Great question.
I’m interested in hearing each person’s individual approach and the “why” behind it for their specific needs and preferences. I figure it’s more interesting and helpful for a larger number of people to hear multiple approaches vs. arguing about the right formula for a single approach.
How did you skin the cat?
Ok. This is based off of priorities in a home based butcher setup, for whitetail, that gets the most frequent use vs. other setups.
- Gambrel: the most frequently utilized piece of kit for convenience sake. I have my setup permanently mounted on my 13' garage ceiling.
- Vac Sealer/Chamber Vac: I realize there are other methods that work well to preserve/freeze your meat, but this is my preferred method.
- Better Knife/Bonesaw: I have a good set of knives and a good bone saw, but less expensive stuff works just as well if you don't mind sharpening frequently.
- Grinder: I didn't own a grinder for a few years, but love having the ability to grind at home. The size is up to you and what you're grinding and how often. Recommendation would be .75 to 1hp, if you can do it, and if you're just cooking with it as ground, maybe consider a dual-grind.
- Bigger/Better Cooler: I usually don't even use one in my home setup, but I bought a Canyon Prospector 103 specifically based of quartered whitetail specs lol.
- Game bags: I use Argali by preference, but for my general purpose which is "short term" transportation (when even needed) you could get by with contractor bags.
- Scale: kinda cool, not really required, but may help with serving sizes during packaging. I usually don't even set mine up...
- Stuffer: don't even own one yet.
- Dehydrator: don't even own one yet.
Non-home based "weekend" trip would be different, and of course a "destination-based" week-long hunting trip would be different.