Game Meat Secrets

Scout Rifleman

Scout Rifleman

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Hey old timers and smart guys with experience. Let's share some of those great ideas for keeping meat on a long trip with no refridgeration(sp?)

I am veteran of several fly ins it is always a concern if the weather turns. I am always looking for someone else's tried and true methods.

Once this thread gets rolling I'll talk about what I do. Apple cider vinegar, old sheets and 2 litre pop bottles are all involved.
 
Well, the biggest problem with meat is bacteria. Bacteria grows in any hospitible climate above 4 degrees c (and will grow below that too tho much more slowly, to a much lower temperature). That's why things spoil more slowly in your fridge :)

So - if you cannot control the temperature, you must control the environment.

The easiest way to do that is to use an acid such as citric acid or vinegar to make the surface of the meat inhospitable to the little buggers. This is the same concept as 'salting' meat.

In cool weather for a few days (like maybe 15 degrees above) we've had success wiping game meat down with a solution of 20 percent vinigear and water. This has two effects - it makes it difficult for bacteria to grow (which keeps flies off of it , and because vinegar evaporates more easily (which sucks heat out of the meat if you remember your high school physics) it also allows the meat to cool down much faster and thus be more tender.

It is ESPECIALLY important to pay close attention to the neck if you've cut off the head. The blood will turn faster than the meat - then the 'rot' spreads thru the arteries and veins like lightning and even tho the meat itself is good, the animal becomes inedible.

We often mist the game bags with a little vinegar after that to keep it cool and keep the bacteria down.

Another choice which works well is citric acid - available in powder form from most pharmacies.

A strong mixture of this sprayed on the animal will make it VERY difficult for bacteria to form. Unlike the vinegar - it is persistant and works longer as near as i understand.

What you want is a low pH level (acid is low pH - the lower the stronger so to speak). Most bacteria and viruses die in pH levels below 4.6. A lemon would have a pH of about 2.4.

So giving the animal a good coating of citric acid (and you can test with litmus paper the level of acidity) and letting that dry can make the animal hard for bacteria to grow on indeed. Just make sure you get it everywhere :)

None of that will buy you more time than a refrigerator would - but that should be good for several days in low to moderate temperatures (especially if the animals are hung in the shade and where the breeze is blowing, and if it gets cooler at night so much the better).
 
Thats what I am talking about

Thanks Foxer. I like the Citric acid tip makes total sense. We have always wiped all meat down with a 50/50 soloution of apple cider vinegar and water. My butchers reccommendation. Then bag and hang, breezy and shady place.

Good point on the blood, again I always cut away the blood shot (Jelly) portions and leave that for the recycling service.

So let me add my two cents.
Get the Hide off a soon as possible, and trust me a warm hide will pull off where as an overnight hide is a full on knife job.
Do not immerse the carcass in a creek like so many hunter safety course advise. Bacteria abounds and it is counter intuitive to getting a dry crust on the surface of the meat.
Wipe the cavity dry, and wipe the excess blood and hair. No Butcher will pick hair.
Get it in the wind as soon as you can , take Foxers advice, critic acid first and there you go.Bag it afterward
(Game bags, go to a butcher supply store. Buy the long tubes of cheese cloth, cut to your desired length. You will save a fortune over the commercial "Big Game" type bags that barely cover a Cow moose 1/4.)
When the flys come, and they will, LOOSELY cover the game bags with a drawstring bag made of an old sheet. This makes it hard for them to get their proboscus through the gambag mesh and lay eggs on the meat. At night when it is cool take the sheets off inspect for eggs, and get rid of them. Wipe the area that you cut away and treat citric acid soloution.
 
So how do you pay close attention if you have cut off the head? do you make sure you wipe it down well and try to get rid of the access blood or any other pointer?
great threat by the way!
oh also what do the eggs look like?
 
Okay saw this in Thunderbay Ontario a couple of years ago. this only works if you are driving in and have to keep meet for a long time without refrigeration avail. This old cagy hunter backed his truck into the parking spot at the hotel we were staying at. Went to the back of the truck lifted the cap and plugged in. So I am thinking at the time What the????? So I go investigate. He had a freezer in the back of his truck! Had a beer or 2 with him later in the hotel bar and he told me of loosing meat on the trip home because of travel time. So he bought a apartment sized freezer and from then on didn't loose anymore meat. Also same trip a guy came in with a trailer for his quads (enclosed) with a freezer converted to 12v and it ran off the truck battery while he was driving. At night he would do the same as the old guy and unplug the convertor and plug in where ever they were staying.
 
We have run the deep freeze in the back of the truck a couple of times, but you need an empty / spare deep freeze. If you are after moose or elk, you might not want an "apartment size" one either.

If you have a generator this works great, no matter where you are. Oh, and make sure you cool your meat down considerably first or you will have so much frost inside you may not be able to find your 1/4's. Don't ask me how I know. De-boning helps as well.

As for the vinegar / citric acid, we are pretty fortunate that where we hunt now it is often windy and dry, and I just skin and hang elk 1/4's without any covering (usually after first hard frost, so the bugs are not so bad). I have had 1/4's hanging for days up on a ridge until I could finish packing them out one at a time; once they are dry, they seem to be just fine.
 
Whitetail season in Saskatchewan is usually below freezing, so flies aren't a problem. Elk, mulie and antelope are in the warmer days of autumn. Cheesecloth wraps have always been good protection. Lining the truck box with tarps also reduces the amount of old blood to clean out after the hunt. The slickest meat saver has been to gut, skin and bag the deer using a portable crane that fits the truck hitch recepticle.
 
Like someone said the fly eggs look like cream coloured grains of rice at 1/4 scale. usually in clusters and usually in the folds of the meat. Just cut that away or better said shave that meat away. If you can see eggs they aren't maggotts yet and won't have spoiled the meat.

But speaking of flys. Take a 2l pop bottle fill one third with a bright coloured sugary drink like gatorade or tang. Then put a squirt of dishsoap in that. Then take your knife ad cut a whole mess off triangle shaped "doors" in the upper portion of the bottle. Two cuts to the triangle apex and bend in on the third side. Then hang a few of these around the game pole. The flys will go to these traps before the meat and it cuts down on the number that set themselves on the gamebags
 
The head

deertaker said:
So how do you pay close attention if you have cut off the head? do you make sure you wipe it down well and try to get rid of the access blood or any other pointer?
great threat by the way!
oh also what do the eggs look like?
Click to expand...

Forgot to mention in abve, when you take the head off make sure you take out the larynx and surrounding veins arteries.,
 
But speaking of flys. Take a 2l pop bottle fill one third with a bright coloured sugary drink like gatorade or tang. Then put a squirt of dishsoap in that. Then take your knife ad cut a whole mess off triangle shaped "doors" in the upper portion of the bottle. Two cuts to the triangle apex and bend in on the third side. Then hang a few of these around the game pole. The flys will go to these traps before the meat and it cuts down on the number that set themselves on the gamebags
Click to expand...
or cut a hole in the back side of your britches (just kidding)

I've found that a cooler with ice works for me. I fill one large cooler slap full of ice and take one large empty cooler. We use the empty cooler for dry storage till needed. After your harvest put the meat in the dry cooler and add ice to it. about 10 to 20 lbs. then add water (melted Ice) till it's just above the meat. In 24 hours, drain water, flip meat around, add more ice, add more water. Do this for five days and then start processing.

I don't have the leasure of hanging the harvest due to temp. and bears.

We do our own processing at home and this has worked very well.
 
I was thinking about this very subject last night. Let’s say I had a 2 hour drive home and shot an ELK. If I have plastic wrap and some tarps and ice is readily available in town I should be able to throw a bunch of bags in the chest cavity and around the outside and wrap in plastic wrap to seal it up than wrap everything in a tarp to keep the sun off the meat? Will this work for a fairly short trip? Most game I have taken have been close enough to the farm that we just load on the truck and use the front end loader for everything and throw in the deepfreeze. I have never done a camp type hunting trip and am considering one this fall. I hope this thread stays going. There is lots of good advice.
 
I didn't see any one zero in on the best meat saver of all, lots of circulating air! The skinned quarters hung in the shade, in a good air circulating area. In fly weather use one of the methods given to keep them off the fresh meat, but the meat will soon get a skin on it that keeps most of them off.
Or, if the meat can be hung twenty feet, or more, in the air, the flys won't get to it. (I have to take other peoples word for this last bit, but I think it works.)
I don't have to take other peoples word for the way the old time camps kept their meat. Logging camps in the bush, without electricity or other means to refrigerate meat, all used a screened in meat house. A roof, with four sides screened in. All meat, every piece had to be hanging, and in most weather, the fresh meat was good for a week. Cool, or colder weather in the fall and it would stay fresh for considerable longer than a week.
 
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