So, you shot a deer and decided instead of stopping at your local butcher, you’re going to do the work yourself. Awesome! You’ve been poring over videos, studying knives, and have each cut of meat along with its location down to a T. But when you get done breaking it all down, you might want to go back and remove silverskin from the backstraps. This will aid in enhancing flavor, and texture when you go to cook it!

I’ve talked about some of my all-time favorite ways to marinade and cook a venison backstrap in the past, but before you get to any of that fun stuff, you’re going to need to know how to take your wild game from the field to the table. In this case, I’m talking about taking it a step further from field dressing the animal and dropping it off at the butcher. This information will be pertinent for those of you who want to do the knife work yourself.

In the video below, Janis Putelis, a producer for MeatEater, demonstrates two effective methods for removing silverskin from a whitetail backstrap.

Now some folks say they actually leave the silverskin attached, and that IS okay to do, but it will more than likely turn your most prized cut of meat into a chewy, gamey disaster. No, thank you. Since you’re already taking the time to do this work yourself – by the way, give yourself a pat on the back – you might as well do it right, and ensure you have the best tasting meat possible. It’s a pretty straightforward task, but you want to be careful so you don’t end up throwing away any meat here.

Take a look at the video, decide which of the two methods you’re more comfortable with, and feel free to break any of these rules as you see fit along the way.