Knives and meat... kitchen work, butchering, field work, etc

Brian77

Brian77

Joined
Nov 27, 2014
Messages
1,757
Hey guys,

Here is what some of us use some knives for a lot. I live for butchering season. and field processing a whitetail, bear, moose, elk, etc.... I will plan to post pictures of our use of knives in the meat cutting area. D2 shines here. Also 3V, and other steel like 52100, and others.

If you also have some pics to share, let us see your use of knives. And how well the edge holds up. Virtuovice on YouTube has done an amazing job of documenting edge retention on processing stag in Japan. He does over 50 a winter, and in all types of weather. He has shown 3V as the best edge holdng, and Elmax,and A2 as very good steel for that.

Most of us do not do that much meat processing, but some do. If it's only one or many, how do you use yours?

Here is a start to our butchering season. Traditional we use 5 and 6" inch boning knives for the table work in semi flex and flexible. For skinning a 1200 lb steer like this Black Gelbvieh we use a 6 inch Skinner. Then we use 8" and 9" butcher knives for cutting up the fine cuts.

I am using the D2 proto from Nathan and will report on that later this winter. I plan to use the 3V when it arrives also. We have 7 hogs, and 5 more steers scheduled, and a lot of deer. It's fun!

Share your experiences!

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Short ribs
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Burger cuts
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Wrapped and froze!
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Very nice.

I do almost nothing myself. I just work, work on the house and take care of the kids. Before I know it another year had gone by. Well till this broken foot. But I still can do anything. I always say, maybe next year. I’ll live vicariously through you guys. Last I got was a Moose a few years back and there was no CPK on scene.

There was Bark River though as I listened to Virtuovice back then.
 
JustinFournier said:
Very nice.

I do almost nothing myself. I just work, work on the house and take care of the kids. Before I know it another year had gone by. Well till this broken foot. But I still can do anything. I always say, maybe next year. I’ll live vicariously through you guys. Last I got was a Moose a few years back and there was no CPK on scene.

There was Bark River though as I listened to Virtuovice back then.
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#lifegoals as the Millennials have coined the phrase.

Don't be daunted Justine. I started out my family life a decade or so before you did but you are still young. By the time your Son and Daughter reach college age or enter to learn a trade so that they can take care of themselves as they move out and move on, you'll be in your mid 50's like I'm currently almost there. The nest becomes empty and with some luck and sound planning you can enter the golden phase in your life when you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. The best investment which anyone can make is an investment in their health and if you're lucky and that pays dividends when you really need to call upon it and cash out, so to speak. You can then tune and meld your life with Nature to chose to live a simpler life to discover as to what it (Life) was all about. Some are luckier than others like our own Lorien, who seems to have taken the enlightened path sooner than others ;)
 
Brian, thank you for taking the time to compose this thread. As usual, your threads are both entertaining and adventurous. I'm looking forward to your extended opinion about that HDFK with the optimized D2 steel as you had it intended for butchering tasks :)
 
I do lots of butchering and processing every year, I will be sure to post some pics.
 
We don't seem to do as much as in years past ... but still process at least one steer one hog and anywhere from 15 to 30 whitetails ... and then the occasional Mule Deer or Elk if theres a lucky draw for a tag.

Mostly used to use Old Hickory and Victorinox but after using Beckers BK5 and BK15 those are my main butchering knives along with an old faithful Old Hickory that my dad used and its still going strong ... still use Victorinox boning knives and their 8" breaking and 10" Cimeter ... nothing to exotic as far as steels ... for fast and easy touch up ...

I did use some D2 one year but found although it held an edge better when it needed touched up I was spending too much time to get it back where I wanted it so went back to what I was used to.

But will say I've never found anything that shows me more what a knives worth is over butchering chores ... and good knives make it a pleasure ... bad ones make it miserable.
 
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JJ_Colt45 said:
... and good knives make it a pleasure ... bad ones make it miserable.
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A lot of truth in that statement ^ :thumbsup:

We process whatever wild game is taken by my family each fall, several elk, maybe ten deer on a good year, a few bear, any other special tags that get filled. I have a friend that is a butcher, and he gets our domestic work, but we much prefer to do wild game ourselves. 3V and 52100 are serving well for this, along with a lot of older knives that I'm guessing are 1095. I'm envious of your butcher room Brian, and also how well your family pitches in to get 'er done!
 
Agreed I was thinking how I wish I had pictures documenting all the process through the years ... and definately envious of the equipment you have Brian ... and its a great thing to share with family and friends ... alot of good memories ... that Im sure several would think I was a little nuts saying that unless they got the chance to spend that time with family n friends. :thumbsup: Thanks for sharing the post Brian.
 
Genuine question born out of curiosity: Is there a reason why gloves are not used when processing? Do bare hands provide for more tactile feedback?
 
Just an observation, not a challenge. When I got into knives the first person I talked to was my dad. He was a 'sticker' in a cattle slaughter house. A cow is driven into a chute and the 'knocker' hits the cow in the head with a pneumatic gun that's supposed to drive a piece of metal into the cow's head and kill it outright. The body drops into a chute which rolls away and the cow rolls down to dad's place in the blood pit. Often the cows aren't dead, just stunned, and they wake up pissed off and crazed on the blood pit floor. For some reason they get upset when they see and smell a bunch of their kin in different states of dismemberment. Too emotional or something. Anyways, when that happens the knocker drops down to help the sticker (the shackler has already had the shit knocked out of him usually) get one of the back legs shackled to haul the cow up so you can cut its throat. I floated through a lot of jobs at the slaughter house when I was 18, suckily enough I was pretty damn good at knocking because I didn't want dad to bitch at me on the way home.

Beyond how horrible that whole process is, I watched dad cut a thousand cattle throats ever day then at some point I asked him about his knives. They were $2 Chicago Works knives with a wooden handle and they sharpened them with a paper wheel on breaks. Now that I know a little about knives I've been looking them over and they're all chisel grinds. I asked dad about that and he said it's just because they're faster to sharpen. It seems dumb to me but it's also dumb to question a guy whose livelihood and occasionally his life depended on how sharp his knife was. The process was a long vertical cut along the throat then he'd shove his whole arm in the hole he'd made to make a long cut along the jugular. If all went well there was a shower of blood and it was time to shackle the cow up. Cutting through the hide and poo, especially in the winter, worked the blades over but dad always swore by those chisel grinds.
 
grogimus said:
Just an observation, not a challenge. When I got into knives the first person I talked to was my dad. He was a 'sticker' in a cattle slaughter house. A cow is driven into a chute and the 'knocker' hits the cow in the head with a pneumatic gun that's supposed to drive a piece of metal into the cow's head and kill it outright. The body drops into a chute which rolls away and the cow rolls down to dad's place in the blood pit. Often the cows aren't dead, just stunned, and they wake up pissed off and crazed on the blood pit floor. For some reason they get upset when they see and smell a bunch of their kin in different states of dismemberment. Too emotional or something. Anyways, when that happens the knocker drops down to help the sticker (the shackler has already had the shit knocked out of him usually) get one of the back legs shackled to haul the cow up so you can cut its throat. I floated through a lot of jobs at the slaughter house when I was 18, suckily enough I was pretty damn good at knocking because I didn't want dad to bitch at me on the way home.

Beyond how horrible that whole process is, I watched dad cut a thousand cattle throats ever day then at some point I asked him about his knives. They were $2 Chicago Works knives with a wooden handle and they sharpened them with a paper wheel on breaks. Now that I know a little about knives I've been looking them over and they're all chisel grinds. I asked dad about that and he said it's just because they're faster to sharpen. It seems dumb to me but it's also dumb to question a guy whose livelihood and occasionally his life depended on how sharp his knife was. The process was a long vertical cut along the throat then he'd shove his whole arm in the hole he'd made to make a long cut along the jugular. If all went well there was a shower of blood and it was time to shackle the cow up. Cutting through the hide and poo, especially in the winter, worked the blades over but dad always swore by those chisel grinds.
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We stun them with a shot to the brain. Then shackle and hoist. Then insert a blade into the armpit and sever the aorta. And bleed out into a tub. It's clean and fast and thorough.

Also, thanks for your observations.

Adam, some people that help wear gloves. It's becoming more common. It's more of a preference thing, i think. And the girls do so to make cleaning up easier layer.
 
We started in on the butcher job for my mother's elk last evening.

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Who knew Henckels were so against chopping??!!! :D

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I love that Henckels twin for slicing the big steaks though....

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Those other two are Ontarios, and then of course Nate's field knife and a Swamprat one-off. Oh, and a Buck filet knife. That Buck works well and has enough length to handle elk.

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Hard Knocks said:
The thinnest one of those two came from my Granddad. Not sure how long he used it, but I've used it every fall for about 25 years and it's still going. I grabbed the second one because I liked the first so much :thumbsup:
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That's awesome! Love hearing stories like that. My grandfather ran a restaurant and worked the kitchen back in the 60's. I wish I had one of his knives.

No cool stories lf my own but one of my close friends had me sharpen and clean up an old dive knife that had been through the ringer. Looked like someone sharpened it on concrete at some point and it was slightly bent. Turns out it was the knife his father carried as a UDT in Vietnam.
 
Here is what I used 2 of the HDFK on today. I was curious to see if the brine would patina the blades. One in D@ and one on 3v.

A friend of mine owns a large butcher shop. He volunteered to smoke 10 hogs. They weighed around 250 each. He cut and quartered them, and set the pork bellies aside. Then smoked them overnight. It was our job to de-bone and cut and pull the meat. I then put in in coolers and transported in in closed trailer to the site where the Mid-MO Relief sale is happening. Expecting to feed 1,500 tonight for supper.

I continue to love the D2 for meat work. My preference for carbon steel for this type of work continues to grow. I will just share a few pics for those interested.

Some of the racks of hot meat ready for deboning.

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Austin working at removing the bones. One of the HDFK in the foreground. Note the grease everywhere. The handle performed excellent. The people that always wonder about slippery? They are usually people that have not worked with knives in this type conditions. If the handle shape is good, then it will still work well. We had latex gloves, and warm hog fat over everything.
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A slight patina is visible on the D2 after a wash with very hot water.
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Here is some lamb, hogs, and beeves aging in the cooler. Steaks anyone?
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