Warm weather meat care

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snowhunter

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The early hunting season is often offers warm hunting temperatures, which can cause serious problems in preserving the harvested game meats, before getting home, or to the butchers cooler.

Usually at this of the year, I will cool off my skinned game in a nearby, clean moutain river or creek, and at the same time clean the meat for blood, hair and dirt.

For the trip home inside a warm truck canopy, I will place a coupe of ice packs from the local grocery store, and put them inside the cavity of the game.

Some hunters bring homemade, 12 or 120 Volt powered mobile coolers for the hunt. How do you preserve your game meats at this time of the year, especially if you have to wait around for your hunting partners, also to get their game ?
 
Usually a non-issue up here as even the early season is Frigidaire chilly, but one thing I always do is skin the animal out entirely before butchering. Gives you a nice clean place to work on the ground and aids in cooling.
 
Your question reminds me of a moose that I had shot several years ago. Even though it was November, we experienced a famous Alberta Chinnok wind. My partner hiked back to the truck. It took nearly four hours for him to return. I spent all that time packing all the snow that I could muster up inside the cavity. I skinned the neck and opened it up and stuffed it full of snow. When my partner finally made it, there wasn't a lick of snow within a 30' radius of that moose. But no meat was lost after all.
 
I use lots of pepper to keep the fly off the meat. Especially if I have to wait for the float plane to fly me back. After a new "skin" have dried and formed on the outside of the meat, the fly usualy leave the meat alone, and the meat inside this "skin" will stay fresh for a long time :)
 
snowhunter said:
I use lots of pepper to keep the fly off the meat. Especially if I have to wait for the float plane to fly me back. After a new "skin" have dried and formed on the outside of the meat, the fly usualy leave the meat alone, and the meat inside this "skin" will stay fresh for a long time :)
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We also use pepper to keep the flies away. The biggest thing besides flies is to get it cooled as quick as possible, get the guts out, and the hide off, and if possible hang it to allow some air movement around it.
 
We did an august hunt for moose one year and decided not to hunt in the morning. The moose got shot in the late afternoon, gutted, skinned, quartered and hung over night. First thing in the morning it was off to the local butchers and into the cooler. Nothing was lost. We only went early that year so my son wouldn't miss any school.
 
Foxer, I have been told about the vinegar spray which should be good for keeping the fly's away. Which brand or formula work best ? Will the flavor affect the meat ? I was never afraid to use pepper in keeping the fly's away, since I use pepper for cooking the meat, can one taste the vinegar if used on the meat ?
 
Foxer, I have been told about the vinegar spray which should be good for keeping the fly's away. Which brand or formula work best ? Will the flavor affect the meat ? I was never afraid to use pepper in keeping the fly's away, since I use pepper for cooking the meat, can one taste the vinegar if used on the meat ?
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We just make our own - about 20 percent or 25 vinigar, the rest water. If you want to get REALLY fancy you can add powdered citric acid (available at any drug store). The more acidic it is, the more it tends to be a good bacteria killer. There's information out there on exactly how acidic you need it, and you can test with litmus strips. The powder is also handy when carrying a liquid like vinigar is a pain. Just mix it with water.

The trick is to get it all over the meat. I wash the meat with most of it (and a rag) and then give it a spritz. Use either bottled or boiled water - the whole idea is to make sure there's no bacteria. (this is what i've been told). That will also help seriously reduce the chances the meat will spoil.

I still pepper 'em a bit - but when i've 'tested' it by washing one quarter and not another and then using pepper - there's a HELL of a lot less fly interest in the washed and peppered one than the just pepper one.

There is no taste whatsoever on the meat.

The vinigar kills the bacteria on the meat directly, it also dries faster than water and that helps cool the meat faster and make it bacteria free as well. And all of that means there's nothing for the flies to zero in on.

There's no taste
 
Thanks for this vinegar spray formula. Have to try it on future hunts.

The elk we shoot was not skinned until we come home. We first cooled it off at a very cold river for about half and hour, which was clearly not enough, judging from the icepack, that were placed inside the cavity, had melted on the way home. However, on the same trip, the icepacks that were placed inside the cavity of a cooled down white-tail buck, were only melted half.
 
My first year hunting, I shot a doe on November 30th, the last day of the season.

Given our freakish Alberta weather, it was about 20 degrees that day. Not being entirely clear headed, I didn't think of the best way to get the doe to the truck, about a mile away. I gutted her, propped a stick in between the ribs, and DRAGGED that doe a mile. Don't ask me why I didn't just cut her in half and quickly hump each piece out... I don't know.

Anyway, all told that shot doe was exposed to the sun and heat for several hours by the time I got home, which is where I skinned her. The next day it was off to the butcher's.

Not a bit of the meat was tainted or lost... today I'd take better steps though; skin and half or quarter, then pack out.

On other hunts I've packed the cavity full of snow, which worked well.
 
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