AFTER THE SHOT
This week on The Revolution with Jim and Trav it’s all about what comes “After the Shot”: field dressing, DIY processing and more! Joining us will be Gordon Whittington, editor in chief of North American Whitetail, plus Christian Berg, Editor of Petersen’s Bowhunting, Kevin Kolman with Weber and Brian Tucker of Hi MTN Seasonings. Jim and Trav’s “After the Shot” broadcast is presented by Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, World Fishing Network and MyOutdoorTV.
Gordon Whittington
They are America’s most hunted big game animal. Millions of hunters set out each and every season with the goal of bringing one home. Whitetails! It’s not just about the typical and non-typical racks, it’s also about the backstraps. Deer hunting is an ever changing and evolving sport - new ideas and theories about hunting tactics and management strategies make their way into the outdoor space all the time. Gordon Whittington is the Editor in chief of North American Whitetail magazine and for the last 35 years they have been at the forefront of informing readers about this changing landscape. Gordon joins us this week as we talk about everything that comes after the shot.
Depending on the state regulations where you hunt, Gordon says that your first priority after taking the shot should be properly tagging your animal. Hunters need to be very familiar with game laws so they don’t inadvertently violate those rules like transporting your animal before tagging or not leaving proof of sex attached. After tagging your deer, it’s time to field dress. He’ll highlight the advantages and disadvantages of hanging your deer either by the neck or by the back legs and explain which position makes field dressing simpler. In order to field dress your animal, you need a knife, a practical one. Gordon says the trendy knives that are 12+ inches long are unnecessary. “We’re not taking on a rhino here. We’re basically looking at a relatively small thin-skinned animal with not that much hair on it, even in the winter. So, we don’t need a long blade to start with. I have never seen a situation where you needed more than just a standard size folding pocket knife that was sharp.” Gordon will talk practical field dressing knives, the rise in popularity of disposable blades knives, and how regardless of the blade you choose why you should have a knife you are familiar with that has a good grip. Gordon notes that when field dressing, there are times when you can’t see what you are doing, but rather operate by feel. In these cases, it’s important to have a good grip, good control of your knife and to make only safe and logical cuts. The number one goal of field dressing is to get everything out of the body cavity without puncturing the internals and spilling the putrid contents all over your meat, contaminating it. Having the right tools and a whole lot of patience is essential.
The warm temperatures during the early season present challenges for hunters as hot weather can have a negative impact on the meat if the animal isn’t recovered in a timely fashion. So, how long do we have as hunters to recover, field dress and chill our animals before risking spoilage? Gordon says in truth, you probably have a little longer than you think you do. There is no hard and fast requirement that hunters have to recover their animal within 15 minutes and get it to a cooler within an hour. While those circumstances are certainly ideal, you have some time. Food safety is crucial so when the animal is recovered the burden is on the hunter to work as quickly as possible to get it cooling. Gordon notes that meat itself isn’t full of bacteria, that bacteria comes from contamination, outside in. For this reason, it’s important to take care not to contaminate your meat, to handle it as little as possible, to be as sterile as possible and to use clean hands and equipment.
Once your meat is out of the field and in the freezer it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Gordon says that venison can be used almost as a direct substitute for beef. While some people will lament that it is too lean, and you can’t cook it the way you cook beef, Gordon says personal preference reigns here. While he likes his venison cooked like his beef, rare, he understands that not everyone feels the same way. That is why when cooking for a crowd, using recipes or preparations that can be cooked to different levels of doneness to satisfy different tastes is important. The most classic preparation of venison is to batter and fry it. However, Gordon says he would much rather put something like the tenderloin wrapped in bacon on the grill and cook it with a lot of real wood smoke. This is the kind of preparation that you can cook to an individual’s desired level of doneness to please everyone.
Field to table, Gordon Whittington, Editor in chief of North American Whitetail covers it all! Be sure to check out the October issue ofNorth American Whitetail available now in both print and digital formats. Also, be sure to watch “North American Whitetail TV” seen Wednesdays at 8 pm ET on Sportsman Channel.
Good luck to all hunters this year. May there be backstrap in your future!
Trav
Christian Berg
“You’ve got an encounter with an animal and you get really excited and you kind of go into that zone, or that daze. The next thing you know, the shot has taken place, the animal has vacated the area and you’re standing there thinking, what just happened.” - Christian Berg
Who else has been there? If you are a hunter, it has happened at least once. In all of the excitement that comes with an animal walking into shooting range and then taking that shot, it can be easy to blank out in those moments leaving you grasping to remember all of the details and where your arrow hit. Seasoned hunters know that the follow thru of a shot is crucial, watching and waiting to see the impact and reaction of the animal. Christian Berg is the Editor of Petersen’s Bowhunting and he joins The Revolution this week to talk recovery and reading the signals of an animal that has been hit. Christian tells Jim and Trav that watching intently directly following the shot can tell you a lot about how quickly your animal will expire. If your shot produces a substantial amount of blood immediately coming from the animal, Christian says, that’s a good indicator of a lethal shot. With a heart or a double lung shot the animal tends to run, sprint, right away. This is especially true with a heart shot Christian says. They will generally run until they fall over in their tracks which is usually 80 to 120 yards. Tracking a deer in this scenario is ideal because these situations usually produce great blood trails and the animal tends to run in a straight-line making recovery quick and simple. Many people look to the tail as an indicator of the placement and effectiveness of their shot, but Christian says it’s crucial to watch body language. If a deer is hit in the liver or guts, they often times run for a short distance before stopping to assess the situation. At this point Christian says that if they have been hit they may flick their tail a bit up and down as they hunch up and walk away. Behavior such as this is often a good indicator that the hunter hit the deer a little further back than they intended to, and they might want to give the animal a little time to expire before setting out to recover and possibly bumping them. The burden of recovery is on the hunter and that’s what makes it so crucial to observe everything you can from your blind, watching for the impact and reading the body language of the animal directly after the shot. Knowing where you hit the animal, which direction they fled and being able to find sign greatly increases your chances of recovery.
Be sure to listen in as Christian Berg, Editor of Petersen’s Bowhunting joins us this week to talk recovery and reading signals. Make sure to check out www.BowhuntingMag.com where you’ll find tons of helpful articles, plus you can sign up for a subscription, too!
Straight Shooting friends,
Trav
Brian Tucker, Hi Mountain Seasonings National Sales Manager
The hunt is fun, challenging and thrilling, but once it’s over you’re left with memories and a pile of meat. Wild game is delicious and if hunters put half as much thought into their wild game cooking and preparation as they do the hunt itself you’d never hear the phrase, “it tastes too gamey”, again!
You don’t have to be a trained chef in order to make delicious wild game dishes, you just need the right tools in your arsenal and in this case, that means flavors. Hi Mountain Seasonings is a company that understands flavors, people with well-defined palettes that help the rest of us navigate and decide which flavors best complement our harvests. Brian Tucker, National Sales Manager at Hi Mountain Seasonings, joins The Revolution this week and kicks things off with a look at one of their newest offerings, Brisket & Prime Rib Rub. Not only is this excellent on brisket and prime rib, but a wide variety of other foods as well. Brian says that the great thing about Hi Mountain Seasonings is that their products are versatile, just because it says it is for use on a particular product doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for other meats, vegetables, eggs and more. They develop their seasonings to highlight and enhance the natural flavors of your food.
Also new this year is their Beef Jerky. For 27 years, Hi Mountain Seasonings has been making jerky kits in a variety of flavors letting people take a DIY approach and make their own jerky, but they now have premade jerky available, too. Brian says that this offering is great for a number of reasons, the first being ease. He says there are some people who just prefer not to take the time to make jerky and would rather buy it. Others would like to make their jerky but want to taste the flavors before they buy a kit. By purchasing bags of premade jerky, hunters can then decide which flavor is their favorite and the one they want to use on the game they harvest. Their jerky is a 100% U.S.A. product, including the beef.
It’s hard to imagine that bacon could taste any better than it already does, however Hi Mountain Seasonings found a way. Brian says that they make bacon better, enhancing the already rich flavors and taking them to the next level. Bacon seasoning flavors like Black Pepper & Brown Sugar, Pineapple Sriracha and Sticky Bun are sprinkled on prior to cooking and they eventually caramelize leaving a glaze over your bacon. However, thinking outside of the box, Brian says that he uses these on other pork products as well like ribs, pork chops, pork roasts and more.
For those venison hunters and lovers out there, ground venison is probably a staple in your freezer and if it isn’t, it should be! Ground venison is versatile and delicious. Making burgers with ground venison is probably one of the most popular preparations and those traditional venison burgers can be dressed up or kicked up with a variety of flavors from Hi Mountain’s Burger Seasonings. With six different choices, there is a flavor to please any palette and to make any burger more delicious.
Hi Mountain Seasonings knows how to make seasonings that compliment wild game meats. However, their products aren’t just for hunters. These flavors go well with fish, turkey, chicken, beef, vegetables and so much more. Before you buy random premixed seasonings at the grocery store, I encourage you to check out Hi Mountain Seasonings, you’ll be impressed, I promise!
Happy Eating friends,
Trav
Kevin Kolman
The smoke has cleared and standing in its absence is the one and only Weber Grill Master Kevin Kolman. The man, the legend, the barbecue guru is back on The Revolution this week. He’s fresh off of the American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City, where they competed against almost 200 teams in a variety of different categories. Everyone wants to be the ultimate pitmaster, but one reigns supreme, so let’s pick his brain!
In order to get the maximum flavor from the seasonings you use, to have the flavor penetrate the meat as much as possible, they have to be applied in a time sensitive fashion based on the kind of meat you’re dealing with. So, when it comes to brisket, Kevin says he applies his rub 5 to 6 hours before the cook to give the salt time to penetrate and pull a little moisture out and replace it with flavor. Because meat is 70-75% water, you can afford to lose a little moisture in the name of flavor. When it comes to applying rub to ribs, Kevin references the methodology of barbecue great Tuffy Stone. Kevin says that Tuffy doesn’t sauce his ribs more than an hour before putting them on the grill because it begins to pull moisture out. In the same vein, Kevin says that he prefers to sauce ribs only 30 to 45 minutes before putting them on the grill. “It’s a balancing act,” says Kevin. For those that like a dry rub rib where they aren’t going to use a lot of sauce, he recommends putting a good amount of flavor inside that rub. If you like to finish your ribs with sauce, he says adding a heavy rub isn’t going to be very beneficial. While you may be attempting to layer flavors, the addition of a heavy sauce will essentially wash those flavors away. In order to strike the right balance if using sauce, then go a little lighter on all the big ingredients that go into the rub and if you’re not then you can beef up the flavors a little bit. Possibly the most controversial part of barbecue is not the cut of meat or the seasonings that are used, but rather the method of cooking. What temperature and for how long you cook your cuts of meat is always up for debate and a question that is left unsettled as there is no “right” answer, rather there are individual approaches. For spare ribs, Kevin says he uses a 3-2-1 method which boils down to 3 hours on the smoker, 2 hours in foil and 1 hour back on the pit with sauce. Baby back ribs get a different treatment, the 2-1-1 method of 2 hours on the pit, 1 in foil, 1 back on the pit and sauced. In either case, a cooking temperature of 250 to 260 degrees is where Kevin has settled after cooking thousands of racks of ribs saying that he believes they get a better bark that starts to form more quickly than if you were cooking at 225 degrees. Some like it low and slow, some like it hot and fast – there is no right answer here. Kevin says it’s all about personal methodology and ultimately, sticking to your particular method in order to improve your barbecue.
Just as important as seasoning, time and temperature, is the wood you choose. The wood you use is the basis for a good amount of the overall flavor that your food takes on, so the variety of wood should be chosen wisely. Not all wood is created equal and not all wood is suitable for barbecuing. Kevin says that he selects the woods he uses based on the food he is cooking. For brisket, being influenced by Texas style barbecue, he likes to use salt, pepper and post oak. While white oak is okay too, he cautions cookers to stay away from red oak. For pork products he uses apple or cherry wood with a combination of hickory and his poultry is treated with pecan or hickory. You can get your wood fresh or prepackaged and in chunks, chips or pellets. Chunks of wood are often kiln dried, so they can be transported across state lines and if pitmasters aren’t watchful, those chunks can ignite rapidly and that leads to a harsh barbecue flavor. If using chips, Kevin recommends soaking them in water for at least an hour in advance of cooking. Doing so will add moisture so that they don’t flash as fast. Preferably, Kevin’s choice is fresh wood chunks. Fresh wood holds moisture, so it is more forgiving and doesn’t light as quickly.
Just because you are cooking outdoors doesn’t mean you have free reign to neglect your grills and smokers completely. Grills like theWeber Kettle benefit from a good clean and ultimately operate more effectively as a result. Kevin explains that by design, when the grill is clean, air can move around quickly because there is no interference from build-up. As a result, when the air moves faster the grill gets hotter which is ideal for grilling. In contrast, a smoker goes the other way. When a smoker, like the Rocky Mountain Cooker Smoker, is cleaner it can be more difficult to keep the temperature down because the air is moving so smoothly. By doing an initial cook with a pan of meatloaf or some sausages you can create a layer on the inside of the smoker that prevents air from moving so quickly and slows down the burn, it also helps season it.
Grills aren’t just for laying down a delicious char on your meats, but you can bake on them as well. Kevin says that around the holidays in particular, he bakes with his daughters on the grill and in his humble opinion there is no better product out there for this than the Kettle Grill. The moisture from the charcoal along with the air circulation that happens naturally by way of the design of the Kettle makes it incredibly effective. Kevin says he has baked cookies, cakes and pies all with great success. The ability to bake on the Kettle shows the versatility of Weber grills – gas or charcoal. Designed to operate at low and slow temperatures, high temperatures and everywhere in between, you can do about anything. To illustrate, Kevin says when it comes to Thanksgiving, it’s an outdoor celebration and little, if any cooking, happens inside – turkey, dressing and all the sides can be cooked on Weber Grills.
One of the incredibly versatile offerings from Weber is the Summit Charcoal Grill. “The Summit Charcoal, to me, is the pinnacle of barbequing, grilling and smoking, all wrapped up into one product,” Kevin says. The air-insulated double-walled porcelain-enameled lid and bowl hold heat in an incredible way. Cooking for 27 hours straight on the Summit at one point, Kevin says he never had to add any charcoal or wood because of how well insulated it was. Furthermore, its ability to retain that heat even in cold temperatures is impressive. In a snowstorm, he explains how put ribs on and watched the snow begin to accumulate on the lid, even as the inside temperature read 225 degrees. For those that aren’t into charcoal and prefer gas instead, Weber’s Spirit II gas grills have a lot to offer. While many grills experience uneven heat and notorious hot spots, Kevin says that they take a tremendous amount of pride in having even heat across the grates. Not only are the temperatures easy to control, which means all of your food will be cooked consistently in the same amount of time, but the Spirit II also has a lot of great features like iGrill capability. Make sure you listen in and take notes, y’all!
It’s time to get your grill on :)
Trav
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About The Revolution with Jim & Trav
Airing on more than 515 radio and cable stations in the U.S., as well as on American Forces Radio Network, The Revolution with Jim & Trav is a popular radio show and podcast geared towards outdoor enthusiasts. The award-winning program is heard by a projected audience of more than 7.2 million listeners in 35 states in the U.S., in addition to all Canadian provinces. In 2013, The Revolution became the official radio show of Outdoor Channel, and has since expanded to be the official radio show for Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel and World Fishing Network. For program times, stations and other information, visit www.jimandtrav.com or www.OutdoorChannel.com/Revolution. Follow The Revolution on Facebook and Twitter and also listen on iTunes. #TheRevolution