If you would have asked me a month ago if I had a blog or would start a blog, I would have first asked you, “What is a blog?” and then laughed with an eye roll included. As I always say, I’d rather spend my time hunting or fishing!
But then I realized that a blog would be a great way to share answers to some of the frequently asked questions I receive via email from my customers and YouTube fans, upcoming events that I will speaking or presenting at, new “how-to” videos I’ve uploaded to my YouTube channel, and new products I will be selling on my website.
With that said, I invite you to follow me to learn more about wild game processing and my passion for the great outdoors. And always feel free to contact me with questions, comments or a great hunting or fishing story!
Heid Wild Game 
have been watching the cutting deer right video and was wondering if you might do a video of the sorting of the grinding meat and the disposal of whatever is not used. no one explains in detail that part of the process. i see you sharpen your knives on a steel during the deboning, wouldn’t this dirty the steel with fat. i have always cleaned my blades before using steel on them. i sometimes push my knife blade into the ground to clean when unable to wash with water.
Hey Robert,
Thanks for purchasing the DVD. I have had several requests to explain in more detail how to deal with the trim. We will be producing another batch of DVDs this winter and I will include more info on what you can do with your trimmings. I will also cover gutting deer and grinding hamburger on the next production of DVDs.
To answer your question; Once you have all of your trimmings boneless it is important to remove most of the fat and heavy tendons. Simply go through the trimmings one piece at a time to accomplish this. Your goal should be to have your trimmings 90%-95% lean. Many people spend far too much time picking at trimmings to make it nearly 100% lean. This is very time consuming and unnecessary. 90%-95% lean is lean enough no matter what you make with your trimmings. This should only take you 15-30 minutes to accomplish.
The tendons do not have any off flavor. The only complication to leaving too many tendons in your venison trimmings is that when you grind your trimmings (especially if your grinder blades are dull) you may feel some lumps in your hamburger. To avoid this, remove the big tendons. It is only necessary to remove about one coffee cup of the biggest tendons from your whole deer. All other tendons are small enough to easily grind.
As for steeling your knife, it is not a problem to get fat and blood on your steel. I strongly recommend not rubbing your knife on the ground before steeling. Search ‘Kurt Heid steel’ on YouTube for an instructional video explaining how to properly steel your knife
Thanks for your question and good luck hunting
Kurt Heid