How do you go about actually butchering a turtle? Is it hard? For example, one of the green turtles in KY Lake, hard shell. Are soft shells different?
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How do you go about actually butchering a turtle? Is it hard? For example, one of the green turtles in KY Lake, hard shell. Are soft shells different?
a hard rap on the nose with a hammer will kill the turtle....give him about 5 minutes to stop the nervous twitching etc.
take a hatchet and cut the head off where the neck meets the back of the skull.
stick a water hose in the open "neck hole" hold the skin very tightly around the end of the water hose so as to "seal" it so no water / pressure can escape.
turn the water hose on full force and watch the turtle literally blow up like a baloon, hold the neck skin as tight as you can as long as you can , after a bout a minute the pressure will be so great it will blow the turtle out of your hand and water will go all over the place .....especially the place where your face is lol.
allow the turtle to sit expanded for a few minutes this will allow the skin to fully seperate from the meat.
lay the turtle on its back and take a sharp knife and begin cutting around the shell where the shell and the skin meet, there is a soft joint on each side between the front leg and the rear leg, wiht practice you will be able to easily spot this line and a knife will slide right through it.
after you have seperated the skin from the shell you will need to break the joint that attaches the skeleton to the shell, the front joing is found just inside the shell where the neck begins, the rear joint is located where the turtles hip joints come together inside the shell, both joints can be cut away with a hatchet.
at this point discard the shell and turn the turtle carcass over so the bottom of the turtle is on the chopping block, begin pulling each leg inside out from the skin, when you reach the toes whack it off with the hatchet .
pull the neck inside out the same way.
now what you do with the meat is up to you, personally i like to fillet the chunks of meat away from the bone and soak in salt water.
i fry it just as i would a piece of chicken in kentucky colonel.
i guess i forgot step one, when i catch turtles i keep them in a plastic 50 gallon drum filled half way with water and i add clean water evry couple of days for a couple of weeks, it is amazing how much moss/mud/scum is purged from the turtle doing this, the meat is much cleanrer and less muddy pond tasting.
this is for hard shell snapping turtles,never ate a soft shell so i dont really know anything about them.
i usually dont have a butchering session until i get 10 turtles, usualy takes about 30-45 minutes to do all 10 turtles using the above method, its easy just messy.
I got to a friend's house one time just as he was getting ready to butcher a hard shell turtle. Best I remember he had the head cut off and then nailed the turtle to a tree by its tail. I think he also cut the underbody shell away. He had me hold a leg as he worked around it. Even though the head was gone they still can move their legs. And let me tell you, they are strong. This was back in the mid '80's so I can't recall all he did. Stripernut's method sounds like it might be easier.
[QUOTE=stripernut;461331]a hard rap on the nose with a hammer will kill the turtle....give him about 5 minutes to stop the nervous twitching etc.
take a hatchet and cut the head off where the neck meets the back of the skull.
stick a water hose in the open "neck hole" hold the skin very tightly around the end of the water hose so as to "seal" it so no water / pressure can escape.
turn the water hose on full force and watch the turtle literally blow up like a baloon, hold the neck skin as tight as you can as long as you can , after a bout a minute the pressure will be so great it will blow the turtle out of your hand and water will go all over the place .....especially the place where your face is lol.
allow the turtle to sit expanded for a few minutes this will allow the skin to fully seperate from the meat.
lay the turtle on its back and take a sharp knife and begin cutting around the shell where the shell and the skin meet, there is a soft joint on each side between the front leg and the rear leg, wiht practice you will be able to easily spot this line and a knife will slide right through it.
after you have seperated the skin from the shell you will need to break the joint that attaches the skeleton to the shell, the front joing is found just inside the shell where the neck begins, the rear joint is located where the turtles hip joints come together inside the shell, both joints can be cut away with a hatchet.
at this point discard the shell and turn the turtle carcass over so the bottom of the turtle is on the chopping block, begin pulling each leg inside out from the skin, when you reach the toes whack it off with the hatchet .
pull the neck inside out the same way.
now what you do with the meat is up to you, personally i like to fillet the chunks of meat away from the bone and soak in salt water.
i fry it just as i would a piece of chicken in kentucky colonel.
i guess i forgot step one, when i catch turtles i keep them in a plastic 50 gallon drum filled half way with water and i add clean water evry couple of days for a couple of weeks, it is amazing how much moss/mud/scum is purged from the turtle doing this, the meat is much cleanrer and less muddy pond tasting.
this is for hard shell snapping turtles,never ate a soft shell so i dont really know anything about them.
i usually dont have a butchering session until i get 10 turtles, usualy takes about 30-45 minutes to do all 10 turtles using the above method, its easy just messy.[/QUOTE]
everything he said is about correct except for one MAJOR thing....IT IS NOT EASY!!!! Everyone around here loves turtle but I have never heard of someone describing it as easy. It takes me about 30 minutes to do one. So you are saying you can kill, bloat with water, hack off the claws, skin, and separate the shell all in 3 minutes per turtle? Man I'd like to see a video of that so I could get that good. Around here alot of people, myself included, will give away half the meat to get them cleaned. It's been years but I gave a guy 8 turtles and got back the meat from 4 of them. It's some good stuff but I hate seeing people ruin it by making turtle soup. KY Colonel and slow fried is awesome!!
Also, I hate the rapping the turle on the head. I just put a .22 in it's head.....just seems more humane to me for some reason. I watched my dad hit one with a pair of channel locks and I just didn't like what I saw.
trust me i said the same thing when an older gnetleman asked me "what the "h" are you doing" you are making a "----" mess out of that thing, he told me he could clean a turtle in less than five minutes......and then he proved it. this was over 20 years ago and approximately 1000 turtles. i dont have a video but you are welcome to come to the house and watch, i would be glad to show you how i do it, you wont have to give half your turtles away from then on :D
p.s. easy probably wasnt the best choice of words, it is hard work, but its not hard to do
[QUOTE=stripernut;461331]a hard rap on the nose with a hammer will kill the turtle....give him about 5 minutes to stop the nervous twitching etc.
take a hatchet and cut the head off where the neck meets the back of the skull.
stick a water hose in the open "neck hole" hold the skin very tightly around the end of the water hose so as to "seal" it so no water / pressure can escape.
turn the water hose on full force and watch the turtle literally blow up like a baloon, hold the neck skin as tight as you can as long as you can , after a bout a minute the pressure will be so great it will blow the turtle out of your hand and water will go all over the place .....especially the place where your face is lol.
allow the turtle to sit expanded for a few minutes this will allow the skin to fully seperate from the meat.
lay the turtle on its back and take a sharp knife and begin cutting around the shell where the shell and the skin meet, there is a soft joint on each side between the front leg and the rear leg, wiht practice you will be able to easily spot this line and a knife will slide right through it.
after you have seperated the skin from the shell you will need to break the joint that attaches the skeleton to the shell, the front joing is found just inside the shell where the neck begins, the rear joint is located where the turtles hip joints come together inside the shell, both joints can be cut away with a hatchet.
at this point discard the shell and turn the turtle carcass over so the bottom of the turtle is on the chopping block, begin pulling each leg inside out from the skin, when you reach the toes whack it off with the hatchet .
pull the neck inside out the same way.
now what you do with the meat is up to you, personally i like to fillet the chunks of meat away from the bone and soak in salt water.
i fry it just as i would a piece of chicken in kentucky colonel.
i guess i forgot step one, when i catch turtles i keep them in a plastic 50 gallon drum filled half way with water and i add clean water evry couple of days for a couple of weeks, it is amazing how much moss/mud/scum is purged from the turtle doing this, the meat is much cleanrer and less muddy pond tasting.
this is for hard shell snapping turtles,never ate a soft shell so i dont really know anything about them.
i usually dont have a butchering session until i get 10 turtles, usualy takes about 30-45 minutes to do all 10 turtles using the above method, its easy just messy.[/QUOTE]
use a hose clamp on the water hose !!!!!!!!!!!
my brother used to use the hose clamp, it IS less messy, but i just put an old pair of shorts and old tennis shoes on and wade in lol
[QUOTE=stripernut;461480]trust me i said the same thing when an older gnetleman asked me "what the "h" are you doing" you are making a "----" mess out of that thing, he told me he could clean a turtle in less than five minutes......and then he proved it. this was over 20 years ago and approximately 1000 turtles. i dont have a video but you are welcome to come to the house and watch, i would be glad to show you how i do it, you wont have to give half your turtles away from then on :D
p.s. easy probably wasnt the best choice of words, it is hard work, but its not hard to do[/QUOTE]
Do you separate the bottom part of the shell from the top? I've seen the meat cut out of the joints and it did take less time but I've always cut around and split them in half and made sure I got all the meat out. Also, skinning is the slooooooooooooooow part. I've seen people scald them and then scrape it off but it's not as good. I want it skinned.
[QUOTE=stripernut;461331]
[B][U]i guess i forgot step one, when i catch turtles i keep them in a plastic 50 gallon drum filled half way with water and i add clean water evry couple of days for a couple of weeks, it is amazing how much moss/mud/scum is purged from the turtle doing this, the meat is much cleanrer and less muddy pond tasting.[/U][/B]
this is for hard shell snapping turtles,never ate a soft shell so i dont really know anything about them.
i usually dont have a butchering session until i get 10 turtles, usualy takes about 30-45 minutes to do all 10 turtles using the above method, its easy just messy.[/QUOTE]
This is the key imo to better tasting turtle. At my friends we have a big metal tub that we use just for this purpose and we change the water every day.
You clean yours the same way we do, but we are definitely not as fast as you are. It takes me 30 minutes or more to do one turtle.
i do cut the top shell away from the bottom.
whack the turtle on the nose = 10 seconds
cut the head off with a hatchet = 15 seconds
stick the hose in the turtles neck and blow up= 1 minute
cut the shell= 30 seconds
break away the front and rear attaching joints= 30 seconds
the key here is-
turn the bottom shell so it is sitting with the bottom on the ground just as it would be if the turtle was still alive.
then step in the middle of the bottom shell and grab each leg by the hip joint and pull.
pull all the way to the toes (it will be very hard to pull when it gets to this point.
do all 4 legs and then place the turtle on the chopping block and whack the leg off at the toes. each leg takes about 15 seconds - 15 seconds X 4 legs = 1 minute
this is an approximation of the time....but its real close
i throw the turtle quarters in a plastic wash pan i use for soaking fillets and add lemon juice and sea salt and soak the meat over night , then i fillet the meat off the bone , its much easier when it is chilled .
no kidding, i would be glad to show anyone who is interested how i do it, not saying its the best way, its just the way i do it.;)
There should be some youtube videos on turtle cleaning..