I process all my venison, and then I wrap it, and put it in my chest freezer. This backstrap, for example has been in there since mid-December. As far as the taste goes, I would look at another one of my comments. Individual differences in butchering, and what the animals are. Eating makes a big difference in the flavor of the meat. [Edited due to errors with voice-to-text) ]

Of course. I said in my post that there is always some risk involved and each person decides for themselves. I was just giving my process and some of the contributing factors for me personally. Thanks for the link!

Nice! Yep, that is the trick! We have some "upper-crusty" restaurants in my area that serve it in the Kansas City area; that is one of the reasons I started doing it with my venison 😊

I can only speak for Whitetail deer harvested in the Midwestern US. In these areas, they primarily eat grass, acorns and wastage from the fields (soybeans, corn, etc.). Also, I butcher my own animals; unscrupulous butchers (e.g. the "We just grind it all into ground meat and jerky") have a tendency to not trim all of the fat and non-meat tissues before freezing their meat. In my case, I have often had people tell me they cannot tell the difference between beef and my ground (15-20% beef fat and venison double-ground). When it comes to the roasts are steaks, the only real difference most people can discern is the meat is a deeper red color. Also, if you insist on having your steaks cooked hotter than medium (above 145°), venison steak is a good choice. The reason being, at these temps and hotter, the steak gets tough and dry more than beef; this is due to it being very lean).

Hopefully that answers some of your questions about it ☺️

Definitely a great question! I harvest my own deer, and I've been doing it in the same place for years. We monitor the health of the deer, and am pretty aware if there's anything like chronic wasting disease or other issues moving through the population. Also, I never shoot a deer that doesn't look healthy. That being said, some parasites and other bacteria may not be visible, So I also to freeze all of my venison completely before I do any sort of preparation like this. I've done everything reasonable within my power to mitigate risk, and I enjoy this preparation of the animal. There is never going to be zero risk, so it's kind of up to each person to decide what they're comfortable with. My dad was in town this weekend, and he chose not to have any of the raw venison 👍🏻