Meat from a mature buck deer - is it edible or not?

[Saddle Tramp]

The trick with any meat is to trim off all the silver skin that you can, and tenderize with a mallet. Grinding works but like anything else you get out of it what you put in it. You take hour after hour hunting spend a little time prepping your meat.

[Saddle Tramp]

And pressure cooking is great for shanks and roast.

[Shurshot]

Meat from a mature buck deer - is it edible or not?

It's all good, of course a young deer can be better than an old deer. That being said I do not care for an older buck that has been rutting for a long time. They smell, the hair on the legs under the hawks starts to fall off because of them pissing on their hawks for a couple months. Also a buck that has been running does for a month seems like the meat is a darker red. Those usually get made into sausage. I can usually be a little more picky because I normally take off 10-15 whitetail a year.


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[Skinny]

Yes


Skinny

[mpotts]

Deer meat is just fine, old or young..

What Mitch said

[TKK]

tenderloins and backstrap cut out - rest I do link sausage and hamburger no matter if it is a doe or old buck - its all good

[Lajita]

There are good steaks in the hind quarters. You just have to know how to extract them.

[Drycreek3189]

A lot depends on how you handle it after it is harvested.

True. But these guys that want to grind the hams or make roasts ain't ever ate any of my wife's chicken fried steaks.............but that's ok by me !

[Colton]

In my opinion it's how you handle the meat post kill, not the age or sex of the deer

On my deer, backstraps and tenderloins are made into cutlets for chicken fried steak, the rest goes into sausage, summer sausage and hamburger meat

[Mr. Stickers]

It's all good, biggest part is how it is cared for after you squeeze the trigger. Proper cleaning & bleeding out in fresh ice for a few days goes a long way. Drain bloody water everyday & keep plenty of fresh ice covering meat.

[Jakesfish]

It's all good, biggest part is how it is cared for after you squeeze the trigger. Proper cleaning & bleeding out in fresh ice for a few days goes a long way. Drain bloody water everyday & keep plenty of fresh ice covering meat.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This 100% I agree

[Sleepy]

It's all good, biggest part is how it is cared for after you squeeze the trigger. Proper cleaning & bleeding out in fresh ice for a few days goes a long way. Drain bloody water everyday & keep plenty of fresh ice covering meat.

Totally agree with how it's cared for after the shot! However, I've gotten away from putting meat on ice and "draining the blood". I started putting the meat in an extra fridge that I have in the garage. (Next best thing to a walk in cooler) Leave it in there for a week or so, trim the dried outer layer off and I guarantee you'll never see a prettier piece of meat. Not to meantion, cutting up dry meat beats the heck out of cutting up slimy slippery meat that's been on ice for a few days. It's worked so well, I'm thinking about figuring out a good way to install some hooks to actually let the meat hang, rather than laying on a shelf and flipping every couple of days.

[jerp]

I only keep the tenders and back straps whole, no matter the age of the deer. The rest becomes sausage, ground meat and jerky. I may be the outlier but I don't like whole deer hams or shoulders no matter how you cook them.

[Jayt22]

The only thing tender and juicy I know of is the tenders and straps. Nothing else is really made to slap on the grill. Quarters and necks make great roasts and they will tender up with juiciness just fine after a long bath in a crock pot. If you don't like roasts, grind it up!

Nicely put and agree 100%

[Wood Man]

When I was a younger lad, say 20 yrs ago I killed an old mature buck. He had to be 7 or 8 yrs old. I was thinking that I needed to give the meat away. Well I kept it on ice a few days and grilled a bit of it. Dang. It's just fine. The whole deer was absolutely fine.
I had been listening to folks talk about old bucks and how they taste. They didn't know what they were talking about. Or didn't know how to cook it.