How Penn State Extension’s Venison 101 course helps hunters handle the harvest

Ahead of Pennsylvania’s deer hunting season, Penn State Extension is offering a Venison 101 course to prep hunters, home processors and home cooks, helping them learn the ins and outs of safe processing at home.

Catherine Cutter, professor of food science and food safety extension specialist, muscle foods, has led the course since 2005. After she came to Penn State in 1999, she observed community members expressing interest in venison and so she began developing a program for Penn State Extension educators.

Interest in the course ebbed and flowed over the last two decades, but, during the pandemic, there was a clear need for not just the course itself, but a new course format altogether. So, in 2023, Extension launched Venison 101 as its first-ever hybrid course, combining online learning with one full day of in-person, hands-on processing.

“That’s what the course evolved into today and what we’re offering in August,” said Cutter, who also emphasized the offering is particularly timely in 2026. “We’ve had a few regulation changes to the hunting season and … the [Pennsylvania] Game Commission approved hunting on Sundays. This means there are more opportunities for hunters to harvest their deer.”

The course is limited to 25 participants. The course’s online components cover a broad range of topics — deer habitat, deer diseases, field dressing, sanitation, butchering and home preservation such as canning or making jerky. During the in-person portion, students engage in hands-on butchering, learning knife safety and skills; make bologna and sausage; and finally test their skills with a Top Chef-style chili cookoff.

While, as could be expected, participants are primarily hunters, Cutter also said that students have really run the gamut, from those who’ve never hunted and just want to learn how to process deer that maybe family members have harvested, to those who’ve hunted for generations and decades. Even those who’ve harvested and processed their own deer in the past, though, walk away with a potentially greater understanding of food safety and regional-specific issues like Chronic Wasting Disease.

Cutter pointed to one particularly glowing review from a student in last year’s course, Matthew Crum: “I have been hunting for 20 years and have harvested numerous deer but have always used a butcher shop for processing. I was a student in the 2025 Venison 101 class and wanted to let you know that because of your class I successfully processed a deer at home for the first time this season. The class was excellent and taught me everything I needed to know. I was always nervous about the difficulty of at-home processing, but your class cleared that away.”

Helping participants gain a greater confidence in their skills has been one of Cutter’s favorite aspects of running the course for 20-plus years.

“Being able to, under the guidance of our Meat Lab staff and faculty, feel more confident that they’re not going to destroy a perfectly good loin, and that they can then cook it properly … I think that’s one of the biggest things,” she said. “[It’s] feeling more confident in knowing what you’re doing out in the field and then taking that into the kitchen or into processing.”

The course registration deadline is July 27 and there is a $350 fee. This year’s in-person session will take place 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Aug. 7, at the Penn State Butcher Block on the University Park campus. Learn more at extension.psu.edu/venison-101-workshop.

Holly Riddle is a freelance food, travel and lifestyle writer. She can be reached at holly.ridd@gmail.com.