roast. The trimmings were cut into stew meats.
This meat is from an elk leg and is called shank meat. The silver skin, or thin membrane on the muscle, can be removed and the meat used as stew meat or ground for burger or sausage.
When processing wild game at home, the first thing to do is have a clean and sanitary cutting and processing area. Knives should be clean and sharp. Soapy water, markers, freezer tape, freezer paper and a plastic liner like saran wrap is also good to have. The plastic liner can help seal the meat inside the freezer paper and can help prevent freezer burn. Vacuum packing and freezer bags can also be used for storage as well as canning to preserve the meat.
Now that hunting season is in full swing many hunters have bagged their game. With meat hanging in sheds, garages or coolers some hunters choose to process their meat at home.
After properly field dressing the wild game, some hunters use horses, mules, pack boards or game carts to pack out the animal. Sometimes hunters even bone out their meat in order to make a lighter pack and leave the bones in the field.
Wild game can be cut and treated differently than beef. Sometimes the tenderloins and back straps are cut out of elk, deer or moose because wild game is not usually cut into t-bones like beef is. The ribs are not usually used either because of the lack of meat on them compared to beef, although all bones can make soup stocks.
When processing wild game at home, the first thing to do is have a clean and sanitary cutting and processing area. Knives should be clean and sharp with steel close at hand to maintain blades. A tub of soapy water and cloths can be handy as well. Markers, freezer tape, freezer paper and a plastic liner like saran wrap is also good to have. Vacuum packing and freezer bags can also be used for storage as well as canning to preserve the meat.
Meat should be well skinned of any hide and all dirt, hair and pine needles should be picked off. Knives are used to trim off the silver skin, tendon sheaths, and any blood shot areas and what will not be eaten.
Larger pieces of meat can be cut into roasts and steaks while smaller pieces can be put into a container to be ground for burger. Wild game is a lean meat so when the hamburger is ground, generally beef or pork fat or suet is mixed in and then ground together. Smaller chunks of meat can also be cut into stew meat. Meat scraps should be kept separate from meat cuts and disposed of properly.
Sometimes meat can be tough or gamey if it is an older animal, an animal that ran hard before it died or perhaps killed during the rut (breeding season). Tenderizing methods like cubing the tough cuts or cutting for stew meats can be one way to use tough wild game meat. Cubing the meat involves running the pieces through an electric tenderizer or using a meat mallet for more tender cuts.
Meat can be packaged into preferred sizes, labeled and then stored in freezers for future use.
Depending on the type of game animal, hunters in Montana can look forward to an average of more than 60 to 250 lbs of roasts, steaks, stew meat, cube steak and burger to stock their freezers.
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