How to reduce the gamey taste in deer meat

[Smokin Turkey]

Might not work for the recipe you are using, but when I make a deer roast for the family who doesn't like deer, I can pass it off as beef when I soak it for 24 hours in french onion soup in the refridge. Seems that the onion removes or cancels the gamey taste.

 

[Rightstuff]

I found this recipe a while back that over 542 people had rated it 5 stars. It sounded good to me, but I haven't tried it yet.

Sweet Bacon-Wrapped Venison Tenderloin

clear stars
Ingredients:

• 2 lbs venison tenderloins (a single deer loin or Moose or Elk or Pork or Beef)
• 1/2 lb baconhttp://www.recipezaar.com/library/getentry.zsp?id=352
• 3 cups brown sugarhttp://www.recipezaar.com/library/getentry.zsp?id=375
• 2 cups soy saucehttp://www.recipezaar.com/library/getentry.zsp?id=473
• 1/4 cup white sugarhttp://www.recipezaar.com/library/getentry.zsp?id=139 (Optional for added Sweetness)

Directions

1. Mix brown Sugar and Soy sauce together in a bowl. They should combine nicely into a soupy soy liquid.
2. Put Deer Loin in a cooking tray and pour Brown Sugar/Soy Sauce mixture over loin. Roll tenderloin over in mixture, completely covering it.
3. Let meat marinate in mixture at least 3 hours or overnight in fridge. It's best to marinate for 8 hours if you have the time. Also GREAT to use a Food Saver or other Vacuum device to Vacuum pack/seal the meat with Marinade. With this method, you can achieve Overnight-level marinade in just a couple hours!
4. Remove loin from tray, and place on a slotted bake sheet with a drip pan or aluminum foil below to catch dripping. Don't throw away marinade.
5. Wrap a piece of bacon around the very end of the tenderloin, securing the bacon strip with a toothpick.
6. Repeat this process until the entire loin is wrapped in ten or so bacon "loops." The tenderloin should look like an arm with a bunch of wrist watches on it, the watches being the bacon strips.
7. Drizzle remaining marinade over deer loin. You can continue to baste the loin with the marinade throughout the cooking process with either a brush or a turkey baster.
8. OPTIONAL - with about 10 minutes of cooking time left, you can lightly dust the top of the loin with white sugar. This creates a sweet crust on top of the bacon. Might be too sweet for some. Try doing it on just HALF of the loin to see if you like it!

 

[bbqbull]

Ive shot whitetail deer in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan.
They call them swamp bucks for the most part and their diet is basically grass and pine needles.
Down where I hunt in the grain belt.......there is a huge difference in taste of the meat.
The deer eat corn, soybeans, acorns and ive seen them come in from the pasture with the cattle and eat out of cattle feeders.
The southern deer, when cutting/butchering them we remove all visible fat and silver skin. We would grab the loins and hit them with seasoned salt and slap them on the grill.
Very mild taste and darned fine eats .
I think the wild gamey taste is based on what they eat.
Good luck on what ever you decide and let us know how things turn out.

 

[fil]

My boss has been quartering the deer and putting it in one of the large ice chests covering it with ice and sits the chest over a floor drain with the drain of the chest open. He keeps fresh ice on top for about a week (and washes the drain daily) after a week the meat has ZERO gaminess. I thought he was nuts but that is the best deer meat I have ever had. Shoot my wife said she hated deer meat because of the taste (when she was a kid) I made chicken fried steaks out of some of the deer meat and didn't tell her what it was...... Now she asks " when does deer season start".

LOL

fil

 

[Beerwolf]

I find having another beer will cure any flavor issues

 

[Rookie'48]

I have used this method on deer liver & it works great. Cover the meat on all sides with salt, large grain salt like Kosher salt is best. Let sit for an hour or so, rinse, repeat. The 'gamey' flavor is in the blood, the blood is drawn out by the salt. Easy peasy.











9

 

[TN_BBQ]

use a cedar plank

throw away deer eat plank

That's a recipe for duck. :-D

 

[Juggy D Beerman]

The gamey taste in venison can be due to a variety of reasons. One factor is diet. Another factor is how quickly the deer was killed. These previous two points have already been posted and I agree with their arguments.

The following point has been mentioned but not defended. The major factor is how the deer was handled after it was killed. The meat needs to be cooled quickly after the kill. Letting a deer hang for over ten hours in 60ºF or higher temp is a good way to get that gamey taste. You wouldn't let a hog or beef side hang overnight in warm weather after gutting it, why would you do this to a deer?

Deer fat will also have a gamey flavor. Trim all of this from the meat that you can. There isn't much fat on the back strap like there is on the hams and to a lesser extent, the shoulders, so this shouldn't be a problem. Make sure you trim all the silver skin you can from the outside of the loin roast. This is best done by getting the meat almost frozen and using a very sharp knife to remove the skin. This trick will keep you from cutting too much meat off the roast. This silver skin that surrounds muscle groups can be very tough. One of the thicker membranes is on the back strap.

I have had good success with this recipe that Qsis posted on the BBQ Forum years ago: http://www.bbqsearch.com/bbqboard/displayMessage.asp?id=192787&keywords=marinade

If I am using the recipe as a marinade, I follow the ingredients to the letter. You can marinate the roasts or steaks for as long as overnight.

When I use this recipe as an injection solution, I omit the vegetable oil. I make up the solution a day or two in advance so the flavors can meld. I then strain the solution so that the garlic, pepper and parsley do not clog the injecting needle. I use about an ounce of solution per pound of meat and let the meat rest for about four hours before cooking.

Reserve some of the solution for later. The rub I use on venison is a combination of brisket rub and Montreal Steak Seasoning.

One thing you do not want to do with either steaks or roasts is over cook the meat. Venison is best served medium rare or medium at its highest temperature. Anything over 155ºF is going to be dry and possibly chewy. If I am cooking slow, I will remove the roast at 145º. On a fast cook, I will remove the roast at 140º. The roast gets wrapped in foil and rest for about 20 minutes before slicing. Remember that reserved marinade? Heat some of this up and pour it into the foil before sealing it.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Lager,

Juggy

 

[Rooster]

We always soaked ours overnight in vinegar/ water solution to get rid of the "gamey" taste. I kind of like the gamey taste though.