This week on Kentucky Afield.

Chad shows us how he likes to cut venison steaks and grind burger for his family to enjoy all year long.

Next, we'll take a look back at a special event that took place 25 years ago in the hills of eastern Kentucky.

Then we're staying put out east and we've got a big bull elk on our mind.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Join us as we journey the commonwealth in search of outdoor adventure.

If you're a deer hunter and you've noticed the high prices for meat right now, you have an option.

I've been grinding my own burger and cutting my own steaks for many years now, and it's not as hard as you may think.

Well fall is here.

You know what that means?

It means it's time for deer season.

And recently we shot a video of how to debone a deer in the field.

Deboning was a process where we went in and we literally took the cuts of meat out by the different groups.

We bagged it and brought it home.

We got a ton of people who watch that video on YouTube.

If you'd like to see it, that's where you can find it.

Go to YouTube and look for how to debone your deer.

A lot of people want to know, what do you do next?

Well, you've got a couple options at that point in time.

You can either take that meat home and process it yourself, or you could take it to a meat processor.

If you take it to a meat processor is going to cost somewhere between 90 and $150, depending on what all you want.

I like to make burger back straps roast and sometimes jerky or some summer sausage.

Now my family tends to like the burger.

They use it for chili tacos, nachos, lasagna.

My wife even has a meatloaf recipe that she really likes to use.

Venison burger.

And the other thing that we like is the back straps.

You can't grind your back straps.

They're just so good on the grill.

So we're going to focus today on only working with bagging back straps and then showcasing the process I like to use to make burger.

Once you get a deer de-boned and you get it in your game bags, you're going to need a couple of different knives to get it to that process.

Once I get it home, I like to put it on ice in the bag so that the ice doesn't soak through the meat.

You just want to keep it cold, take the meat out, wash it up.

And that's where we're at right now.

Once I get to this point of the kitchen.

90% of the cuts I make is going to be done with the fillet knife.

We're going to take the silver seam, cut everything away.

Right here is a back strap.

We're going to start here.

We're going to put it in family size packages.

Vacuum seal it.

Then we're going to start getting out the other pieces of meat, the front shoulder, the back hams, the neck meat, any other parts of the deer that you've kept.

We're going to show you how to take that.

Run it through a grinder.

I'm going to add a little bit of pork and then we're going to showcase that whole process.

And then vacuum sealing that.

So this is the back strap.

You can see this is right off of the deer.

You see this is called Silver Seam.

You see this material on here it█s kind of slick.

So the very, very, very first thing that I always want to do when I get it in is wash it really well, which we've done that, and then I'll start working on it with a fillet knife.

So how I do this is I take my knife and I run it under that silver seam as close as I possibly can.

I start taking this knife down through here and I'll cut it into strips.

All I'm doing is I'm cutting off this silver seem.

A little hint.

If you come all the way back here and you try to start at the very end, then you don't have anything to hold it.

Kind of like filet in a fish.

I'll let the silver seam hold itself down.

So I come and start cutting it this way until the knife kind of pops out.

And when that happens, I'll come back and just work it right out.

There you go.

You can see that this is all coming off here.

Really nice and easy.

I'm just running this knife barely underneath, sliding this fillet knife right in between the silver seam and the backdrop.

You know, some of this stuff, you don't have to be meticulous with it.

My family absolutely loves this.

So I am a little bit probably over cautious with this just because I never want to see the day without bring in a beer.

And they're not excited about having it for dinner so long as they continue to want it, ask for it.

Then I want to continue to clean it up and maybe even be a little bit overcautious.

Now we've got most of the silver steam off of the top.

We're going to flip it over and clean out everything here on the inside portion.

And you can see there is some little pieces in here.

This literally is stuff that resides right along the spine.

Sometimes it comes off when you do the processing.

Sometimes you actually leave it on the deer.

So what I am doing here is if it's white and stringy, I'm just taking it right off.

Now, at this point in time, really what I have is the exact same thing.

If you went to a restaurant and you ordered filet, this is the cut off of beef that you'd be getting.

Now, once I get to this point right here, go ahead and butterfly them and we'll cut almost all the way through and I'll cut this one all the way through.

I'll move over almost all the way through.

All the way through.

I will package this piece of meat just like this.

And when I pull it out, it'll fall out very quickly and I'll marinate it a little bit.

And then this is how it goes right on the grill.

These are fantastic.

You can see how that meat looks.

Absolutely beautiful.

Is super, super tender.

You like beef?

I don't know how you can like it.

It literally is exactly the same.

It's just a little less fatty.

Here we go.

Almost all the way through.

All the way.

And I like to keep these pretty consistent far as the thickness.

And the reason I say that is because when you put them on the grill, you really want them to cook consistently.

The number one thing about grilling back strap in my opinion is that you want to make sure you do not overcook it.

So if you have a piece, you're trying to get cooked because it's two inches thick and you have a piece on there that's one inch thick, the one inch thick piece going to be overcooked.

So this is exactly the process that I like to go through.

It looks like this.

But when you lay it out on the grill, look at that.

How beautiful does that look?

That just turned into a filet.

Ready to go right on the grill.

So let's go on through this, the rest of this back strap and get it all to this level.

And from there, I'll be ready to vacuum, pack it.

All right.

Wash my hands and we'll get back and we'll get this bagged up and ready to go.

Now, you can put this in a lot of different bags.

I like to vacuum pack it.

I've already taken this roll and seemed it sealed the bottom and cut it to length.

So all I need to do at this point in time is right on the bag.

What's going in here?

And I'll always write the date.

That way you can make sure you rotate in your meat.

So this is going to be steaks and then month and year.

Let's throw what we think is going to be about one portion there.

Once I get that in, this goes right into the vacuum sealer, just like this.

There you go do that one more time.

Now, these are now ready for the freezer and we'll get these put up there.

We'll start working on the burger.

Now, the second box trap is exactly the same.

So once you get your back straps cut, vacuum sealed and stored.

It's time to move on to the rest.

Now, what I have right here is a roast.

So if you wanted to clean this up in vacuum, pack it.

You could do that.

And it would be really good for roast.

But our family eats more burger than anything.

So let's go ahead and go through the process of cleaning this up.

We're just going to cut off the silver seams, anything that's white or not desirable.

Go ahead and cut it out and get rid of it.

I'm just getting rid of anything on here.

That one looks like it needed to be cleaned a little more.

If I see something on here.

I'll just cut that off to help.

Kind of get right down to nothing but beautiful red meat.

Look how pretty that is.

Now, this would make a great roast, but just due to the fact that I have a roast or two from last year still available, I have no burger.

We're going to go ahead and turn this into burger.

Inevitably, when I talk to somebody who said they've tried deer meat, they don't like it.

Maybe it's been a roast.

It's probably a roast that wasn't cleaned really, really well.

Because I tell you what, if you get all of this off, it really changes the taste.

You just don't get that game taste.

So that's the reason I like to go through this process and it doesn't take long at all.

All right.

There you go.

That's a roast.

So if you were wanting to put something in a crock pot, this is right where you would stop.

You'd vacuum, pack it, and it would be ready to go.

Now that I've got it.

At this point, I'm going to cut it into some chunks or strips so that I can run it through the grinder.

There's a lot of different uses for this right here, but today it's going into burgers for me here are some other cuts of meat off of the back end of a deer.

I've got a couple of options here.

If I wanted to make these into roast, I could clean this up.

This would make a beautiful roast.

But since I'm doing a burger today, I'm going to get them cleaned up.

And a lot of people would chunk this up in the soup meat too.

But I'm going to clean it up just like the other and put it in my pile for deer burger.

I'm also at this point, I'm going to go and take off anything that's not perfectly clean, beautiful red meat.

Just take a nice thin cut and go ahead and just take it off.

So now we're going to get all the rest of the cuts of meat that we're going to use for the grinder.

We're going to go ahead and get that ready at this point in time, get it to this point, chunk it up, set it aside.

Then I'm going to go get the pork shoulder that I've got to show you exactly what I buy there and how I handle that.

Now, at this point, it is ready to grind.

What I want to do at this point in time is get my pork shoulder to the exact same process.

So this is just a pork shoulder.

It's been cleaned and that's it right out of the package.

It has a blade in it.

And you can see that blade.

That's a bone.

I have not done any trimming to it whatsoever.

You can buy this.

It's usually run somewhere between a $1.49 and $2.49 a pound.

So I think I paid a $1.99 for this.

So at this point in time, I'm going to take my fillet knife and I'm going to go in and I'm going to take this bone and cut it out.

Obviously, I will not be using it.

Now, a lot of people do this different ways.

People will buy this pork fat.

Now, for me, I would just soon get this this meat and cut it in pieces just like this.

Then I can run it through the grinder, about 25% pork, 75% venison.

And all this does is it flavors it up a little bit.

Now, obviously, you can add as however much you want or as little as you want, depending on how healthy you want to keep it and how you want the taste.

All right.

The grinder is set and ready to go.

We're going to do the venison first.

Now, that's all.

The venison just takes a few minutes.

If you cut it up and you use that the biggest grade in there, it really, really doesn't take long.

Now, I'm going to do the exact same thing with my cuts of pork.

I've got a little more pork than what I'm going to need.

I usually go to big handfuls of the venison and then one smaller handful of pork and I'll put it up here in the top tray and a mix it together.

In the next time I turn the grinder on, I'm going to have my bags already marked.

That say burger catching it running straight from here to the vacuum.

Packer, let's go in here and get a big handful of this venison.

Put it up here.

Get another big handful.

Put it up here.

Now, I'm going to go in a little bit smaller handful, and I'm going to mix this in, mix it together.

Now, this grinder is going to mix it as well.

So I don't have to be perfect.

By no means.

I'm just kind of mixing it in so that I don't get a mixture that's 60% pork fat.

I mean, I really want this pork fat content to be somewhere in there and around 20% pork.

But the fat content, I hope to be somewhere around ten.

Now, once I've got to this point, turn this grinder on, feed this right through until I believe it's close to 2 pounds That's about one and a half to 2 pounds right there.

So I'm going to bring it over here to my vacuum packer and we're going to vacuum and seal once I have it vacuum packed, I'll tell you a little tip that I like to do.

This is how most people will throw it in a refrigerator or freezer or deep freeze.

Well, it doesn't stack very well.

It's very, very hard to put this in there without it falling, rolling all over the place.

So once I get to this point, I like to push it out into all the corners of my vacuum packer make it into a disk where I can stack it right like this in my freezer.

Now you've got to make sure you're dry.

And I want to stack this to hopefully throughout the season almost like this 30, 40 high.

I can also look right in and see the date on it, put the next one on and then what I'll do is I'll take them out and put these at the bottom so that I'm rotating what's what's freshest.

So the other good thing, when you do it like this, it thaws out much quicker because it's not as thick, it'll thaw really fast.

And this just so happens to fit perfectly in a skillet.

It is hard to believe that it has been 25 years this week since we reintroduced Elk in eastern Kentucky.

This Saturday, December 17th, 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of Kentucky's historic first Elk release.

On this date in 1997, more than 4000 spectators lined potato Knob in Perry County to watch the gates of a cattle trailer be opened.

And the hooves of elk touched the hills of eastern Kentucky for the first time in more than 150 years.

I think this is one of the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to Eastern Kentucky is the elk.

What occurred on this day 25 years ago is monumental and that it was the start of perhaps the largest and most successful reintroduction of a big game species in North American history.

Over the next five years, more than 1500 elk were captured from Arizona, Kansas, North Dakota, Oregon and Utah and transported to Kentucky for release.

Each elk was captured by mange, ranging from tranquilizer guns to corral traps and aerial netting.

The elk were then tested for overall health and disease before being loaded into a cattle trailer and transported to Kentucky's newly established Elk Zone.

Over the next several years, the released elk thrived in their new landscape less natural predators, milder winters and an abundance of food created near-perfect conditions for the population to grow.

Since that December day in 1997, Kentucky's Elk heard has expanded to be the largest in the eastern U.S. and hosts some of the country's most impressive bulls as well.

In fact, the second largest typical bull ever harvested in Kentucky was taken in 2021 by Jon Perkins, netting 377 and 4/8inches.

This goal would have been the largest typical ever harvest in the state, if not for today's 392 and 3/8 inch bull, which was the second largest typical bull harvested in all of the United States in 2021.

We here at Kentucky Afield have certainly enjoyed the success of the state's elk reintroduction, as we've had the pleasure of tagging along on a number of great hunts over the years.

Good shot, good shot, he█s down.

Get on him.

clear shooting, clear.

How about how excited are you?

Yeah, that's crazy.

That's going home with me.

I don't have to go to Basspro shop to see that .

Oh, my gosh, say meat meet in the freezer, Look at that shot.

Gosh, thankful to get to do this here.

These pretty mountains here, Eastern Kentucky.

Man, what a great experience.

So here's to 25 years of elk once again roaming the commonwealth.

The plan of reintroducing elk in eastern Kentucky always included an opportunity to hunt them.

Now let's take a look back at one of our favorite hunts in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

We know there's a bull here.

We've seen some pictures from last couple of nights.

Oh, out.

Second, we get there, get set up.

That bull is bugling right there.

He's there.

There they come these are his cows.

He's going to be with them, hold on.

Bunch of cows.

And there he is.

Hold on.

He sees in the back.

All right, hold on.

Make sure it clear.

Wait, now here comes another one.

It could be a bigger one.

There's a old cow behind it.

Make sure you're clear of the cow when they clear that scene or you don't have much time.

Get ready.

Not yet.

Not yet.

The cow right behind it.

Here comes another cow.

You're clear whenever you're ready, Clear when you're ready.

He█s right behind that tree.

He█s right behind the Cedar Tree.

We don't have a shot right now, but the cows are clear, so he takes a step out.

You're going to have about 5 seconds.

Get ready.

He█s going to take 2 steps and be clear when he started walking, you're not going to have a ton of time so be ready.

Here he goes.

Whenever you're ready, you know we got a second.

Reload, reload, reload.

Alright, do you see where he's at?

Watch out.

You got a cow right beside him right now.

Hold on, hold on.

Mine.

You got two cows head right in the vitals.

I see it.

You got a cows.

Head right into it.

I'll get ready.

Get ready.

Get ready.

Get ready.

Ready.

See what happens.

All right, you're clear, hold up.

Wait till that cow clears.

Yep.

Clear.

Hold, hold, hold.

clear shooting.

Clear.

The second shot look really, really, really good.

Let's give it a few minutes and let's see what we got.

That's a good bull.

That's a good bull.

This day could not have had more ups and downs.

We got in here knowing there's a good bull here, knowing that he's probably feeding on all the acorns that are out there.

We set this morning and what do we see?

A bear and sweat drops.

I'm not going to say we were we knew we weren't whipped.

We knew there was a bull here.

We knew we had a chance.

But we were we were in a situation.

We were coming out going, you know, we don't see a whole lot of land right here in about 40, 40 feet.

And we knew that it had to happen fast.

And the thing came out, we figured that's our bull.

That's what we want.

This one, we got pictures of runs up and stops behind that dag gone Cedar Tree for 5 minutes and we're sliding down the hill trying to hold up on the hillside, slide down the hill.

Your sticks are moving.

280 something yard.

Hey, I'm telling you, that was a high pressure situation for you, because as he was moving, you knew you had seconds.

Yeah.

And then it looked like your second shot.

Yeah.

Got him really good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we don't see.

But that was laying down there somewhere right now.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh man, I can't.

I█m excited for you.

I know, it's exciting.

Oh.

Huh.

Oh.

Oh, boy.

That's dandy, boys.

Oh, man.

Good bull, did you see this?

Look at that.

That█s is a dandy.

Look at that bull that you have got there.

That is something else.

Yeah.

How about it, how excited are you?

Oh, man.

You've been watching Dale.

You've been watching this bull for a while now, buddy.

Congratulations, sir.

Buddy.

Well, I tell you what, I can't imagine what this had been like for you to be able to come out here and have your son with you and take this hunt.

Great, great time.

Great, fabulous.

Well, congratulations, sir.

I want to thank all the guys that helped Trinity for sure.

Buddy Dillon, you guys did great.

Had a great time.

Wonderful time, Chad.

Cameraman Chase.

Appreciate it, guys.

Jake, Glad use here.

Sure glad.

Thank you.

Great time.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun.

And this week's ones that didn't get away, not sure which was more impressive.

This beautiful buck or the photo.

This is a nice 12 point buck that was taken by Mitch Tarr in Henderson County, Kentucky.

Check out this impressive eight point buck that was taken from Grayson County this year, was taken by hunter Richard Hash.

Check out this nice buck that was taken by a 13 year old Gavin Frisbee in Bracken County.

11 year old Elena Cordell took this nice eight point buck on the family farm.

Elena has been learning to hunt with her dad.

Nice job.

Here we have six year old twins, Brant and Kaden Miles from New Hope, Kentucky.

They both got their first bucks from Nelson and Marion County on opening weekend.

Nice job.

Do you have a hard to buy for Hunter Angler in your life?

Well, consider going to F.W.KY.GOV and buying a gift certificate.

A hunting or a fishing license always makes the perfect gift.

And remember, hunting and fishing on private property is a privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next week, I'm your host, Chad.

Miles, I hope to see you in the woods or on the water.