EBB

First off, big thanks to all who post & contribute here. With no body to teach me personally I've learned a lot from many of you. Thanks for your time & experience.

I'll cut to the question here, post the story below...

Now that he's butchered, should I drain (cure) him first before freezing or just slice, seal and freeze now?
I threw the backstraps on the grill right away and it was dynamite! But I know many of you drain first... what's the deal?

As for the how, after dropping a ton of cash at Cabela's waking up from the cold floor of my cabin at 5:00am, spraying with scent blocker and positioning & repositioning my stand, this guy walked down my driveway.

Very rural area, 1/4 mile driveway with 200 acres of woods to the left and right. He was standing under a pine tree checking me out so I grabbed my bow just like that. No camo, no waiting, no problem. 30 yards broadside and he ran 40 yards.

Not very gorious, but there's my first deer.

Maybe the next one will be more challenging!

saltflyz

Great story! I cut and pasted thesegment below from another post. Angus Cameron wrote the LL Bean cookbook.



Even though this has been discussed before, here is an interesting take from author Angus Cameron. "if deer are skinned, cut up and packaged for the freezer immediately after the deer has been brought home, they "age" beautifully right in your deep freezer!...this writer hunter used to scorn this method until our wildlfe artist friend Peter Parnell persuaded me to try this method..." Basically his wife shot a 6 pointer and they had the deer butchered and in the freezer 15 hours later. They served venison soon thereafter and a hunter/ cook aficianado asked how long the deer had hung because it was the best he had ever had. The man was astonished that the the venison had aged right in the freezer.

Hunterbrum

Great story, I just cut them and into the freezer they go.

Ironworker2813

I have found that when yo let them hang them tendorize very nice. I shot a nice 9 pointer in PA this fall, let it hang and drain for 3 days, than i brought it to a butcher and had it chopped up. Most tender, non gamey venison ive ever had. Every peice even the stew meat taste and chews like tenderloin!! Let it hang

isatarak

Once you have them butchered, they've "drained" all they're gonna drain anyway.

We hang ours in a walk-in cooler for up to a week to age and cool out.

EBB

Thanks, I really enjoyed butchering this myself, but would like to get better at it (there were a few rough pieces...)
I'd never done it before, but I've worked as a chef so I was pretty familiar with the basic anatomy and principals.
I just finished eating - the tenderlon was amazing. I just slapped some store-bought marinade on at 3:00 this afternoon and broiled it about 4 hours later.
Great feeling for a first-timer.