How long do you age your meat?

[bbearhntr]

Wondering how long all of you age your meat before butchering and freezing. Do you hang it with the hide on or off? What is your preferred method?. I just had some back straps off a small doe that was shot last week. It hung in my garage for 6 days @ 38° with the hide on. After butchering I placed 4 pieces of the back strap in a Ziploc bag with Italian salad dressing and worchestershire sauce for another day and a half. Just pulled them off the grill and the whole family enjoyed them for dinner tonight. DELICIOUS!!!

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I do not have a method other than to get the hide of ASAP and get the meat cooled down. Early bow season, I quarter the deer and put in in a cooler with blocks of ice for a day and then cut them up. We shot 2 deer last Saturday and by 4 pm Sunday they were in the freezer. I like to get them cut up right away because I usually am busy so I want to tackle the job when I have a little free time.

 

[gerry]

It all depends, on early season animals we take the hides off and try to hang them as long as possible or maybe put them in a cooler especially goats or sheep. Come October and later we keep the hide on and try to hang deer and moose 1 week. The deer we got in October we butchered as soon as we got home since it was unseasonably warm they between 2-4 days old depending on the deer. They taste fantastic BTW.

 

[NYDAN]

I have been shooting, butchering, and eating venison (mine and others') all of my life (62 yo). I have had other's venison that I couldn't eat.

In my opinion, proper field dressing is critical to avoid getting stomach or intestinal contents on the meat. I feel it is best to skin as soon as you can and butcher as soon as you can. I am very careful in avoiding getting hair on the meat, and in cleaning my knifes after removing the scent glands on the hind legs. I also remove as much of any fat that I can. In addition I clean any blood clots (blood shot) from the meat. It is more work than most people do. However, a lot of people who didn't like other hunters' venison liked mine. That is proof enough for me. Remember, bacteria are not your friends in this endeavor.

 

[gerry]

The other thing we do when butchering the game up is wash everything with vinegar water, then rinse and dry before packaging. Haven't had any gamey meat at all doing it that way. I agree as well with being as careful as possible when field dressing.

 

[DrMike]

I almost always skin my game in the field--usually before gutting. I'm not strict about hanging; I've had meat that was fresh off the carcase, and it was excellent. I've had meat that was aged in a cooler for two weeks. I'm personally convinced that cleanliness is more important than hanging.

 

[str8meat]

I will only hang a deer a day or two, doesn't seem to affect taste from what I have found. Elk a week minimum if I can 10 days. Hung a 6 yr old bull for 11 days and he turned out like a yearling spike.

 

[Vince]

I'm personally convinced that cleanliness is more important than hanging.

I'm of the same opinion.

The game I've butchered has had the hide off promptly but then stays in the cooler until the hunt is over and I get home. I use two knifes in the field and at least three at home. Keeping things clean is my most important endeavor I think.

 

[DrMike]

I use two sets of knives. The knives that touch hide never touch the meat, and vice versa.

 

[elkeater2]

I like to age elk and larger critters for a few days to a week if weather is cool. I've done hide on and hide off. If you do not want to remove the exterior sheath off the large muscle segments when processing the meat into packages, hide on is best. Hide off makes skinning way easier, but the exterior can get dried out and tough. Skinning a days-old carcass at 35 degrees is cold, finger numbing work. Average deer and antelope get skinned immediately and processed within 36 hours usually by us. An antelope can turn into one big piece of jerky if allowed to hang for long w/hide off.
Some of the worst I've ever eaten was elk boned out and cut into smaller pieces, then thrown in a bag and put into a cooler by a friend. It stayed cool OK, but the combination of dirty knives and lack of air circulation was nasty. Not recommended!
Opinions, biases, experiences and procedures vary tremendously. Filth is bad, heat is bad, cleanliness and cool are good. What I never understood was the "instantly ruined on contact" concept. How come we insist on marinating for hours under vacuum, but believe that scent encapsulated in its own gland can somehow magically spread after death? That hair touching fibrous exterior muscle sheath permeates everything underneath? Some even think water for wiping down and cleaning off is not wise. Spilled interior blood cleans up best before drying, cleaned with anything. Dirt and hair wipe and wash off. I am careful with muscle fiber exposed by cutting as in the pelvis and neck area. Just saying some of the phobias and beliefs out there are a little far-fetched.
After all, look at my forum name - I know whereof I speak :grin:
Elkeater2

 

[1Shot]

Where I hunt deer it is only 27 miles from where I park my camper. 99% of my hunting is done in the last 2 hrs of the evening. I never gut a deer. I get it to the skinning shed as soon as possible and skin it out and de-bone the meat right off the deer while it is hanging up. The last thing I do is while the deer is hanging up head down I cut a slit in the belly just below the pelvis and reach inside and cut the tinder loins out. With the deer hanging up head down all the guts pretty much are out of the way laying down toward the head to allow you to cut the tinder loins out easy. On average it takes me 19 to 20 minutes to do this. I place all my meat in a 48 quart cooler and cover it up with cold water. I then add about 2 cups of WHITE vinegar and stir it around so to evenly distribute it. I leave the lid open on the cooler and place it in the back of my truck that has a camper top on it all night. Next morning I drain the water from the cooler and wash the meat in cold water and cut it up like I want it and place in zip lock freezer bags and place it in a freezer. That vinegar draws the blood out of the meat, which is what people call the gamy taste, and it loosens up the meat some also. I have averaged putting up for me and my wife 6 to 7 deer every year like this for 25 years and I can't number how many I have done like this and given away to people who wanted the meat. I helped work for 15 years with my buddy as a control hunter on a big farm where we had to take 100 deer a year off. I killed about half those deer every year.

 

[SJB358]

Wow, great topic fellas. We run some high temps here in the early archery season and can run warm in our gun season as well. It was really a struggle as I grew up hanging meat for at least a week.. Well, this year we decided to try something different and right now, it is working out real well.

We took a refrigerator, took all the shelves and drawers out. Built a wood insert (sealed with food grade oil finish) and used 550 cord along with 12/0 stainless hooks to hang meat.



It got it's first test before I got home from Oregon this Fall. My buddy put two bucks in there. Skinned and quartered.



His bucks hung for about 7 days, we pulled them and butchered. Had a little of the steak for a snack. It was EXCELLENT! All of the extra blood dripped into the puppy pads we used to line the bottom to assist cleanup..

Then, I pulled the elk outta the coolers I carried back from Oregon. Hung them for 5-6 days and butchered. Again, these were skinned and quartered elk. After hanging, we butchered and wrapped. The steaks off this elk are so tender it is unreal. It is probably the best venison I have had in a long time.

The best case would be to skin, quarter and only open up the game enough to get the tenderloins out, BUT for us, most of the time, if we kill a deer early in the day, we are still allowed to hunt. So, we end up gutting and opening up the rears to cool as much as we can.

Hanging in the fridge, you do get a good skin on the meat, which needs to be trimmed, but man, the meat right underneath is beautiful. Can't say enough good about this and it is inexpensive. A used fridge is about a 100.00 around here, some are even less. The wood rack takes a little time, but it isn't tough at all..

The 12/0 stainless hooks are around 1.50 a piece. The fridge sits right at 34*-35* and its pretty nice to not have to worry about butchering right away.

Last year, if we took 2-3 deer in a day, we spent all night after hunting skinning, quartering, butchering, wrapping, and grinding.. Really was a drag after spending all day in the field. This allows us some leeway.

I also keep paper towels on the butchering table to wipe knives and quarters down from hair. The NICE thing is that hard, dry skin easily allows most of the hair wiped right off without really working too hard at it.

So, right now, for the most part, our game hangs for a min of 8 days and more along the 10-12 days. Meat is turning out excellent. I am sure there are some ways to make it work even better, but right now, we are doing much better than we were last year.

If I could do anything, I would love to put a fan in the fridge to run air all through it. I think that would really allow air to constantly circulate to get a good crust and cool the meat even better right up front..

 

[elkeater2]

Scotty,
That fridge deal is a great idea. Yep, a 'crust' is easier to trim than the stretchy fiber. Need to find that fridge now.
EE2