Question on Field Dressing

This is something I do anyways, but have always wondered why:

What is the importance of removing the esophagus? Is it to allow blood drainage?

 

When I dress out a deer I always reach up as far as I can and cut it off as far up as I can reach. To me it is just less I have to take out when I skin it. The way I see is either way it has to get cut when you dress it out so might as well get as much as I can in the field.

 

Next to the guts, it has the most bacteria and will spoil very fast.

 

I do it all at the same time. Is this not what others do?

 

Fitz is exactly right....The esophagus has by far the most bacteria and can spoil very quickly just like the guts. If the esophagus rots and is left in...sayonara to the rest of your meat!

 

The reason I like to remove the esophagus is to cool down the meat quicker. The neck is the thickest part of a deer. Thus, it takes longer to chill it out if you don't remove it.

 

I always thought it was just used to pull out the guts (like a handle)

 

That's how i do it lol. I had no idea about the bacteria and whatnot.

 

I don't field dress. I clean the majority of my deer on the spot. Have it down to less than 10 min. ! Way less mess to deal with later. I will drag them away from my set if needed. The remains are usually gone in a couple days if that!

Meat soaks in ice water for 3 days. Changing the water out twice the first day, and once a day for the remaining 2days.

 

Have gutted two deer in the last week and was thinking why bother field dressing. You can get almost all the meet (except ribs) without ever opening the chest.
I've seen people do it on bigger deer?
I did it on a small deer shot with a muzzle loader on a steep away angle and everything inside the rib cage was a mess. Didn't effect anything else so we didn't gut it. Just took off the quarters, back straps, some neck meat and scraps of the sides for my dog.
Done..

 

Thats the way I have always done it. Way less mess, I loose very little meat this way.

 

So this begs the questions when to field dress.
I can think of two situations.

1) When you want to open age your meat.
I normally age my meat about 5 - 7 days in the fridge before moving to cooking, freezing.
If the weather just right its best to age it on the meat pole and to do that it needs to be field dressed.

2) When you really want the ribs.
I do not like to waste meat but often the ribs get pretty busted up by guns / arrows (this also happens to the shoulder sometimes) So when usable and sizable I will / would field dress to get the ribs.

 

I started using a tree and my truck to yank the hide off... Tie the back legs to the tree and the hide to the bumper and drive forward... what a time saver. Then I remove all the boned meat except the shoulders without going into the chest cavity... except one small cut to get the heart if it is still intact... sliced thin and stir fried with peppers and onions, it makes an awesome philly cheese sandwich.

 

Muzzy Man, I cant knock it because Ive never tried it. But eating the heart sounds disgusting. Think I will stick to tenderloin. LOL

 

I normally do not gut the deer either. We started that in our club a while back and definitely saves time, plus I agree on the ribs being busted up. As a club we normally kill between 75 and a 100 deer a year. We take the shoulders, tenderloins, debone the hind quarters and let it go. Sometimes we take the neck if we have a request. We will gut the deer if donating it to hunters for the hungry, as that is required.

 

My favorite part... tastes like tenderloin. Try it... you'll like it.

 

When I gut a deer in the field the only things that come out are the intestines, liver, and stomach. I leave the heart and lungs in (we eat the heart and this is the easiest why to transport it for me). So obviously I leave the esophagus in. I also don't pull the butt out in the field. Once I get them home and hanging I'll take the heart & lungs out and cut the butt out and clean the pelvic hole right out. I've never pulled the esophagus out until I'm butchering. Been doing it that way for over 25 years and have never lost any meat. Heck even in 70F I'll leave them hang a few days. I keep them completely out of the sun and in the building where they hang is generally stays around 20 degrees cooler inside. We also leave the hide on them until we butcher. My family has done over 100 deer done this way since I've been hunting and not one once of meat has ever been bad.

 

It's actually very tasty. After all it's just another muscle.

 

Yes very tasty. When I shot my first deer many years ago the old timer hunters made me take a bite out of the raw heart. I would not recomend doing this as it was very nasty and messy thing to do but boy did they love that I did it for them. But cooked heart is yummy try it.

 

You can eat the heart and liver from a deer. In some areas you have to be careful, make sure to look for polyps or other odd growths on the organs and chest cavity walls.

I found this image which I thought was interesting:

They reference cutting up a deer almost like you would a lamb or cattle.

I've been wanting to try deer ribs for a few years now, but have instead spent the time to cut each little chunk of meat I could find out for grinding. I was tempted to leave some of the silverskin and fat on this year, but went ahead and cleaned everything up really well. After a friend of mine had some and couldn't stop talking about how flavorful and tender it was, I decided I was probably doing things the right way.