- [Presenter] Funding for this program was provided in part by: The RE Synergy Foundation, Content for the Sustainable World.

G&C Foods, quality at every turn.

Pittsburgh Spice and Seasoning company, making life taste better.

The Allen family, Robert, Ashley, Carol, and Fred.

And viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - I'm the son of a butcher.

(upbeat music) - You might be a son of a butcher, but I'm the original butcher.

- Some ask me, what is the meat industry to you?

For me, it starts at a place where my family runs a grocery, butcher shop and a catering business, ensure it's about the business side of things.

But for me, at its core, it's a story about relationships.

(upbeat music) Welcome to this episode of "Son of a Butcher".

This episode, we're gonna feature some wild games, so our outdoor enthusiasts and our hunters, stay tuned, you'll enjoy this one.

So we've got a deer carcass hanging here and we're gonna show you today how we're gonna make venison pastrami.

So let's get started.

So when I break down a deer, I like to start here, I'll push on this left leg while it's hanging.

And again, you can see I'm just using this much of my knife here 'cause I'm trying to stay close to that pelvic bone.

So that piece comes down and it kind of jets out and then it goes back.

And you wanna come back into here with it.

That way you don't leave any meat on that.

(meat and knife rustling) And you can see I'm falling it right down.

(meat and knife rustling) And it's pretty much gonna dead end itself and almost come back to the surface.

And you're gonna, that's when I'll pull that piece off.

(meat splats) And now I'll pull that loin out of there.

So this, the end of that hip comes down to here.

And so we're gonna come up.

(meat and knife rustling) And then I'm just gonna try to pull down and just use my knife to do some precision cutting.

(meat and knife rustling) We will take the loin the whole way down and I'll cut that off.

(meat splats) So right here you can see where that bone kind of jets out into there.

And so what we're trying to do is take our knife, follow it out here, come back down and go right through here.

And this would be the sirloin of the deer.

(meat and knife rustling) And then I just have that in my hand.

Hold the rest of this rib cage on there.

And we'll take our leg off of here.

(meat thuds) So there's our main pieces.

Got her back straps, got her two shoulders, got her two hind legs.

So now that we got all of our main pieces and our production here, pretty much when we would cut deer at our business, we would give everyone a a piece of this.

And everyone would kind of have a mission, and we would kinda go through our cut list and let them know how it needed cut.

(jolly music) - [Presenter 2] According to Penn State Extension in 2001, Pennsylvania had an estimated 1.5 million deer, about 30 deer per square mile, more than three times what the state had before European settlement.

Deer must be closely managed or they'll quickly overpopulate the range they inhabit, increasing crop and other property damage, and deer-vehicle collisions.

The Game Commission of Pennsylvania uses hunting to adjust deer populations.

(jolly music) - So for this one, I'm gonna start it up here.

You can see I turned my knife around like this.

Make my cut.

(meat and knife rustling) I'm gonna start and I'm gonna come.

I can see this leg bone like that on here is falling straight down to the end where that joint is.

So that's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna follow it right down to the end of that joint and I'm just gonna try to keep my knife along the edge of that joint going around.

(meat and knife rustling) All right, so I got that part separated.

Now I'm gonna flip it so I can do the other side.

This time I'm gonna start at the joint, follow that down.

(meat and knife rustling) And so I have that pretty much cut three quarters all the way around that leg bone.

So now I'm gonna kinda lift it up, let gravity, gravity's pulling down for me.

So now I just need to get tip of my knife in there.

(meat and knife rustling) And so then I get back to here.

(meat and knife rustling) I take that piece off.

(meat thudding) So my dad and some of his friends, they always taught me that you actually want to cut the bone out of the meat instead of the other way around.

A lot of times people spend, get that leg bone and just keep cutting pieces off, cutting pieces off.

You can see how quickly I did that.

I just want, I knew what that leg consisted of and it was just this one bone right through here.

So as long as I got it cut away and there it was at the rest of the meat.

So that one took me less than half the time to do it that way.

Now this one, you could take it as a whole ham, you could net this, you cook it as a whole roast.

And we're gonna make venison pastrami out of this today.

So stick around.

Now we're gonna go to the curing portion of making this pastrami.

(jolly music) - [Presenter 2] Venison refers to the meat of a deer.

It's a popular choice for those who enjoy gain meat, offering a lean high protein meat that is rich in B vitamins, iron, and zinc while being lower in fat and calories compared to many other red meats.

(jolly music) - All right, so we've got our boneless hind quarters here to make some venison pastrami.

Now we're gonna go to the next process, which is gonna be the curing process of that.

So I have our sweeter than sweet cure here.

I have a tripolyphosphate here that we're gonna use.

and also have a sodium erythorbate there.

If you happen to get these kits, they have the brown sugar cure, the sodium tripolyphosphate, and the sodium erythorbate already measured out for you.

So you just have to make sure that you add 'em in the correct way, which I'm gonna cover with you guys.

And so I like the sweeter than sweet cure.

It's for the venison.

The venison always seems to take up more flavor than you'll get out of like pork or beef.

And so I use a sweeter than sweet cure for this one because I don't want that salty taste that you might get with some of these other options.

(jolly music) - [Presenter 2] Dear meat is a best source of coQ10, providing 15.8 milligrams of coQ10 per 3.5 ounce serving.

CoQ10 is a potent antioxidant and a co-factor in the electron transport chain for the production of ATP.

It may be helpful in treating or preventing heart and blood vessel conditions, diabetes, gum disease, muscular dystrophy, chronic fatigue syndrome, and breast cancer.

(jolly music) - All right, so now we gotta start and make sure our water's the right temperature for that phosphate to work correctly.

So it has to be less than 40 degrees.

And we're good there.

We're at 37 degrees currently.

So we wanna start by adding the phosphate first.

The phosphate can tends to compete against other ingredients if they're all thrown in together and it won't work properly.

So if you have your less than 40 degree water and your phosphate goes in first, then everything will be happy.

I'll also say that if you're using city water, you tend to not, most of the spice professionals tell me and professional professors will say you don't use any city water 'cause of the chlorine and the other things that are in it.

I have got a professor to say if you have to use city water or chlorinated water, if you would, you know, fill that bucket up and then just leave it in the cooler, a lot of that chlorine will dissipate out of that.

And so that could be another option for you.

Or you could just go get some distilled water or some spring water or something.

That'll work a little bit better.

(whisk rustling) We're gonna add the phosphate to it.

(whisk rustling) And you'll see that change color.

You can see the phosphate going in and the water looks really cloudy.

And then we'll just keep stirring it and agitating it to keep it in suspension, and make sure that it dissipates throughout and is evenly distributed.

(whisk rustling) So that didn't take long to see that cleared up.

And now we're gonna go ahead and add our cure to it.

(whisk rustling) So somebody was not comfortable using the phosphate or the erythorbate, they don't have to use it, they get away with it.

If you're doing venison, it's going to be your own consumption.

I mean I have to follow certain guidelines at our business.

But if you are gonna do this at home and it's just your family consuming it, basically what you're gonna need is just the cure.

You need the salt and the sugar and the nitrite that's gonna be in it.

You're not so concerned about the yields and tying up the water.

That's what the phosphate is supposed to do, the tripolyphosphate, it's gonna tie up the water, it's gonna help increase your yields.

It's gonna probably improve the bite, it's gonna improve the juiciness and their water retention within the product.

But if you're not comfortable using it, you don't have to use it.

And then this is the erythorbate that we're adding lastly, and this is a curing accelerator.

It's gonna help with your color, it's gonna help everything work together as they have designed it.

But if you don't want to use that product, that's fine too.

(whisk rustling) So we got our brine mixed up nicely.

(kitchen utensils rustling) And so the recipe that I have and the recipe you're gonna get with some of these kits, look at the manufacturer's guidelines.

They'll tell you how much you need to inject into this product.

The product that I have, I have it set up for my nitrites and my other restricted ingredients that this is gonna be a 20% pump addition.

So we're gonna go ahead and throw that hind quarter on there.

And so I'm at 4.51 times 1.2.

So I need to be at 5.41.

I'm gonna grab this tumbler here.

I want to use this Tumblr this time.

This is more like something you could buy.

I know I have seen smaller tumblers available at different large outdoor companies.

And so I wanted to be doing this setup how you guys would be at home.

So this time we got our handheld injector.

(metal clinking) And so I'm just trying to make sure I'm getting a cure in each muscle.

It's also good if you can get multiple injection shots per muscle.

Don't think you have to get an injector just to do this job.

You'll use this injector for a bunch of other things.

You can inject your turkeys with it at Thanksgiving time.

You can do your venison hams with it.

You can inject pork butts with it.

Get a lot of uses.

You can get outta these handheld injectors.

Let's see.

I'll open that up.

Make sure I get some juice in that eye of the round.

Okay, we're almost there.

Just a little bit more.

All righty.

So then from here I'm gonna make sure I get all the juice and I put it right in this tumbler here.

(meat splats) (liquid sloshing) (metal clinks) All right, two more pieces.

(meat splats) 2.48 times 1.2 to get me 20% addition.

It had 2.98 pounds.

(metal clinking) It used to make these needles with a sharp point.

Now because people don't pay attention, they have to put a rounded tip on 'em, which I'm not a fan of.

I wish people would be just taking an accountability.

But here we are working with a rounded tip trying to poke meat.

All right, we got that one ready to go.

We got one more piece to go in.

(liquid sloshing) (metal clinks) This cure that I'm using, I will say too, if you had happen to not be able to get a sweeter cure, if you actually would just get any ham brine and taste it, this stuff is as sweet enough that when you taste it, it doesn't make you like overpowered by that salt.

So some I've been doing it enough, I could do it by taste if I had to.

But just play around with it.

It doesn't have to be an exact science.

(whish rustling) Just have fun with it.

(injector rustling) I guess what you could do too is make a couple little pokes in the meat to help the injector get in there.

- Think what we need to do.

- I think you could sit down in that corner where they just went in that they come back out.

- Yeah, yeah, they'll come back out with it upside down.

(gun rustling) Oh, there's still one out there.

(plants and soil rustling) (injector clinks) - All right, so now we're ready to go to the tumbler.

(metal clinking) Now we're gonna take his tumbler.

You're gonna wanna pull a vacuum on it.

(metal clinking) So you're gonna wanna make sure that valve is open, it's straight up and down.

You're gonna put your hose in place.

(switch clicks) (vacuum whirring) I'm gonna pull a vacuum.

(vacuum whirring) Yours has an indicator like this.

You're gonna wanna pull about 20 inches of mercury.

And that's about right.

After we get 20 inches of mercury pulled, we're gonna go ahead and close the valve and then we're gonna begin our tumble process.

You could tumble for an hour, let it rest, tumble for an hour again, that would do a nice job, make sure the cure is throughout the meat.

Basically, like I have described before, the tumbling process is massaging the meat and it's slowly trying to make sure you're working that product into the meat and so that it's gonna hold onto that water.

(vacuum whirring) So we're gonna get this tumbled and we're gonna come back and we're gonna put a rub on it.

I'll show you guys that next (jolly music) - [Presenter 2] Three ounces of cooked venison contains around 96 calories, three grams of fat, and 18 grams of protein.

Venison contains vitamins and minerals including vitamins K and B12 and iron, zinc, and choline.

Venison contains no carbohydrates or fiber.

(jolly music) - All right, our tumbler's done.

So we're gonna pull that out and we're gonna net these venison hindquarters.

(metal clinking) So this is called a stuffing horn right here.

We're gonna put the nets on.

(stuffing horn clinking) And we're just gonna try to shape these.

(stuffing horn rustling) and we will shove 'em through into the net.

(stuffing horn clinking) (stuffing horn rustling) All right, and the last piece here.

(stuffing horn clinking and rustling) All right, we're gonna tie that net.

Now I'm gonna apply the pastrami seasoning to this, just to coat the outside real good.

That pastrami seasoning, I really like that.

It does compliment the venison quite a bit.

You'll get a little bit of extra bite from that.

And you still have that kind of ham flavor that you're gonna get from the injection we did with it.

I kinda like to do these, when I just did the top round and bottom round, You got a nice little loaf.

Those are pretty nice 'cause that's about a nice sandwich size there.

(ingredients rustling) All right, now we're gonna take these to the smoke house and we're gonna smoke and cook 'em just like our regular boneless hams.

(gentle music) Here's our finished product of our venison pastrami.

I think it turned out great and I think you guys really like something different to put in share with your families.

So thanks for joining us on this episode of "Son of a Butcher".

To your hunters out there, be safe, Shoot straight and keep your knife sharp.

(upbeat music) I am a son of a butcher.

(upbeat music) - That's right.

(all laughing) (upbeat music) And that's all folks.

(laughs) (upbeat music) - [Presenter] Funding for this program was provided in part by: The RE Synergy Foundation, Content for the Sustainable World.

G&C Foods, quality at every turn.

Pittsburgh Spice and Seasoning company, making life taste better.

The Allen family, Robert, Ashley, Carol, and Fred.

And viewers like you.