Looking for some expert advise on wild meat handling. The internet seems to be all over the place on this topic. Specifically how long moose meat is good for just chilled in a garage from -3 to +3. Some say its good for 10 days yet others are saying its rotten after 5 days. I understand that time,temperature and humidity are important in how long meat will last. I guess my biggest question would be is chilled meat still be obvious if spoiled. Hot meat with flies, strong smell and brown is obvious to me but chilled meat with no smell is not
Wild meat handling
- Thread starter Stw81
- Start date
The ideal meat hanging temperature range that should be maintained should fall somewhere between 33 and 40 degrees. Food safety experts advise against storing meat above 40 degrees, at which point bacterial growth can become a problem....( from the internet)
I doubt there is a butcher shop around that will hang wild game for 28 days like they do beef.
Care of the meat in the field is important as it is hanging before processing.
Rob
I doubt there is a butcher shop around that will hang wild game for 28 days like they do beef.
Care of the meat in the field is important as it is hanging before processing.
Rob
- Location
- Western Manitoba
Older Ukrainian abattoir guy showed me in his cooler - smack hanging side with palm of hand - if sticky - cut it that day - if not sticky, can hang more. He would hang bull elk and moose as long as he could before they got "sticky" - his cooler was a couple degrees above freezing - I think he could hang forty head in there, he said. My cow elk was hung 5 or 6 days; my son's spike bull elk was hung three (?) days. One really decent bull elk that my Dad got was hung 14 or 15 days. Never saw deer in there - just elk and moose. I suspect was also about what was coming in, what he could get for cutting and wrapping help on any particular day - not sure is actually "carved in stone" for wild things??
So many of our deer over the years were frozen - was often a battle just to skin them the evening they had been shot - often frozen solid the next morning. Meat does not "age" when frozen. Often heated up garage to get deer carcasses started to thaw - then cut them up - most meat went to ground meat, so did not seem to matter much.
So many of our deer over the years were frozen - was often a battle just to skin them the evening they had been shot - often frozen solid the next morning. Meat does not "age" when frozen. Often heated up garage to get deer carcasses started to thaw - then cut them up - most meat went to ground meat, so did not seem to matter much.
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Hanging in the garage I rarely leave longer than 5 days although if the temp is good 6 or 7 days should be fine. In a proper cooler you could go 20 but for me 7 to 10 days is long enough. It has a lot to do with how it was handled once shot. Shot properly, not much if any damaged meat, guts out asap, hide off quick & everything clean makes a big difference. Cut out any damaged meat asap as that is where lots of problems start. Been cutting my own meat for 30 plus years.
Fisherguy55
Regular
- Location
- SW Ontario
+3C is bang on for temp, as for time its up to the meat to decide. With quality pork the hogs are washed with cold water after evis and into the cooler for 24hrs at 36-38f. Trick is getting the carcass down to that temp as fast as possible. Trust your eyes and nose, trim what you don't want
- Location
- Western Manitoba
For sure! We always field dressed more or less where they fell - then into pickup truck box for rest of day - sometimes with stick to prop ribcage open. Almost normal to get home after dark - legs frozen solid - more like "whittling" than skinning to get to the rear leg tendon to hang - yet, often would see steam rise as hide removed from butt - so guts out as soon as possible, always skinned at least by the evening they were shot. Was not unusual that the thing was frozen solid by morning - no rush once frozen - nothing much changed. But only allowed to thaw once - then had to be cut - miss work, whatever - had to be done, if thawed the first time.
Read 4 and the last sentence in 5
Wild game doesn’t need to hang very long.
Cut it up ASAP.
Beef hangs for a reason but game isn’t marbled with fat so there’s no reason to hang any longer than necessary to gather up the tools and get working
My elk was cut the day it was shot because I was leaving the next morning
It was fine.
Wild game doesn’t need to hang very long.
Cut it up ASAP.
Beef hangs for a reason but game isn’t marbled with fat so there’s no reason to hang any longer than necessary to gather up the tools and get working
My elk was cut the day it was shot because I was leaving the next morning
It was fine.
All of this is great advice and greatly appreciated but im still not sure how to tell if its gone bad when its very cold. Again i can tell when meat is back when its brown,stinks and covered in flies but not sure at the cooler temperatures. Will it still have a smell at +3 if its gone bad ? Or do i have to cook a bit to tell if its gone bad ?
- Location
- Western Manitoba
Stw81 - we may have different ideas what "gone bad" means - if you have cooked it, is not "bad" - I am pretty sure that the whole idea of cooking gets rid of bacteria, etc. - pretty much safe to eat if actually cooked - maybe not so much for extreme "rare" or various raw meat dishes. Is a thing here about "freezer burn" , etc. - lots of ways for meat to become unpalatable - is not always "bad" - whatever we might mean by that. Conversely, flies etc. are not evidence of spoilage - but smell almost always is - the old Ukrainian meat cutter guy would stick his face inside the carcass to smell - needs the "tester" guy to know what "good" versus "not good" smells like. I know a guy in Carlsbad, New Mexico - hunt whitetail deer like we do - gut and skin - fillet meat and dry on bushes in the hot sun - they think meat is fine - use smokey fires to keep flies away - not like we do in Western Canada, but those folks have lived on deer meat for thousands of years...
Like I said before - read the last sentence in post 5
If it stinks to high heaven and looks like it's gone bad, guess what? It's gone bad. Toss it out.
If it looks good and pink and firm and doesn't stink then it's fine.
Agree 100%, that being said if temps allow for a 24hr hang to let rigor subside, it will be slightly more tender. Many times I don't get that option due to temps or timing, and don't worry about it.
Meateater did a podcast last year with a meat expert. I believe it was called "Red Cutter". Well worth listening to if you want more info on the subject.
-3 to +3 in dry air you can hang meat for a LONG time. It will be very obvious if it is spoiled by smell.
As long as it isn’t humid the meat will get a solid crust on it that you’ll need to trim off but it will be fine.
For the guys who say it doesn’t do anything to hang game for any length of time, it is pretty simple to prove it to yourself the next time you have a moose or elk hanging by simply cutting up 3/4’s of it in your normal time frame, but leave one quarter hang for 10+ days (dry and cool of course) and cook a fresh killed steak side by side with the same cut on one that was hung longer.
Of course, if you can’t keep a cool and dry environment for the meat then you have to do what you have to do.
We usually cut ASAP that means the day after we get back and that is for moose and caribou! The day after we get back is usually a few days after the game was shot at best 48hrs! This year was a bit different, we couldn’t get at the meat for a few more days than that, we always hang in my shop, with 2 20x20 box fan and the dehumidifier on 24/7, temp in the shop around 12c and after a week the meat was still smelling fine and tasted great! We ended up with 450lbs of dressed meat with this year bull!! Dry and air flow is key if you ask me!!
I don't hang it more than 24 hrs.
I say this most years...and get ignored most years. 2 of my daughters worked in the Abittour done the road ( 1 is a federal meat inspector at this time) and my Daugther in Law's parents own the opposition as far as Butcher shops. All say " Hang it if you want, the enzymes that do their magic on beef are absent in venison..."
The majority of online articles will pontificate on how it improves it... but to be a writer at American Outdoorsman don't make you any sort of expert on meat handling. It makes you a story teller.
Do as you see fit...but I wait 24 hours to get Rigor mortis out and either butcher it or freeze the whole 1/4's for when I have time. Life is awesome now...no more wondering if it has turned
Kill it, dress it. hang it for 24 hrs and cut it up ( or freeze it if time is short). Best discovery ever...I love it.
Rare, but I happened across this article excerpt.
I am very opposed to aging deer. This is not just my opinion, there is science behind it.
Beef is the meat that we were all raised eating, that is commonly aged. And only the young beef raised for steaks are aged (steers and heifers) not the beef that is made into hamburger and sausages. Hamburger animals are usually older animals, most often cows that are past their peak milk producing years. Beef has an enzyme within the marbling of the meat that breaks down in time “aging”, especially when aged for a long time at SPECIFIC temperatures AND humidity. And aging does significantly improve the tenderness of that meat. However, venison does not have those same enzymes in the marbling. In fact, even if venison had that same enzyme, venison has little or no marbling within the meat. There are very few animals that are aged. Pork and poultry are always cut and packaged ASAP. Even when you buy commercially raised deer and elk (which are raised on farms and butchered and inspected in the same way as beef), they are not aged. If aging was beneficial, those animals would certainly be aged because that market sells to restaurants and high-end grocery stores.
The reason I say never age venison “on purpose” is because if venison is properly cooled, it does “tolerate” a fair amount of temperature variation. Venison is a low moisture meat and has a very low moisture fat which tolerates “hanging around” better than most meats. This is very beneficial to us hunters who hunt out west or other far away places where refrigeration is delayed. The key to any meat tasting fresh and not having off flavors is to field dress and cool the animal AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The usual conditions (in the woods or other less than sanitary settings) which we kill our venison also adds LOTS of bacteria to the meat. That bacteria is a big culprit for “off” flavors in venison. When venison or any meat sits or “ages”, that bacteria grows like crazy.
I say this most years...and get ignored most years. 2 of my daughters worked in the Abittour done the road ( 1 is a federal meat inspector at this time) and my Daugther in Law's parents own the opposition as far as Butcher shops. All say " Hang it if you want, the enzymes that do their magic on beef are absent in venison..."
The majority of online articles will pontificate on how it improves it... but to be a writer at American Outdoorsman don't make you any sort of expert on meat handling. It makes you a story teller.
Do as you see fit...but I wait 24 hours to get Rigor mortis out and either butcher it or freeze the whole 1/4's for when I have time. Life is awesome now...no more wondering if it has turned
Kill it, dress it. hang it for 24 hrs and cut it up ( or freeze it if time is short). Best discovery ever...I love it.
Rare, but I happened across this article excerpt.
I am very opposed to aging deer. This is not just my opinion, there is science behind it.
Beef is the meat that we were all raised eating, that is commonly aged. And only the young beef raised for steaks are aged (steers and heifers) not the beef that is made into hamburger and sausages. Hamburger animals are usually older animals, most often cows that are past their peak milk producing years. Beef has an enzyme within the marbling of the meat that breaks down in time “aging”, especially when aged for a long time at SPECIFIC temperatures AND humidity. And aging does significantly improve the tenderness of that meat. However, venison does not have those same enzymes in the marbling. In fact, even if venison had that same enzyme, venison has little or no marbling within the meat. There are very few animals that are aged. Pork and poultry are always cut and packaged ASAP. Even when you buy commercially raised deer and elk (which are raised on farms and butchered and inspected in the same way as beef), they are not aged. If aging was beneficial, those animals would certainly be aged because that market sells to restaurants and high-end grocery stores.
The reason I say never age venison “on purpose” is because if venison is properly cooled, it does “tolerate” a fair amount of temperature variation. Venison is a low moisture meat and has a very low moisture fat which tolerates “hanging around” better than most meats. This is very beneficial to us hunters who hunt out west or other far away places where refrigeration is delayed. The key to any meat tasting fresh and not having off flavors is to field dress and cool the animal AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The usual conditions (in the woods or other less than sanitary settings) which we kill our venison also adds LOTS of bacteria to the meat. That bacteria is a big culprit for “off” flavors in venison. When venison or any meat sits or “ages”, that bacteria grows like crazy.
I'm pretty much in agreement.
Circumstances dictate practice however. I've been on two-tag moose trips where we have got one moose and the temperature was cool enough to hang one for four days until we got another one. But another time buddy shot a moose at 11:00 a.m. but it was not cool and by the time we got it hung and skinned, by sundown the neck meat went bad so we had to scoot to a butcher in Smithers the next day to get the carcass cooled and cut there.
If I'm lucky enough to get a deer or bear when I get home I usually put it into an old upright freezer I have and turn the freezer on for 1/2 hour every three or four hours to keep the meat chilled and process it the next day or two if it is large enough to take that time. Most recent deer I got on a Friday at noon, left it in the truck overnight when I got it home, stuck it in the freezer on Saturday and worked on it Sunday, Monday and Tuesday until it was done.
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The old guard ( my father was one) insisted that wild game that was hung was tastier. Personally I think that good tasting wild meat begins before you get started.
If you want to shoot a hot animal...that sumbeatch better be B & C. If meat is your main drive ( it is for me), you are better to find a nice fat Spoon & Crocketpot animal grazing, not even aware that you are there. Shoot them well, dress them as cleanly as you can, and get them cool.
Cut them carefully ( totally banish all tallow fat... candles or BP lube comes to mind as good usage for that nasty stuff), and de-bone them. If you are using a bandsaw for...well anything on a deer... don't expect world class meat. Reciprocating saws, not a fan either. It's not Rocket Surgery to take an animal apart joint by joint if you have a decent knife set... I like a slim filleting knife to sneak into the joints and cut the tendons...presto. Dismantled and usually tastes good.
Heck, most of the jonting down on beef is done with knives.
Chainsaws...serial killer and Drug enforcers tool... not for dressing IMO
2 weeks give or take in my garage at 3 degrees Celsius.
That's why my meat is better than yours and doesn't taste mucky. Then again a lot of my ungulates are part time grain eaters.
Had a deer from northern alberta and it tasted like willow trees.....yuck!
That's why my meat is better than yours and doesn't taste mucky. Then again a lot of my ungulates are part time grain eaters.
Had a deer from northern alberta and it tasted like willow trees.....yuck!
Bold claim.
I just sort of emulate how they do it down the road at the licensed kill plant, small operation. They used to supply farmed venison to the fancy restaurants locally... expensive dish... how come it's not marked as aged I wonder?
You be you though. Napoleon used to beg Josephine not to bath so he could enjoy her scent more... crack on Pard.
death-junky
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Moose Jaw SK
I hang overnight and butcher the next day if I can. I never let it sit for any length of time.
Have to agree there, I have been killing northern moose, mule deer and white tails for for 45 years up here, and the ones my friends and I shoot always taste fantastic and don't get hung- others I have tried, well, not so much.
This year's buck was shot in relatively worm weather ( about +10 or so) It was killed about 08:00, and hanging in the garage being butchered by 11:00.
The animal was pretty high smelling, it was already already rutting, and the quartering shot just nicked the paunch.
Washed out with water, and any suspect meat was well cut away with every bit of fat we could .. This buck is perfect and tasty!
Cat
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