Butchering Some Meat - Another Day in the Life - Stan Zuray

I've been asked a number of times to about you know people interested in you know how we butcher me where we butcher me and our you know like a lot of people have like a first Shack where they do their skinning of Martin and everything and where they'll like you know work on their meat and stuff like that most of the time I do it we do have another place if we're doing like a lot of a lot of meat and stuff where we will grind up a bunch of stuff do a whole moose of once and and I have an old house and I used to live in that I'll do that in but most of it's done in this house and all the animal skinning in the winter the Marten and the wolves and the Wolverine and all that sort of stuff is all done actually right here hanging off you know straps and stuff that get right in the house and you know see I'll do up yeah like his true caribou quad is this one's been all cleaned off basically been just the way I do it as well take off the you know skin you know will usually out in the field when we're shoot a caribou or something and a moose - you know it's so cold out that you know I don't worry about having a cool the meat down most of my hunting is done in the winter time and you know I'm not worried about it unless I want to use the hide for something I'll skin it the whole thing carefully and but you know the hides on these Caribous I'll I'll skin a big square out of the back and stuff like that but the stuff on the legs I I just leave on it we just quarter the the caribou so when I get in the house like this you know it's still got some fur on it you know and so high and and it's got a lot of hair on it and stuff like that so this one has all been you know the hides been taken off of it and kind of use cold water I just soaked it and you can see some of the meats kind of turned it a little bit dark from drying just a little bit it's not hard or anything but it's it's dried a little bit this meat pretty much froze really fast most that drying has been done from out in the you know just laying in a big snow pile outside it gets just a little freezer burn you know or just starting to them and so anyway just soak it with a rag like this and just get all that hair off and anything else that's on it it was meat summertime it would might have like grass and stuff on it you know and and that's it except for some of the tendons the real big tendons and stuff like that I'll try to to cut into them like this used to be attached by a big heavy tendon and I'll I'll cut off some of that stuff you know because that'll break your they'll just stop your meat grinder and and most of this stuff will be ground into ground meat and stuff like that or used to stew meat and stuff so any any meat that might have possibility to go through the grind you got to get these these tend to heavy tendons out because they will break the cutters in the grind or sometimes and so you know except for like I say some of these tendons and stuff like that you know I consider all this meat even the freezer burnt stop the stuff that was cut into the stuff that was a little bloodshot that's all good meat there's no scrap you know I've already done one quarter and these two I have left here and so you know I bet I basically I mean most of this is liquid in here that's the amount of scrap I got from two quarter's so far just just this tendon stuff so you know I've taken people scrap sometimes I remember somebody gave me a big bag of scrap after skinning and butchering a moose and getting it ready for making it the steaks and hamburger and stuff and I took a big bag of that that was God it must been 40 50 pounds of meat and Moke the majority of that I just ground up into hamburger you know it was perfectly good meat so there's no reason to you know be having big piles of scrap to Me's when you put your meat and you know a lot of the stuff in the store as far as I can tell anyway is you know when you buy hamburger or hot dogs or all that stuff anyway that's you know what are you doing so it gave me it's the same thing there's no reason to waste it it can all be grounded into hamburger if it doesn't make like good steaks or something so yeah like I say you know couple these tendons a little bit a little bit heavy and just cut them like that yeah so yeah so you know this is what I'm doing today it's uh we got a it's been 20 below here last couple of nights we got our first cold weather of the season and so I'm taking advantage of it and skinning a bunch of Marten you know I got a bunch of Marten done last night and brought into these squatters and they're thought out now and ready to go and this is up here this is uh this is all my Marten or some of the vine actually I got a bunch of another pile bigger than this actually upstairs yeah that's that's mostly what I've been catching this one to have caught very little biggie animals the mad fact most of my traps I don't when I first set out my traps I set them out for mine and then I don't even worry about too much for the big animals so we're just kind of now getting going on the big and I'm also putting out traps and if you wait a little bit the first a little more filled out and more full on the wolves and stuff like that and because I use the fur for myself or ruffs most of the Wolves I don't sell by fire I haven't sold wolf in years now yeah just like the dogs the dogs are developing their fur right now you know they're they're still especially with this warm weather we've had so yeah let's see yep then I just stop stripping this try to try to just work it down take all the meat I run into a big tendon or something like that you know we deal with it but just it's a one big piece and and then what I'll do is I already have enough meat to eat at the moment I what I'll do is I'll wrap this all into like a plastic wrap stuff that palate wrap plastic and and wrap it all in a big ball and as a bone there and and I'll wrap it up in that plastic and I'll freeze it outside right now I got a you know from the you know the body of the caribou and the core and the other quarter I did the other two quarters now that I've done yeah I got a big bunch of piles of meat all wrapped up real tight in this plastic and they're safe from freezer burn and now they're just there I can do anything I can butcher them a month from now whatever but anyway when I get like this the whole caribou and the whole moose or the whole you know me and my son will get the whole two caribou all done anything we haven't eaten will thaw it all out at once and have like a big butchering patty and we'll probably do that over in my old house and but it isn't worth firing up the old house just for like I say skinning a few Marten every day and maybe butchering up you know these quarter's and stuff so yeah and then we'll grind that all into hamburger and package it all into individual packages that we can just grab and eat as weak as we want much like the packages that you would buy in a store and stuff you know so this is seen as another big heavy tendon that baby would that would that would very likely stop having me grind it so yeah you just wanna cut that away to once it gets down into the muscle it gets really thin and and stuff like that and the meat-grinder will just take care of it but that's solid snuffle at least the meat grinder I have well yeah you could easily break a cutter around the bone there's some nice fat but it's kind of this is these two were the rear quarter's and they have a lot more meat on them than the front these caribou aren't too much different than deer matter of fact I think their idea I don't know deer too much I never used to hunt you know when I was in this back in that the Boston weren't from I never hunted at all really but but I think some of those like whitetail deer or something like that they're they're bigger than these a lot of these caribou although there are big caribou at times I mean I I've shoot a big bowl and stuff like that yes you know you can they can be pretty big yeah yeah I just yeah I don't like when the meat comes off when the meat comes off of this thing everything that comes off as I'm working my way down will be eaten it's Pato it'll be made into something and like I'm just kind of like skinning it off the bones here and leaving behind you know instead of taking all the meat off the big chunks and then working on the meat it's just the way I've always done it oh yeah I I work it as I go and I do the same thing with the animals like when I take the skin off of an animal I've never what do they call it uh when you work a hide on you take an animal's I take the hide off an animal and then afterwards you scrape it and get all the flesh and the you know stuff off of the hide you know what they call it I don't know anyway I don't do it like that when the hi comes off of the animal it's done to me it's much easier to work on the the meat or the hide when it's when it's on the bone or on the animal yeah that's that's just the way I've always done it a lot of that's because I never had anybody shown me how to do this I mean even to this day I don't know I don't really know how to do this you know I don't really know the way I've seen a few people do it but to this day after even being up here in Alaska for 40 years you know I don't but most of the hunting have done and definitely most of the butcher had done has just been with my family so I don't really see how other people do things but this way works for me and yeah but a lot of people skin in their houses up here it's uh it's just too much trouble - too much trouble - and it's cold you know and you got to burn more fuel to have a separate place to work on everything and yeah see there it is there's the yeah yeah most people I've seen would throw that away feed it to the dogs or something like that and that would be considered scrounge but that's there's no reason to call it that I mean if it if this quarter hung for a while outside and the heat like in the fall time you know you shoot a fall move should go out doing regular regular hunting seasons the winter hunting season and it hung outside and you know it was warm and maybe the blood shot make a little sour because it doesn't take long boy you know it'd be different but when this meet this is why I like one of the reasons I like to hunt in the winter is because the meat freeze is so fast on you there's no waste you know even the the bloodshot meat from the where the bullet hit the animal it's just like all it is is like hamburger you know there's just no there's nothing wrong with it it's just it's just meat that's been kind of ground up a little by the bullet and it's perfectly fresh there's no rot there's no souring and so you just grind it up into hamburger you know it wouldn't make a good steak or something like that or or maybe even wouldn't yeah you just grind it up so anyway there we go that thing is I got a big bunch of bones outside the door that's where I throw all my carcasses and my pieces of hide and these bones can be cracked and made into soup they can also be used for you know you take cut the joint here and that piece there you know hung in a tree on a trap set for a you know Wolverine or wolf make a good piece of bait and if something doesn't rob it on you during the winter at the end of winter it can be used as people food again like I say soup you know these both the marrow inside that's always good because it's always cold up here there's never anything going bad in the wintertime you know so that's yeah that's we'll throw that outside take this over to the plastic on the table and I'll wrap it up and I'll show you that okay and here's his I've done - this is all the meat that came off of that caribou quarter like I say they're really small chunks of meat next to a a moose you know but this is what I use I use this now for just this preliminary packaging just put it in this and then if I you know if it's a month before we have a big family butchering party there's no good it's not gonna be any freezer burn this is its you can buy it food grade but this is the palate wrap stuff that you buy for wrapping up stuff on a pallet or something like that actually this may be food grade sometimes I buy food great stuff but I don't like wrapping paper because wrapping paper is impossible to wrap tight there is no the entire surface area of the meat is it's just like it has the skin on it or something you know there's no air can get in here so this stuff would sit and and not freezer burn and when we package our like individual packages of you know steaks that don't have any bones in them and and hamburger it's the same thing we wrap it really tight even tighter than this and put a bunch of layers on it this stuff is really cheap wrapped too and it's and know where you can you can let this stuff sit in your freezer for a year and the hamburger will just there'll be no freezer burn at all on it whereas with a wrapping paper I don't have good luck with keeping meat in that for very long and a lot of people it doesn't matter because they're gonna eat up everything anyway within a short amount of time but you got a moose nothing's supposed to laughs that can last now with just me and my wife and you know some family dinners and stuff like that we go through we can go through we can have a moose last to see year now it used to be maybe two moose a year for you know when we had all the kids and and everything and I was sharing throughout the family and stuff you know but but that whole moves you know we need it to last year we don't need no freezer burn beat at the end of the year so I I rap isn't this stuff so this stuff will put outside okay and this is the woodshed and I've just been keeping the meat here for now I'll just next to this one and this one and this one here this one's the was just done earlier that's the French Quarter and that's pretty small and then there's two more two more here and and then I got a this where I got all my might and that I haven't skinned yet I keep them in the box I got about doesn't in there that I gotta do and yeah and yeah so and this is the yard here Martin here these are all the Martin last night there was a I had something to do I had to go downtown and and stuff so I was skin in mind and I didn't have time to let them dry and and then turn them first side out these are these are might and this is the way you you dry them for an hour or something like that this way and let them kind of dry and then you flip them inside out you turn them inside out like a sock and with the first side out and then you let him do the final dry and I didn't have time to sew all I had time to do was skin them all and get him on the stretches and if you if you put them outside like that they'll never get like hide to dry they might dry a little freezer burn or something like that but I can bring those inside to arm out and in and just let them dry for a while and I'll do that tonight and get them all drying in the house like you know on those stretches and yeah so and yeah here's all the the stuff here's all my is a couple of caribou quarter's left in the sled their wheat me and Joe each got a caribou he's I think he wants to do those loose quarter's himself but anyway stuff that we'll all get you like I say it's about 10 below right now and and it's definitely a little chilly out that's about it I guess I could me my that's kind of like my snow machine this is the wife snow machine it's that's our newest one that's got electric starts real nice for the wife you know she actually uses snow machines much more than I do she'll put on way more miles than I will on snow machines and they went to even though I do travel with them sometimes and I run him around town but she will drive him every single day you know she goes to work comes home for lunch goes back to work three miles away four miles away and and she's just constantly on the go with them in the evening visiting grandkids and all that sort of stuff and yeah and there are the dogs and here's my son oh we're gonna get my son coming in the ID he was checking his trapline no yeah no it's my friend Tom Fogg okay look at that yeah my friend Tom Fogg he used to live out in the tozi river with us anyway I don't know if he wants to be filmed so I'll shut this off here but yeah hey Tom

Channel: Stan Zuray

Views: 47,626

Keywords: Yukon Men, Stan Zuray, wilderness, survival, hunting, trapping

Id: L61rnQxpmqA

Length: 26min 14sec (1574 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018