Black locust is another blade burner. It’s hard as a rock.
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Camping in November one year we used a single chunk of black locust on a bed of larch (tamarack) coals in the tent. Lasted through the night and threw off enough heat that we didn’t have to feed the fire for hours. Can’t do that even with fruitwoods.
I haven’t worked it but I gather you need very sharp tools! It’s used to make bobbins, bowling pins, stuff like that.
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i harvested a young 4 pt. muley buck in N.M many moons ago. had th
at gamey taste from the sage and pinyon pine. was very strong tasting but with a good marinade we still ate well off him. i agree . farm fed deer are much better. ive made mostly burger from a old buck mixed with some beef fat its pretty good.
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he must have been on the decline then. my son shot a cow moose that was 13 yrs old according to biologist samples. even the burger was terrible! dogs ate well.
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tamarack, though not as hard as b. locust is also hard on blades due to high silicon content. also a wood if you allow to dry is impossible to work and heavy as hell. my father once used tamarack planking for his porch . it got hot out a week before putting them on baking the stack. those boards were so hard, we had to predrill and counter sink for the screw head or we would snap off every screw. horrible stuff to build with. better for the fire.
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Tamarack is good firewood -clean, low ash, fairly slow burning. Nice too that the trees are beautiful.
But my experience is limited to a few camping trips. Quite a few people around here still burn wood (where it’s legal) and tamarack is a favorite. Ponderosas aren’t regarded as worth the trouble. Lodgepole and doug fir are useable. Some burn a little cottonwood, but it’s hard to split and not that hot. Clean, but a lot of ash, I guess.
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id say about 80% still burn wood here as well. tamarack isnt common for firewood as it takes longer to dry / cure than say maples, beach and birch and the firewood companies leave it alone. some people that harvest it off their own property burn it. some large timbers are used in the making bridges in the northern Maine woods which is industrial forestland. its strong and rot resistant compared to other construction softwoods like spruce and fir. i do love the late oct golden needle fall of the tamarack. 1st week of deer season we are walking on a carpet of gold.
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Same here! Just gorgeous. (Quiet, too … )
Very little hardwood burned here. Some people do OK with what they can get from the city after their urban forestry work is done for the season. Quite a bit or NoWay maple, a little birch, the occasional black locust. But there’s just so much doug fir and tamarack and lodgepole, and they split nicely, won’t dull your saw so fast.
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The wood burners here are picky they target Osage orange , mulberry, ash, oak to name a few.
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They definitely eat pears, but in my experience apples are their favorite around here.
- apples
- peaches
- pears
Of course, my perception of “pecking order” probably has to do with picking order. I’m on to them after my earlier varieties start vanishing off lower limbs!
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I thought of this thread while I was eating breakfast.
Breakfast was backstrap from the buck I shot last year. He was at least 5 years old (that’s pretty old for a wild buck). I’ll include a pic of him alive rather than one of him dead in the back of the pickup just to avoid “upsetting” anyone.
I marinated the chunks of backstrap in Claude’s Fajita marinade overnight.
I took the backstrap out of the fridge, butterflied it, and put it on a slotted rack over a pan to let it come to room temp and dry off for 30-45 minutes. When it was ready to go, I put a few TBS each of butter and olive oil in a pan and got it hot. Threw in a whole bunch of sliced onions and let them cook for a while. When the pan got back up to good and hot, I patted the backstrap dry and brushed it with a bit of olive oil and put it in the pan. Cooked for 3 minutes and spooned the pan sauces over the top a few times. Flipped it over, cooked for 4 minutes and spooned the pan sauces over again. Placed steak/onions on a plate and tented with tinfoil for 5 minutes before eating.
I don’t think most people would have even known it was venison, much less venison from an old, rutting buck. It was better than many beef steaks I’ve had in restaurants.
It’s all about how you treat the meat from harvest to cooking time…
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Sounds like it would be very good.
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Goat meat is delicious as is the goat milk. They are browsers like deer which i consider different than what the definition given is. @marknmt said it right think of a cow as a really hungry animal they are like a lawn mower eating all the grass down where they are and as they move along they do the same. That equal eating down of grass is called grazing. If they were in your yard all the grass would be 3 inches tall. A deer would not do that they would eat 25% of your lilac bush all of next years fruit buds on your apple , some grass but mostly clover. Browsing means cherry picking what you want for the good stuff the same as you would do in the store.
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my Nigerian dwarf does don’t think they’re goats. they don’t seem to know what greenery is. they dont touch grass or eat the tree trimmings i give them. they like alfalfa pellets and grain pellets. they barely touch their hay. i even put mulberry trimmings in there and they refused that. deer here love dogwood. moose fatten up on the red dogwood after the rut. my goats wont even nibble on it. i may need to cut out the pellets to force them to eat hay and trimmings. i tried a few times already and they just bleat incessantly until you feel bad and give them the damned pellets! spoiled friggin’ things!
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In my opinion goat meat beats venison by a mile. One of my very favorite. It has a great texture when braised or otherwise cooked to tender.
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my daughter has 3 meat goats. she plans to butcher a few males as she has too many. offered me 1 for free. ill butcher it myself as ive done my deer myself. maybe get my brother to help me to make it quicker. anxious to try it. her bucks are about 150lbs. i think theyre alpine crosses.
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I must have never had good goat meat. Every time I’ve had it, its been tough and very gamey. I’ll take venison that I have harvested and processed instead.
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And I’d probably say the inverse for venison, although I vaguely recall having it at an upscale (to me) restaurant in Europe.
My general impression is that goat is less gamey than lamb, which I also like. It does have some unique, but mild flavor.
I especially like goat in Indian or Jamaican curries, or braised Mexican preparation like birria de chivo. But am also sure I’d love a braised shank in a Mediterranean style.
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I grew up eating venison; beef was for selling. As a family, we often put anywhere from 6-10 deer in the freezer(s) each season - one year, between myself, my dad, and BIL, we harvested 22 off our farm and into the freezer. Venison, in some form, was a feature of at least one meal a day, most days, sometimes twice a day.
Anymore, I care nothing about shooting a tough old buck… and I have no need for ‘trophy’ antlers… I’m a meat hunter… give me an undisturbed doe, or a ‘yearling’… a young deer not long past having lost its spots. They’re tender, and not ‘gamey’ - and size of cuts are more moderate, as well.
But… because they are primarily browsers (and I agree, Mark, if they’re eating grass/clover, they’re ‘grazing’) and have been eating buds, leaves, acorns, spicebush berries, etc., there are compound that will be concentrated in their fat that can lend flavors that are disagreeable to some folks. So… when I’m processing a deer carcass, I trim away all fat that I can see - as a result, the meat is EXTREMELY lean, and must be cooked with some added fat (think bacon-wrapped!) or moist heat… otherwise it will soon become dry and ‘tough’. I rarely grill venison steaks, for that reason - though loin cutlets from a yearling come off tender enough if you don’t overcook them.
I’m not going to tell anyone that my venison will taste like a prime beef steak, and some portions, like shoulders, neck, ribs, flank are hardly better than just…meat for dogs… but backstraps, tenderloin, and some of the individual muscle groups from the upper hindquarters make mighty fine eating, and I’d defy you to tell me that they were ‘gamey’, if you ate MY cooking… and I don’t bother much with marinades… just treat it like a cut of very lean beef.
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Have you had venison that you harvested and processed?
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