Remy Warren (0:00)

Foreign I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to Live Wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape. So I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful As a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild. Welcome to Live Wild Podcast everyone. We are in the heat of summer. It's already July, which is crazy. Like the main seasons, it's going to be fall and we're going to be out there chasing bugles, going after elk, going after deer, whatever it is. Tomorrow, for those of us in America, it's Independence Day. Happy Independence Day. Happy fourth of July everyone. Today we're going to this will just be kind of our Live Wild podcast special tailored around something that I love to do in the summertime, which is getting out and grilling. But as a hunter, that doesn't just start when we throw meat on the grill. It starts months, even maybe the prior year, the prior season in the field care and then the processing portion at home. So we're going to cover both those things. Today we're going to revisit hot weather meat care. I got a ton of questions this last week after released a video questions about how do we take care of the meat? What do we do when it's hot? What if there's other people? So we're gonna address those things. We're gonna, we're gonna dive into Hot weather meat care and some of the tips and tactics for getting meat home, like getting it prepped right, making sure that it doesn't spoil, or just having the best final product. Then we're also gonna kind of take that jump into the kitchen. We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the things that I like to do when for burgers and brats we're going to just go in a little bit of the, the process of it for processing your own wild game. So when it comes time to being the master of the grill this summer, your leaps and bounds ahead, you can pull out whatever you harvested and throw down on the grill. So let's dive in, and we're going to talk first in the field processing. So this last week, that mule deer video that I did went live on YouTube. It was my wife and I archery hunting mule deer. And it's a really fun watch. I ended up tossing a rock and getting the buck up. And it was just one of those where it worked out, it went wrong, but went right. Like, I've done that on other species. Hasn't really worked out mule deer. It's like one of those things where you always think about, like, I should do it, but then I don't. I've seen it work successfully. I've seen it work unsuccessfully. This time it works. Success. I would call it, like, unsuccessfully successfully. It worked out. Buck ran out. He ended up stopping behind a tree. I made a good shot. It was like, the fact that it worked out was a miracle, really, but, you know, under pressure, made a good shot and. And it worked out. Got a good buck and awesome video and just an awesome hunt, like, phenomenal time. Just thinking back about that, it's fun. It's fun for me to release these videos. You know, sometimes I like to release some videos within the season. Like, some will go on a hunt and we'll put that video out right after, like, next week and then some kind of hold until. I mean, there's a process to the editing and takes time or whatever, but even hold till the next season or whatever. And I kind of like the ones that we hold because it really, like, lets me relive that and, you know, watch the, you know, going through the editing and all that stuff and. And then getting to relive the hunt and my wife and I talking about, man, what just like a fun time. So it's always fun to have those videos, if nothing else. I mean, I do share them, But I think that even if I didn't share them, I would still do it just for that keepsake to have. Like, that's actually how I got started in filming and videoing, was just having it to share with friends and family. And it's just so fun to be able to relive that and the moments that leading up to the hunt and, oh, yeah, I remember that or remember that buck that we saw. Just a lot of fun to go through those memories. But one of the things that came up with that is some questions I got. I got this similar question both like on, I think on Instagram, on YouTube, comments on direct messages, and I'm like, hey, if a lot of enough people are asking this question, then it should be something that I address or talk about. And I know that I've, I've done, you know, podcasts in the past on this kind of hot weather meat care topic. I've probably, I've probably covered this two or three times. But the other thing that I know about podcasts and even just articles and that kind of stuff, I'm always trying to do something new, but I think that there's information out there that maybe I've already talked about that somebody missed or somebody didn't hear, somebody needs to hear it a different way, or maybe I talk about it again and a new thing comes up. So, because I got so many questions on it, and that's what I love about being able to do these podcasts and sit down and record kind of in real time for the most part, is the fact that I can address these things, which if enough people, like, if I start to see a trend of enough people asking about a certain thing, then there's probably a lot of other people thinking about it. And so there was a question that was posed of like, okay, it's hot weather, I get that. And then, you know, I kind of understand they're breaking down, cooling it off, process. But what if, like, we're going out, it's September, elk hunt, deer hunt, whatever. Maybe it's an August hunt, there's three or four of you with tags. What then? Like, you want to keep hunting and helping the other people, but then you've also got in the back of your mind the meat and all these other things. So I'm going to go over my philosophy on that a couple of ways that like, not fully into the hot weather meat care per se, but just this one kind of aspect of it and then some other things to think about that might be a good product to have or what have you, ways, ways to kind of think about meat care when it's hot out and maybe you need to stay a little bit longer. Maybe it's going to be a while before you can get out of there, what have you. So we're going to look at that today and then we're going to go, we're going to kind of switch gears, but keep it in that, that vein of food and processing, because I just got done doing a bunch of processing and it's always one of the things kind of top of mind, you just did it. And you know, it's one of those things where I really enjoy processing my wild game. And there's some times during the season where I've got friend that runs a butcher shop and I'm like, dude, can you make me some, some Polish dogs or whatever, drop it off. Because he just, it's like I, no matter how hard I try, like, he always does better. But for the most part I do, I would say like 90% of my processing. Burgers, brats, sausages, snack sticks, jerky. I just did a ton of jerky, ton of summer sauce. I love summer sausage. So I just did a 40 pound batch of summer sausage. 40 or 50 pounds of jerky. And that we'll, we'll get into that in the way that I like to do it, but. And then I'll, I'll even run through a little bit of the processing in a way that like, I can even just talk about it and maybe a few things will click and go like, oh, that, that's cool. That seems easy. Cause I think with processing, the barrier to entry in some ways is just that, like feeling like it's difficult. And it can be difficult and it can be super easy. A little bit of it relies on gear and then, or equipment and then just a little bit of like, just a small amount of knowledge. Just there's like my processing game was my game processing game. There you go. It was like completely changed just by talking with people that really knew what they were doing and just gleaning a few tips and being like, whoa, okay. It went from making stuff that was, you know, good, okay, Like, I liked it, but it was stuff that I made and was like, yeah, it's good. To stuff that's like, really good and just kind of that next level where you're like, wow, this is as good as anything you could get in the store just by a few small little tweaks to things that make a big difference. So we'll, we'll get into that, but we're going to first dive into this, this in the field processing, especially when it's like warm weather. Okay? So when it comes to meat care, meeting the heat, let's call it, there's a few kind of protocols that I think are important and there's a little bit or a lot of it of pre planning and pre prep, right? If you show up like, this is the question people is like, is it unethical to hunt when it's, when it's hot? Right. Are you going to lose the meat and knock on wood? I could knock on this desk and you can hear, but I, you know, I've hunted in some very extreme hot temperatures in, in most of the places now honestly, like, it could be really hot, but it often cools down at night, which is an added benefit. But I've hunted in some hot places and I've never had an animal spoil, which is pretty remarkable, you know. So I think that there is some things though that I take into consideration. If you just like show up on a hot hunt and you don't even think about that post processing, then it's, it's not going to go well for you. Like, if you aren't ready for what's going to happen, the, the minutes, seconds, hours after you harvest that animal, then you aren't going to be prepared and you're probably going to run into problems. I've been in camps per se, like, or around areas where somebody has harvested something and the meat has clearly soured. And they just did dumb stuff in my opinion. Like, it was just, it's just bad. So we're going to cover the basics, things that maybe I've talked about, things that you may know, things that if you don't know, you need to just commit to memory. This should be like something, when I'm talking to hunters about this, this should be stuff that's just. Yeah, oh yeah. Like it's, it's as natural as breathing, knowing these things. You know, for the thing like when it comes to spoilage of meat, often it's, you know, you got to keep it clean, you got to keep it dry. And we're going to talk about dry, like what that means. So clean, dry and cool. Okay. If it gets too hot, it's going to sour. If it gets dirty, even if you keep it cool, it can definitely sour because there's so much bacteria in the dirt. And then the moisture is a big thing too. What that does is it depends how it's getting wet. But like moisture in a certain environment causes in aids, in bacterial growth as well. So that bacterial growth is what causes that meat to sour. The one that probably happens the most in hot hunts or probably out west is the heat not allowing the meat to cool down, it getting hot and essentially going bad. I mean, that's, think about leaving anything out. And that's just a way that things go bad really fast. They, it's, it's very easy for meat to spoil or sour in the heat. And then combined with the heat, you add Any amount of dirt to it and it just causes a prime like biome for bacteria and it's going to sour. So the, the main one that the heat would be called like bone sour. And that's where it actually starts to go bad from the inside out because it's retaining the heat. It seems to be cooled down and then that bone like in the center of the meat mass is, is holding the heat and it starts to sour that way. So let's talk about a little bit of the pre gaming, pre planning. When I'm on a hot weather hunt, I have things at my disposal. Whether I'm backpacking in backcountry or hunting near a truck, I always have somewhere to put the meat after the hunt and it's ready to go. That is a large yeti cooler and it's full of ice. I need something where I can quickly cool down the meat. Now you're gonna, this is where people are gonna be like, well, you don't want to get it wet. Nobody likes meat soaking in a cool. Yeah, that I don't. I don't. If I have the option to hang it in a chiller. Absolutely. But it's way more important to take care of the meat first and get it cooled down as opposed to being worried about it being in a cooler or with cooler water. If it's, if there's ice and you can keep it cold, the next step would be, you know, when you can hang in refrigeration or whatever, that's great, but you just have to, once you get back somewhere, you have to have somewhere to put that meat. Now that might be hanging it. If it's cool enough outside, that might be putting it in a cooler. It might be a combination of swallowing, swapping it back and forth, cooler hanging, what have you. So keeping it cool is important. And having that plan in place now, keeping it clean, that involves bringing game bags. And if you are not expert level at like cutting up whatever, you need something for ground cover. I personally don't. Like, I can cut a hind quarter off of an elk or a deer or what have you and not have any tarps or anything like that and never get a speck of dirt on it. But I know that not everybody can do that because maybe not every, everybody's done it so often. I mean, I, I don't even know. I'm not. This isn't like trying to like brag. It's just saying like, it's part of my job is like a guide and everything. I don't know I've probably cut up in the upwards of, you know, multiple thousands of animals, like pro, like field, field dressed, butchered, cut up, you know, like in. I mean there's. There's probably very few people on the planet that, unless they are professional hunting guides. And I guided around the world, you know, essentially year round in different countries and that kind of thing. So my season never really ended. And so the. It was just continually cutting, skinning, you know, quartering, hanging, whatever. I mean, I've put my hands on thousands of animals. And so when you've done it so many times, it's just like, it's absolutely natural. But the first time, few times you do it, maybe even, you know, you do it once a year, a couple times, whatever, you're like, hey, if you're the type person, like, hey, you're ending up with some kind of dirt or anything on the meat that is not something you want. You absolutely should have in your pack something to help out with that, like some kind of tarp. And I for a long time would carry like a small portable like survival tarp for the. Not for really survival, but it works for that, like for essentially processing. Now I still do have like a sill tarp. I have the. So the Stone Glacier, what is it? Like the fly, fly tarp, whatever they call it, it's super lightweight. I use it on hunts where it might be wet and hunt. So it's hot. I'll throw it in my pack because I can create a shade barrier with it. And then there's just some environments where. Last year I was hunting. I almost forgot about this. I was hunting elk in Arizona like early. It was July. Like there's it. Was it July? Yeah, it was like this week, the week after the 4th of July. Hot, very hot. And the ground there, it was like the dirt was practically. I don't know the best way to describe it, like powdered sugar sand. Like it was just. It could, it was like magnetic to the meat. It could just slap right onto it. So anything like that, if you've got something in your pack that you could use as a tarp or another way to like keep the, the dirt off of it. Absolutely use it. Or even just like a contractor garbage bag where you can put it on one side just for a second, like as a tarp to kind of like as you lift something up where it's not going to hit the dirt or whatever, especially if you don't have an extra set of hands. So bigger animals, you probably even need more. So I would Just suggest something like that. So you need good game bags or you know, game bags. And what I mean by good game bags, there's like the cheesecloth version, which I've used pro. I don't know if there's a manufactured game bag out there I haven't used. Maybe there is, I don't know. I'm sure there is, but I've used like 90 some odd percent of them, I would imagine. Whether I've had them or a client showed up with them. Like I've, I've probably used. I've probably used. I used to use like the more cheesecloth kind back in the day because that's what was available. And then there's like the kind now that are like the pillowcase kind. And then that's even advanced to a more like higher tech fabric. Like we've got the ones with Stone Glacier, the live wild ones. I think we're sold out of those currently, but could probably go get on a wait list. And Stone Glacier might have some still as well. I've got them on my website. But whichever ones you use, I like the more. We're gonna put air quotes up the pillowcase kind better for early season because your early season you get more bugs, more flies, you get more. There's more heat. So you want something that's still breathable, right. But a little bit more dirt and dust and things as well, like in the air. But whatever you got, you want something that can hold the quarters, keep the dirt out, keep it clean, keep the ground from getting onto the meat. Don't get anything on it. And that's step one, you know, in that process. Whatever it takes to keep it clean, do. Then as soon as you get the quarters off, you need somewhere to get airflow, so you're going to skin it out. So like it's, it's a timing thing too, right? I'm not messing around for a very long time. Like if I'm taking photos or video or whatever, it's a, it's a short amount of time where I get there. I take my pictures, I do what I want to do. But there's a ticking clock in my head and you know, and you're like, well, what is the. How long? And it's as fast as possible really. Because it depends where it's at. If it's in the direct sun or if it's in the shade, if it's breezy day or a super hot day, what is the terrain. There's everything is a factor, but we move quick. Okay. And it's. The key is to get the height off. I work on one side and then the other side. You could even. Honestly, like, I rarely gut anything because I'm pretty fast quartering it out. But if you aren't, you could drop the guts and get some airflow. Sometimes I think that, like, if you don't have another person, you'll almost be done by the time you did that in a way. I know that a lot of people suggest that though, for, for like new hunters. But the other thing is, like, as you open things up more, it attracts more flies and other things, right? Flies land on the meat, put some larva on there, whatever. For guys that are real proficient at it, I just say, like, start skinning it. I cut down the back and I get that hide off the one side fast. I skin it out, I pop the quarters off and then it goes directly into a bag and hanging in the shade where it can get some airflow around it, start to cool it down. Once I've done that, depending on like the conditions, how far I need to go, I might even open those quarters up and pop that bone out and debone it. Just get that trapped heat done and just start to separate out the pieces. Like, try to do it quick, especially if you got shade and you can work with it or you got another person, like one guy's lopping quarters and hanging, the other person's opening them up and deboning and you've got it ready to go. Let it hang and let some airflow around it before you start to pack out. Even if it's hot outside, whatever that ambient temperature is, with a little bit of airflow and shade, it's going to start to cool the meat in total for the pack out. And then it's time to pack out. And that means I'm going to where I have a plan for the meat. I've got somewhere cool, probably, you know, like a large yeti full of ice. I just throw blocks in it or freeze my. I freeze jugs and blocks and I put some of that yeti ice in there. I've got a layering system with like where I can keep. I can keep ice for weeks, really. I've got one cooler that is like, this is my kill cooler. I don't have anything else in it. It's ready to rock and roll. It's got ice in it and half the time I gotta like dump ice out because it's just full. And then to put the quarters in, you are gonna lose some ice as soon as you start to put warmer meat in there. But it's going to transfer that heat from the meat to the ice, maybe melt some of it, get that water out. I let it flush out once I get back, and I'm going from point A to point B, like I'm packing out. I'm not messing around. I know that that meets the most important thing. I get it. I cool it down now. I might get to base camp and it's like, hey, it's whatever time. Okay, it's in the cooler and it's maybe in the mountains. And yeah, it was 100 degrees in the middle of the day, but it's going to drop down to 40 degrees at night or something. I'm going to check that meat and it might be something where I pull it out. Like in September when I'm elk hunting, those nights get a lot cooler if those temperatures start to drop. I'm actually going to pull it out at night, let that air flow, let it dry out, build a little bit of crust, drain the water out of the cooler, and then set it back there on the top in the middle of the day, you know, you can, you can survive. Like, if you've got good ice and you keep your coolers in the shade that you can be in there for a little while. So you go like, well, I've got other tags in camp. For me though, I have kind of like an exit strategy. And I go like when I'm hunting with someone, we go. The meat's number one. So like, if I have a tag, my buddy has a tag. For the most part, it's like one guy goes and takes care of the meat and the other person, you know, can continue to hunt. So I don't know what that means. Like, if I'm. I. Me and my brother have done this before where it's like we both got bucks. My dad still had a tag with velvet antlers too. You almost have to freeze them. It's like instead of going all the way home, it was a five hour drive. So it'd been ten hours round trip. It's like, that's not really doable. We could have left in the cooler, but we just didn't feel like that was a good option for where we were at. Our ice supplies were dwindling. We weren't close to town where we could resupply and kind of keep it on ice. You know, I would say like the longest I would personally want my meat and a cooler would be like three days. And even then, like, I try to just get it taken care of right away. So if I can get home within a certain amount of time, I will do it. I'll put it in the refrigerator, hang it in the refrigerator, whatever I can do. If there's a processor that allow you to hang it, that's what I do. Everywhere I hunt, I find if there's somewhere that allows like a hanging fee. So within an hour or whatever of where I'm hunting, is there a processor that says, like, I don't need you to butcher it, I just need it. Like, if I get one early, this is a contingency plan. Like if someone gets one early, where can I hang it? And every, every hunt that I go on, I find that there's many places that do that. Like, you just set it up ahead of time. Like, hey, do you guys do this? Most of them are like, yep, as long as it's not full. You know, we charge however much per day and you can hang it in our chiller. Perfect. Like, dude, I've even done that. I don't even know if it was. I don't know if it was up to code, but I was in a pretty small town in rural Nevada, Me and my brother rolling like late at night. We're just, we need somewhere to put our heads and hides and meat. And the grocery store the lady ran the grocery store is like, oh, yep, you can do it. Just put it back here, put it. We put it in, we put the heads in garbage bags in the giant freezer. And the meat, they let us like hang in the, in the back. And, and then we hunted for four or five more days and then picked everything up and went home and started butchering. But I planned that out. So the answer to the question is like, what do you do if multiple people have tags? Like, I generally don't push it. I go and find, like, I have a plan ahead of time. I take care of the meat. Now if you have to, it's like, hey, there's two days left to hunt. Okay, you, you, you really could with like good control of. You've got good amount of ice. You can put it in the cooler in the middle of day. It's dropping temperatures really good at night. So you can hang it. Honestly, like, you could, you can do that. And then you get home and then you kind of dry it off and take care of it. Now there's another option I actually got this year. I got one of these. It's essentially like a pop up tent walking cooler that uses an AC unit. I'm like they're, you know, so it's a little more expensive than some things, but if you got like a bunch of friends that go in on it, I think it's even good. I set it up in my garage so when on a hot hunt I can get home and I don't have to process right away or I might not have room in my fridge because oftentimes like you me could spoil in your refrigerator. Even in cool temperatures, if it's all packed together and kind of wet, you want it to cool down. You want to get some airflow and a little bit of crust on it if you, if you can. But the key is first keep it cold. Right. So you know, everyone's like, oh, meat soaked in cooler water, it starts to pull the blood out and it's not as good. I've had it both ways. Like, you just have to, like, this is the truth of it. You have to do what you have to do. Like, you're better off putting it in a cooler and keeping it cold than the meat spoiling and not having it in a cooler. It's, you know, people like armchair pundits, like, oh, you'll see you loading a elk in a cooler. And you're like, yeah, dude, it's two days for me to get home. I'm not. It's 105 degrees. I don't know. I don't have a reefer truck, so this is gonna work. And the meat is fine. And honestly, like, some of the best meat I've had. I sometimes I can't tell. I'm not like, if I can hang it and refrigerate it and whatever. Absolutely. Like, you know, when we're. When we're guiding clients out of our place. Like, we have places that I have a. I have a walking cooler that I got out of a. I got super cheap out of a casino. It was like getting rid of it. It's like, okay, cool. And I hang it in there and it's great. Like, it's the best way to do it. But that's not feasible for everyone now that there's these like pop up ones. I think it's wild meat gear is what it's called. They've got. It's like a insulated pop up tent, like almost like a blind. And then you put an AC unit on it. I've got it set up. I've got like a generator built into my truck so I can just run it off. The generator there. You could have an external generator. I also have a little Generate generator too, that I can run it off of. I can run that AC unit and within the shade and you put the a tarp down. With the right temperatures, you can, you can start to like, you can hang your meat right there in camp. And that's an option too. Like, hey, you got some. You want to invest in something like that? I think it's a. It's an awesome thing to have like a portable walk in cooler that is also really nice for when you get home too. Right. So you could, you could have that. You can pop it up in your garage or wherever I put it in my garage. You know, if it's super hot, the garage gets hot and then the thing has trouble keeping up. But you could even put it in like I actually did it one last year. I did it in my garage and then it. One point I did it in my kitchen like for a few days, all skirting around the. The AC unit inside the house. But it worked, right? Like it worked out all right. If you got like a cooled garage, that would be, you know, ideal. But it worked. It worked really well. And so like I. Last year I had quite a few hunts that were kind of all in the same time frame, early season. And I ended up hanging my tule elk in there until I, you know, I wanted it to age and I wanted to just be like really good meat. And then that mule deer that I took, I aged that for like 10 days in there. And man, it just like probably some of the best meat that I got last year. I don't know was that. That mule deer was just phenomenal. Like early season mule deer aged under that, you know, that like let it. I got it back in the cooler. It was. We were leaving that day, so it was like in the cooler, drive home, hang it, you know, set up the wild meat gear. What I gotta name. Think of the name of the actual. That's the company. I'm gonna see what the thing's called. I gotta actually look it up here, but. And then put it in that and it just, it worked really well. Really good to have that like aged, you know, aged in a refrigeration meat. And I used it for most of my hunts last year. It worked out really well. Okay. It's called the meat locker. I just looked it up, but it's pretty cool. So it's got. It's got essentially a control unit that you hook on to like a standard AC thing. It's got insulation, it's got poles and everything like that. And you can hang it in there and use it. I mean, like, I've seen guys run them in base camps and I had it in the back of my truck. I was like, oh, I'll bring this, because I had plenty of room in my truck. And I thought, actually should have just run it for the AC in the daytime, but it's getting cool enough at night. Had we shot one early in the hunt, that was our plan, was to use that because I had it. So those are some options. But I think, like, you got to go into the hunt with that plan of how do I get the meat out? What if I'm continuing to hunt? Well, you need to have that plan in place. You can't just wing it. Because I think that you'll probably run into problems of being like the meat, essentially. Maybe it doesn't go bad, but it just kind of tastes bad because it hasn't been cared for. It's like, bordering on spoiling and it kind of smells gamey and it tastes a little weird. And you're like, yeah, I can eat it, but it's not the best. Or you can have something that's just absolutely some of the best meat on the planet because you took a little bit better care of it. So those are some of the things to think about, I think. Now let's kind of dive into the post season processing. We're going to. For the fourth of July here, we're going to. I'm going to walk you through. I made a ton of different stuff, but I'm gonna walk you through. We're gonna make some brats today, so we're gonna go through. I'm gonna just kind of tell you, you know, like a few of the steps and then a couple of things that I do. Maybe that when you're thinking about processing, that maybe you don't think about that I think are awesome. Especially for summertime and parties and like, when it's time to grill in the summer. Last thing I, like, have to want to do is. Is a ton of prep work before it's like time to cook. Or someone comes over like, hey, let's do burgers. Sometimes just. I don't know, I feel like maybe this is just me, right? You get home, whatever. The days are long. You're like, oh, let's. Let's grill some burgers. And you're like, okay, you got to pull some out. It's not defrosted yet. You know, you're like, whatever. And then. Or somebody shows up or maybe a few extra people and you don't really know how much everybody's going to eat. What have you like planning and not wanting to waste food. What I've been doing in some, when I'm doing my processing now, I'll grind burger and then I'll do all my burger. I'll do all my grind. I like to add, I like to add fat to my burger. This is one of the things that like all my, you know, my wild game meat I probably add. I add about 10% pork fat to it. I like that extra bit of fat. And because we pretty much live off the wild game, that extra little bit of fat helps, you know, just, just to have that fat content I think is nice, keeps it from drying out. But everybody's a little bit different. I also do or will do a lot of grind that doesn't have it where I'm like, hey, I'm cooking up for tacos or you know, ground meat, not making patties, what have you. I can do that or you can even use like egg as a binder. I've done that a lot too. So it depends on what you like, what you want to do. I'll add a little bit of pork fat to mine and then I'll do the grind. And then what I'll do is I'll vacuum seal and you know, one pound bag or whatever. I do about one and a half pound bags when I'm processing. But the. What I got started doing this a couple years ago is I got the meet your maker company. They've got like really good processors I use. You know, I mean I'll. I've used their stuff since they've come out. I kind of early adopter on on their stuff because it was just so good. And that's the one thing like processing while a game can be super easy or super difficult depending on the gear that you have. I'd say just it's like optics in a way. Like get the best, get the better stuff. The first time I've used some really cheap crappy grinders and I hated processing because it was just took forever. And then I got, you know, one of these meat grinders made with meat grinders and man, just like so much faster, so much better. And then just having all those like higher end, you know, processing equipment that I've kind of collected over the years. And you know, good vacuum sealer, good grinder or the top two, those are your like pinch points like grinding and vacuum sealing and then all the other little things you can kind of add on as you, as you get More comfortable or whatever. But if I was to pick two, it would be grinder and then a chamberback vacuum sealer. If you don't have a chamber back then, just like a good quality, you know, suction, vacuum sealer, whatever. But I'll do my burger and I'll vacuum seal packs. But then they also make this burger patty press and it's got, they've got like these little sheets for it too. They're pre cut, almost like wax paper, kind of deals plastic I guess they're more plastic. So I'll put those in that burger patty press, put one on the bottom, one on the top, grab a piece, you know, like a handful of grind, put it in there, press it and then I put that in the freezer. So I freeze the burger patties. And just like, I'm sure you guys have all seen it where it's like I haven't had them, but I've been, I've been to people's houses where they've got it and it's kind of where I got the idea is like the Costco sells these like almost like giant bread bags full of pre made patties. And you just throw them on whatever you got like a cast iron or grill or whatever, frozen. And so I just started doing that and I'll freeze them and then you can even from there, you know, set 4, 3 or 4 in a vac bag and vacuum seal them or whatever. Or if you know you're going to go through them right away, you can just kind of bag them up and use them that way. But man, it's so easy because I'll. During the summertime I just pull out pre made patties. They're frozen, I can throw them on frozen and they cook great, they cook easy and it's super nice for the summertime. So I'm big on like when I'm processing, taking a few extra steps that make the utilization of it so much easier. So when we want burgers, like we got a bunch of people coming out celebrate 4th of July with us tomorrow. I'm just going to be like, all right, I got the burgers ready, they're ready to go. I even got like some pre marinated straps. It's like, all right, I just throw that in the fridge a couple of days earlier. It's thawed out, it's marinated, boom, straight onto the grill. And I do a lot of that while I'm processing. But those, those pre made burger patties are just like, they come in so handy and it's Been. It's been a cool. It's probably one of my favorite things that I do when I'm processing because it's super EAS easy to do. And then you're like, hey, you don't want burger? Well, whatever. You've got those patties, you could do them like four in a pack, vacuum seal it and they defrost super fast if you wanted to too. You could just literally leave it on the counter for not very long and it defrosts. But yeah, so that's just one of the things, like one of the little things that I do when I'm processing to make it so much easier. But let's talk about. I think one of the things that, like, some people kind of think about and you, you're like, oh, it just seems difficult is making sausages or like cased sausages. And honestly, making case sausages is actually pretty easy when you're talking like fresh sausage. So that would be anything like a bratwurst, where it's like, it's, you know, breakfast sausage, bratwurst, something like that. I think the easiest sausage to make is probably a summer sausage, like just starting out. But honestly, like case bratwurst, it's pretty easy to make. You don't really need that much stuff. If you've got a sausage stuffer and a grinder, you're good. You could already have. You could have grind from the butcher that's already ground and just have a sausage stuffer. There's hand crank ones, there's automatic ones. Meat also makes a bunch of those. I've got. I'm sure I've got a link on my website to most of that stuff. So you guys can check that out if you're interested in that stuff. But let's go through, like. I think one of the fun things is when somebody's talking about cooking, if you just kind of understand, you can pretty much do whatever you want and it'll probably be pretty good. You can follow a recipe exactly. But half the time when I'm cooking stuff, it's never the same twice, probably. So let's do. I'm just going to kind of run you through. Like I'm making. I'm going to make some fresh brats to throw on the grill. So I'll just make them and then it's like I'll let them sit overnight, let those. Let the seasonings kind of blend in there. And then. And then I'll just. We'll throw them on the grill the next day. So I'll generally do like, around 25% pork fat in with my sausages. So we're going to take like, you know, I'll do 20 to 30% work. So. So for easy math, you know, you could just do like, you know, if you're doing five pounds, you know, ten pounds is a lot easier because you're like, hey, you're making it. I might as well do £10. But I've got. I've got some. You can just double this for five pounds. So this is just approximate. Like, sometimes I throw in a little more fat or it's like, this is the thing that I want to get across. It doesn't have to be exact with this. It's just, it's. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. Now, there is some stuff where you want it exact, but I'll do like, for this, we're just going to do an example of three and a half pounds of. Of venison and then like a pound and a half of pork fat. Okay. And then we're gonna make like a. We'll just. Let's go with like a traditional brat. So I'll do about one and a half tablespoons of kosher salt, or if I'm using, like, fine salt. Thing about salt is you're probably better off weighing it. But for this, a lot of people understand tablespoons better. So about 1 tablespoon of finer salt, because there's just more in it, less airspace. And then we're going to do two teaspoons of white pepper, two teaspoons of, like, it's called ground mace. Or you could substitute that with like one and a half teaspoons of nutmeg, half teaspoon of allspice. And you know what? I'll put this on my blog. So if you guys. I'm just going to glance over it. If you. If you want to make the same recipe, go for it. Teaspoon of ground ginger, a teaspoon of majoram dried, and then a half a teaspoon of mustard powder. That's mustard powder. Half a teaspoon of onion powder, and a half a teaspoon of garlic powder. And then I even like, like a little bit of fresh chopped garlic or whatever in there. It's like three cloves, let's call it. Then you're gonna need some. Some liquid. So I'll do one cup of like crushed ice and ice water. Like really cold water. One of the things that you want to think about. Here's a little. This is like some processing pro Tip. This is the thing that I didn't know about when I started. You want to keep everything very cold, especially when you're sausage making. So when I'm making sausage, I actually do a lot of my processing. Here's how I like. If I'm. We'll get back in this rest. Let me give you. Oh, and then you're gonna want five egg whites as a. As a binder, so one per pound. And then you're gonna need some, like, hog casings. Okay. And then you. You rinse those, soak them overnight or for a little while, whatever you get, like, you can buy them at Sporting his store online, whatever you get. Hog casings. I mean, fresh hog casings. You can get salted hog casings, whatever. But this is a little pro tip that I learned, and it just changed the way that my processing went. One of the things that someone told me, and they were, this is like a sausage maker. Like, it's got to be cold. So the way that. The reason that is is because in the process of grinding and doing all things, as it starts to warm up that fat to render, and as that fat starts to render, once you make your sausage, it kind of like, once you start to cook that sausage, that fat just kind of leaks out. And then you get this dry, crumbly sausage. And also, like, the food safety aspect of it, you know, starts to come into play. You don't realize how, like, moving parts of grinders and things start to heat up. The day gets long, and so it's a big process. You started cutting it. It's on the table, this, that, and the other thing. So you really want everything very cold. When I'm making sausage, I often, when I'm butchering, it just depends on my schedule and what I got going. I often cut my meat, everything. So I'll, like, cut the steaks, vacuum seal the steaks. I do, like, all the staking portion. And then I. Whatever my grind is, I, like, cut it ready for the grinder, and then I vacuum seal it and often put it in the freezer and do it some other time in the year is actually what I often do. Because I go like, hey, I don't have a lot of time, or maybe I got an animal and I don't have a. I want to do 30 pounds of something. So I wait till I get a certain weight to do, like, a large batch. That's just the way that I do it. I also think, like, sometimes if you're making everything, I mean, my biggest day, like, I did Me and three buddies shot caribou. We went back and like, we essentially processed them all that one day. And we made jerky, sausage, brats, burgers, what else? Like steak, every. Like we just did so much processing and you're just dead by the end of it. I mean, maybe it's good to get it out, but also oftentimes when I'm processing, it's just me. And so I'd rather just like clean one time. So I'd like do the grinding one day or you know, like, I'll do like all the grind process or whatever one day, but I might just do the initial butchering and do stuff later. You can do it either way. I've also done it where I'm like ham processing. I'm just going to process this deer and be done today. And I want to do burgers and brats and, and some steaks. So if even I'm doing that, what I'll do is I'll have it in meat totes and then I'll put that stuff in the freezer to start to chill and be partially frozen. If I'm doing it a later date, I just vacuum seal it, put the grind in there, label it, and then pull it all out when I'm ready to grind. And I'll just have it pretty much pre frozen, keep everything cold, including the fat. And then I'll put all my grinder pieces. If I got a mixer that's. I try to freeze or refrigerate everything that I can. So I'll put my grinder pieces in the freezer until I'm ready to freeze to grind. And. And then if I'm mixing in any liquids, I keep it cold. And so when I do that, it grinds through. I mix my fat in. It's really cold. You know, it's partially frozen or even for. I mean, with these, like I've got a one and a half horse grinder I like. It's. Everything's already kind of cut up and then I just slice. Just be super careful when you're cutting because that's like the probably the most dangerous part. I'll cut that like frozen stuff to where it fits in the, in the grinder and I'll. I'll grind that stuff through and it stays cold. And then I now like go to the mixing. So I'll take all the ingredients. I'll do like a. You can do two grinds. I've got a dual grind grinder. So I just like. You'll want to do like a coarse Grind and then a fine grind. And that's why you definitely want it. If you want it like a smoother brat. Not everybody like, like some people like it more coarse, you know, it's up to you. So like a three, eight plate for that first grind and then like a one eight or quarter for the that second grind. I've got the grinder that I like is called the dual grind grinder. I use it for, because I like to make sausage. So it does like one pass, both like coarse and fine, which turns out really good. And then it stays cold longer. So that's just a little pro tip. Then I'll go, I've got a mixer. You could also mix it by hand and tub, I add that like ice water just so the meat gets a little sticky and tacky. And then I'll mix in all my seasonings. And then once it's fully mixed, then you just, you stuff it in the sausage. It's like hand crank. You put the sausage in there, you tie a knot at the end and you start to feed it through. Slow is best. And then have like a toothpick or something sharp to like poke and let the air out. So you let the air out, prick any air bubbles with like a sterilized pin or toothpick, whatever, and then you just start feeding it through. It's probably best just make a big coil for like, like don't twist them as they come off. Just make a big coil and then you pinch and twist your sausages out of that and then set it in the fridge, let it rest and then grill it. Man, it's. It sounds, I like the way I talk about it. It sounds easy. Just. It is kind of like once you've done it a couple times, you're like, this is not that hard. Like I've got a little, I've got a hand grinder and then like a big 25 pound stuffer for big batches. But sometimes like I'll just do like this, I'll be like, hey, who wants brats? Let's go make up some brats. You want, like literally, you get the right amount of salt, you throw in some random seasoning, like I'll do, you know, whatever. And we'll put a little pineapple in there. We'll put a little bit of. You want a teriyaki pineapple, right? Just throw some teriyaki sauce and pineapple in it, stuff it into a casing and throw it on the grill. You'd be surprised what you can make. It's a lot of fun. I mean, you could even just have people in there and be like, hey, we're gonna make some brats tomorrow. What do you want in it? Like, pick out some crazy ingredients, and you'd be surprised how good some of it turns out with very little effort. It's just stuffing it in the casing and throwing it on the grill and making a brat, which is a lot of fun in the summertime. Between that and then I'll make those, I'll freeze them, and then they're ready to defrost them before we throw them on. But you could even put them in beer brats, where you got to put it on the stove, cover it, let it simmer, and then you could even throw them on the grill to crisp them up. Or, I mean, I've cooked some in the air fryer before. Like, you can do whatever you want. They're pretty easy to cook. But on, like, uncured, you don't need any cure form because you're cooking them fresh. And those are the easiest sausages to make. And it's a good one to start out with. Like, if you're, if you're new to processing, give it a shot, give it a try, you know, get some of that specialized gear for it. All you need is a sausage stuffer. If you're going to go full into it, you know, you need a, you know, you need a grinder or have ground ground meat and then a mixer and a sausage stuffer. And between all that, man, you're ready for a pretty good backyard barbecue. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. It's always good to revisit a little bit of meat care and think about, you know, taking that whatever you harvest into the kitchen. It's one of the things as hunters that we really value. And I love being able to talk about that field to table aspect of hunting, not just how to be successful, but what to do when you are successful. I know for people, whether you're just getting into it or maybe you've been hunting forever and you're like, hey, you know, I've always wanted to try that. I think sometimes just that gentle nudge of being like, it's pretty easy to make brats with the right gear and just a little bit of time or even, you know, whatever, you could, you could literally, if you had to get a hand grinder and just grind a little bit, it's just going to take a lot longer. Right? But it's fun to, to kind of mess around with that and take a little bit of Time and, and go from like that entire experience of going out, harvesting what you take to prepping it and making a really good meal in the kitchen with it. And that's one of the things that I really do. I value being able to do that. You know, for me, living off of wild meat and this whole, you know, thought of living wild, it involves not just the hunting aspect, but what we do with it afterwards. And so, you know, that's, that's one of the reasons that I, you know, started Live Wild Spice Company. You know, all organic spices. And we got some cool things coming out here this fall that I'm really excited. But if you guys haven't tried some of the spices, you guys can find those on my website. Another thing that I wanted to talk about too, an awesome supporter of this podcast, Montana Knife Company. They've got a couple cool drops today for those of you. I'm looking for, you know, one of their knives. They've got their flathead fillet knife, which is one I really like that flame knife, not just for flaying fish, but I also like it for butchering as well. Like, I like the flex of that blade and I've done a lot with that. I actually used that before. They actually came out with their, their boning butcher knife, which I just got to use in this last bit of butchering. They've got a 6 inch one as well. The boning butcher knife is available, it's in stock. And then they also have their flathead knife which is kind of like, or sorry, the West Slope. So they got the two kind of fishing blades. The west slope is like a good, like freshwater, you know, fishing knife. I, I think that that's like a really cool looking knife. I like the blade design of it in the handle. But the other thing is I, I'm on their website right now just looking, see what's in stock. They have. They've been working really hard to get a lot of awesome knives in stock. And I'm looking on here right now. They've got some really good blades available, like the Mini Speedgoat. Those ones, you know, always sell out. Those ones are awesome. They're Stonewall Skinner, Another great knife. They got the Magnacut Blackfoot 2.0. There's a couple colors left in that. So they have a lot in stock right now as well. And I know that they've been working tirelessly to build up that in stock. So they've got a good drop today. If you're listening to this podcast, first thing and you want to jump on, get on their website. Those go live. Oh, man. You just go on their website and there, there'll be a countdown for it. And then if you aren't, don't get notified via email. Just sign up for that because that way, you know what, what knives are coming. But that's a, that's a good way to like those two knives are coming available and there's also some really good, like they're in stock, is getting better and better every day, which is awesome. So there's a lot of great knives in there. If you're looking for something gearing up for this upcoming season, that's something to check out. Just check it out. Montanaknifecompany.com they make some awesome stuff. And then especially as we're talking about cooking, processing, butchering, a good knife is key to that entire process. Like having something that you're comfortable with, that's sharp, that stays sharp, that you can kind of move through effortlessly and, and make the process. Anytime you can take that process and make it easier, have the right tool for the right job, it makes a big difference. So check that out. Thank you guys so much for the support, you know, of the podcast, for those of you that have shared the podcast, you know, left a comment, left a rating, subscribe to it. I really appreciate it. Those of you that have jumped over on our YouTube channel, we're going to start cranking out some really incredible hunts. I'm excited. There's a lot of good stuff going in. In July, we're going to talk about, I'm going to do some live calling, Q and A's coming up, pay attention on my Instagram feed and stories for that. I kind of just, I pop them up. I'm like, it's going today in like three or four hours from now because we get so many people calling in. We always have some great prizes and stuff. So if you pay attention to that, those will be coming up in the next couple weeks. I'll try to do a couple of those. And then August, we're going to kick off as elk month. So I got a ton of awesome videos and stuff for elk on the YouTube side. And then on the podcast side, we are going to just deep dive into some, some elk hunting tactics. Just fire everyone up. I get fired up about, I'm fired up just thinking about it right now. So we're going to go into elk season. We're going to talk a little bit more this month about some gear stuff, some tips and tactics stuff, mule your seasons are starting to kick off early season stuff. And then I have something that I'm very, very excited about. I don't know when I'm gonna announce it, but I've got a really cool thing in the works that I'm very excited to share with you guys. And I think most of you will enjoy what it's going to be. So, you know, this is a little teaser to what maybe it'll be next week, maybe the week after, sometime in, in July. We're gonna. I got a cool. We'll call it a big announcement that we're going to make. So I think that you guys will enjoy. So thank you guys so much. And until next week, say America, baby. Happy Independence Day. Catch you guys later.