Bison Butchering

[Joe tahkahikew]

That would be interesting experience. Many years ago more Americans came our way and sometimes joined us for hunting trips. But often they were unfit, and badly equiped (too much fancy outdoor clothes).

But now I see this forum I wonder how some would manage with no hammocks and tarps up here - and what would happen if you lost expensive knife?

I like meeting folk from strange countries like the UK, where you have strange accents, different customs and attitudes to our people and keep dogs in house as friends. One English guys I met is from North Yorkshire, an excellent canoeist, fit enough to carry a canoe and all gear across long portages without rest and paddle with us for many days . - and follow our dog team on foot for hours and days in winter hunts. Him and wife were good at wildlife knowledge and spotting sounds and signs. . He even beat most of us in shooting bow and arrow , spear and axe throwing. But he couldn't imitate to call our geese, nor our moose or other animals such as beaver and he didn't know the difference between black spruce (which we use) and white spruce (which we don't). Both were at home in the bush and could put up with the hardships on the trail. I went to stay with them in Yorkshire a couple of years ago. A different world. I feel very safe in mine!

Maybe.

 

[Robson Valley]

Many years ago, that would have been good experience.
I kept my longtail 60" snowshoes and my mukluk moccasins.
Long portages with big loads over rock never were fun.

Only ever lost one knife. It's in Otter Rapids, on our way down to Missinippe.

 

[Samon]

So.. this thread is about the price you are paying for bison meat in your specific isolated region?

Not details on recipes, butchering techniques or even a picture of a bison? Lol

 

[santaman2000]

I'm partly with Samon. Pix would be nice. Recipes would also be fun; although I expect they wouldn't be particularly useful in the UK. LOL Pix of the cooked food on the table would be nice as well.

All that said, i can't complain too much about the lack of pix. I'm pretty computer illiterate and can't post half the pix I'd like too. Half the time I have to lift existing pix online of things closely representative of what I write about.

 

[Robson Valley]

You forgot to comment on the superlative economics of bulk buying.

As I have some questions, let's address all these issues at once.

Recipes: I respect copyright. The authors have earned it.
So I can give you wild game cook book references and that is all.
Which meat you use is entirely your choice. I sure would like to get
a belly full of Muntjak (sp?) with bison seasonings.

Bison needs a lot of fresh ground black pepper. 2X what might seem excessive!
Bison and onion go hand in hand. Use lots for no reason at all.
Bison cooks fast. Medium heat 4 minutes each side, is perfection. 5 minutes is a disaster.
Grilling bison determines dinner time. It can't wait.

Chefs never give anything away, certainly not recipes that they intend to make their living with.
They are willing to trade. You must prepare your trade to ask for a recipe. You won't see those two.
One is kind of a ******* Beef Wellington but bison cooks tough in that.

Butchering: The animal is shot by the rancher. Step into the pasture to watch and the other bison in the herd
will probably try to kill you. It is picked up with a Clark logging skidder and taken to the field "pit" where it is gutted.
In the shop, the carcass goes up on the electric hoist to be skinned and then quartered with a power meat saw.
Takes about 10 minutes. I see the hook weights, I pay the rancher. Nearly every autumn since 2001.

The butchershop shows up with their van. It has a rail in back so they hook the quarters
onto the rail and back to their shop. By then, I've told them that I want the animal hung for 7 days.
I want steaks 1" thick, roasts no more that 4-5lbs and the rest burger.
They call when it is cut, wrapped, labelled and flash frozen. I go over there and pay them.
A 2 yr old weighs about 2,000lbs, live weight. A side on the hook is approx. 350lbs, depends on how early in the year they were born.
There will be at least 25% bone loss. I might see 275, possibly 300lbs, depends so much on the individual animal.

Bison portraits: 50 black dots in the edge of a forest, maybe 1/2 mile away, makes a really crappy picture.
There are 1,001 really good pictures of bison. I can't tell you what here: woodland or plains varieties.
I use a little Kodak Easyshare 12Mp camera and I'm unwilling to spend any more.
Easyshare is a contradiction in terms.

Posting pictures: The best I can do for you will be a kitchen shot of me whacking and trimming a bison roast with a flint knife
There's nothing sharper because it breaks along a crystalline edge like a glass, something that no steel knife can ever do. Fact.

All my pictures are cropped and trimmed to "Internet Large" with MS Office Picture Manager. That is 640 x 480 max.
They are all stored in this old computer as files in "My Pictures."
There, the trail goes cold with so many sites changing software this past year.

 

[Robson Valley]

So, A recipe of mine which is already in the Public Domain.
This for all sorts of meats, bison and Canada Goose parts included.
Whole bunch of pigeons would be just right, yes?

If you spend more than 20 minutes fussing with this, you're wasting useful hunting time.
Preheat the oven to 300F
My usual pot is 9.5" across x 7" deep
2 x 10oz cans condensed mushroom soup (+ a couple handfuls dice mushrooms? Up to you)
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1 soup can of red wine, one soup can of white wine (we don't need purple meat)
3 minced cloves of garlic
1 tsp each thyme, b. pepper, basil & oregano
1 big chopped onion
Quick stir to mix.
Approx 3lbs meat:
Goose legs, thighs, breast in 1" cubes > into the pot, quick stir to bury them.
Bison chopped into 1" cubes, maybe bigger > into the pot, quick stir to bury them.
Cook covered for 3 hours.
Maybe last hour: coarse dice potato, carrot, yam?

 

[Samon]

'bulk buying' has little to no monetary relief in the UK. Everything is expensive, taxation is so high already even Costco and makro are barely save you much compared to supermarket prices. I've looked into bulk buying alcohol, tobacco, cured meats etc and there are limits to the already pathetic savings here.

Regards to buying from someone you know, sure the deals make sense then but the reality of that is slim for most people not in deep rural areas. I have family who own country pubs and get local venison on the cheap, but even for a £1,000,000 business like theirs has and countless heads in his pub restaurant he only gets one deer at a time as freezing it ruins the quality and taste.

The need to bulk buy meat is way over blown. Once you bulked bought it you need a massive freezer which is costly and by freezing meat you ruin it imo. And although you will have lots of meat, you are forcing yourself to eat bison for months lol. Unless of course you have yet another massive expensive freezer (already eating into those bulk buy savings) to fill with other giant portions of meat.

Not to mention the health side of so much meat in your diet.. (not a vegan know it all, but know the basic limits for animal product consumption and related illness)


Now, before I get the soap! I'm only saying this because your initial post didn't seem to make sense to me, kinda was more like part of a conversation rather than a direct topic.

Without intentionally sounding like a wind up, might I suggest you invest some of that money into a badass smoker and jerky maker? Turn that meat pile into awesome snacks rather than popsicles lol!

 

[Robson Valley]

There's one more advantage: I can barter the bison for moose, elk, venison, beef, pork and chickens.
My diet is far from monotonous. I'm never forced to eat anything. Too bad if you have to.
No, the taste isn't "ruined" or there'd be no value in a freezer. It is economical.
Of course, cooked badly, I wouldn't eat it either. The freezer is not to blame for that.

It took a front quarter, away back in 2001 to get the cooking sorted out.
Had to grind some cooked meat for other things!

I have absolutely no need to buy bulk anything. I can do the math. The economic value is there.
I happen to really like the taste of bison. I'm positive that you would, too. Especially when it is prepared properly.

I do smoke and dry meats and make jerky.
That's how I know that a fully loaded Cabela's Jerky Pistol will lay out almost exactly 17' x 1/2" strip jerky.
Hi Mountain Cure and a mix of traditional and pepper seasoning is just right.
Very fond of apple as smoke wood. Just 2 smokers here and 2 grill/BBQ.


It's clear that nobody but Santaman and Janne offered food prices in return.
High or low, I cannot be faulted for curiosity.

As I suspected all along, posting pictures here is still a secret. Good test, yes?

 

[santaman2000]

A standard (common and ordinary) freezer here is around 11 cubic feet. We also freeze the veg from out gardens to last through the non growing season. Most people shop for at least two weeks supply at a time and stock other items to last from a few months to a year. Freezing is the preservation method that best preserves nutritional value of foods:

ADVANTAGES:
-no salt or preservatives needed
-if done correctly there'll be no ill effects on the tatste

DISADVANTAGES:
-yes, if done incorrectly it can hamper the taste
-needs an electric supply to work

Smoking is indeed a good way to preserve meats -----up to a point. Even smoked meat will rot after a few months in this climate (I freeze my smoked meats as well) Smoked meat is less healthy than fresh or frozen (added salt is unhealthy and the smoke in the meat is a carcinogen) That said I, like most people, really, really enjoy most smoked meats. Especially those with the very unhealthy nitrates added

Regarding "bulk" buying I partially agree with Samon about the supposed savings. There IS a way to do it that will save loads but it's not what most people would call bulk buying. The way I practice it is to look for items when they're on sale (buy one-get one free or 75% off, etc.) and stock up all I can afford. Works for meat, veg, or canned goods.

RV; have you ever asked your butcher to turn some of that ground bison into sausage?

 

[santaman2000]

....As I suspected all along, posting pictures here is still a secret. Good test, yes?

The ones I've been successful posting (that were my own pix rather than lifted from the internet) were done by putting them on Facebook first. When I want to post them here, I have two windows open (one here and one on FB) I'll click on the picture on FB and select "copy" then move to the window with BCUK and click in the post where I want to insert it and select"paste."

My problem is getting them from my camera to my computer in the first place.

 

[Robson Valley]

I don't care if the thread drifts and we gain solutions to puzzles.
I have no idea (nobody explains) how to post pix into FB, either.

 

[Janne]

A bit Off Topic, but if you live in the southern part of UK, the best eay to save money is to go once a year to France and bulk buy there.
It takes a bit of thinking a planning. But well worth it.
When I was young and lived in Sweden, we used to go to Norway or Denmark to bulk buy, then to Germany.
France when we lived in UK

Samon, I do not understand why your family has problems freezing venison?

It freezes very well, and being lean, lasts easily 12 months.
Vacuum packed is best.

I import vacuum packed, frozen fish for own use from Norway. Is good for over 18 months in the freezer. Maybe longer, but that is the oldest I have found and cooked.

Do you have any ‘own’ receipes, RobsonV?

Pictures? I think the young generation that are brought up with the so called social media might need them to fully ‘get’ a message, but us older ones are used to read books, and can ‘get it’ just from reading?

 

[Samon]

My family don't have trouble with freezing it, they refuse to do so because as a food business that has won awards and wishes to continue that, wants the best flavour per £ on the table. And as money is the driving force of this topic, and the like of bison meat I can see two sides.

1.Freezing makes perfect sense if you have it in large amounts and can't store it fresh. I personally freeze my meats but I also don't eat much of it nor do I buy very expensive meats in big amounts. Nor do I ever eat fish that isn't as fresh as possible because it's bloody rank beyond that lol.


2.So, If you love the stuff enough to fork over big cash you'll know fresh is best and bulk buying something that will not be as good once frozen and defrosted seems odd. Atleast as a culinary venture. Not that it will taste like cat food but there is a difference and done improperly leads to freezer burn or shorter storage times.

Again, I'm not against freezing food at all. And my family don't like me (not even a little lol) so try not to think I'm a spoilt food Ponce.im a low income labourer and a bit of an obsessive nerd but I've managed to enjoy good food on a low budget my whole life through clever planning, recycling previous meals and making large batches of stews and broths etc. But the meat after freezing is never as good as it was when first made.. which sparked my initial thinking. Especially venison which is the most experienced game meat.

I swear the weather is making me a miserable git! So please don't take my input as a jab.

 

[Robson Valley]

Ah, that's OK. I'm doing OK as a pensioner. Sort of capitalized my retirement so I have finally arrived at the point of being debt free.

The wine-braised bison recipe has been altered dramatically from it's original circa 1995 version. I get to call it mine.

Suppose you have some really tender bison but another plain steak just isn't what you need.
Do bison fajita. You need stuff like soft tortillas, sour cream, guacamole and so on.

Fine slice a red pepper, a green pepper and a big onion.
Goop: Soya sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder, season salt, fresh ground b. pepper,
shot of hickory smoke BBQ sauce (Kraft is best.) This goop is 100% mine.

> use some to coat the peppers & onion, stir fry that.
> use some to coat the fine-slivered meat, stir fry that.
The instant the meat changes color, it's done.
> add the veg back to the pan to reheat.
I serve on oven-hot cast iron plates.
Wrap in a tortilla with sour cream and guacamole and eat.

Ale is better than wine with this.
I presume beef and chicken would be OK meats. Even pigeon breast or rabbit.
Used elk and moose this fall (both bartered from my stupendous, enormous pile of bison.)

You know what a cardboard box looks like, the ones that hold a dozen x 750ml bottles of wine?
$1,200.00 gets me about 5-6 of those full of frozen bison.

 

[santaman2000]

Both chicken and shrimp are becoming common meats for fajitas. I skip the guacomole though.

Yeah Samon, fresh is best, I agree. I just don't see a GREAT DEAL of degradation when it's properly frozen though.

 

[santaman2000]

I don't care if the thread drifts and we gain solutions to puzzles.
I have no idea (nobody explains) how to post pix into FB, either.

That's harder to explain, but I manage to load them on FB from the "my pictures" file on my computer.

 

[Samon]

Make an account on an image hosting site. Not photobucket, they are money grabbing weaseled, I've been using imgur since pb stabbed us in the back.

From there you upload your computer images to a folder on that account. Once it's there you copy and paste one of the code links on the image, usually the one that says for forums etc and just paste the code.

Bingo, your picture is uploaded to the forum. Not as easy as it could be but not hard after an hour or so of light practice and patience.

 

[Robson Valley]

Santaman: I make fajita when I need REAL MEAT and game is the way to go. I like to bake crumb coated prawn.
I just put my face in the plate and come up for air when it's empty.

Samon: Thanks. You write well. As clear as I need it to be. Thank you.
I shall mess with that. I opened an account with some postphoto? but it didn't hold my attention with the utter lack of instruction.

I just bought a big 10.5" x 20" cast iron stove griddle that spans 2 elements on my stove.
Saw prices from $70 up to $170. Got it, never used, from a local for $25.00.

You all come over for fajita. You won't be disappointed.

 

[santaman2000]

Santaman: I make fajita when I need REAL MEAT and game is the way to go. I like to bake crumb coated prawn.......

My favorite way to eat shrimp is a Low Country Boil (following pix with my daughter and her family)

Bring water to a rolling boil-----add 4 or 5 onions (halved) and a jar of Zataran's Cajun Seasoning (or Old Bay if you prefer a Mid Atlantic style)----add a pound or 2 of cut up potatoes and 10 or a dozen ears of fresh corn (frozen corn on the cob can be used but adjust cooking times) and let boil about 15 minutes----add 3 or 4 pounds of shrimp and let boil another 5 to 10 minutes. Some people add smoked sausage to the boil.

Pull out the inner basket, let drain, and pour out onto newspaper to serve.

 

[santaman2000]

The next favorite ways would be in a pasta dish or a stir fried Thai dish.