how do you process your game

[woodsman1031]

Hello,

I have been looking into several different ways of aging and processing hogs and deer.

I just finished my doe and I used the method of aging in ice. I let mine sit 5 days. I cut the individual muscles off of the hams and cut them into steaks. I just ate some and it and it tasted great but it looked awfully white. About 1/4 inch all the way around the uncut pieces. I have since read that you should put it on ice but have the meat sealed in a bag.
How do yall do yours?

I am interested in the way you process hogs as well.

BTW: I hate the way unaged game meat tastes. I know some people like it, but I dont.


Thanks

[Penny_Plinker]

We've used that "sit on ice for 5 days" method before. For us it had nuthing to do with aging, but was a delay tactic when we were just too busy to get the processing done. Actually it was only 3 days but usually we get right on it and get it over with. Husband got a mature doe yest and we skinned and quartered it and its on ice right now because we had already planned a foliage viewing ride for today. I'm thinking about canning it all.

Penny

[woodsman1031]

Did you ever see the Disney movie old yeller? Do you remember the deer leg hanging. Does anyone know how to preserve it like that? I think they called it middlin meat or something like that. I understand if you wanted a piece you just cut it off and eat it.

[WileyCoyote]

I think that meat was smoked meat, woodsman. You can do the same thing with ham if it is properly cured and smoked. It seems to me that I read that "middlin meat" was meat that had not cured completely, was still in the aging process.

[Backwoods_Bob]

Well, I live up north in washington state, so the cold weather lets me hang meat outside in my woodshed to age.
remember, the beef you buy in the store has been aged for 30 days at 40 degrees to tenderize it. Other meats benefit from the same proccess.

Generally, gut the deer and drag it home.
Then I hang it up by it's rear legs, and skin it and cut off the head. Sometimes I cut off the head in the woods. I don't eat that part and it's less to carry home.

Let the animal hang upside down, in an cool area where the wind can get at it, but hopefully the sun cannot.
I like to hang things in my woodshed or on my front porch.
I wrap the carcass in an old bed sheet I keep for the purpose.

The temp needs to be down around 40, or lower.
If it's to warm it will rot.
The meat will dry and get firm.
Needless to say, it needs to be well drained of all blood.
Prod the meat daily. Soon you'll notice it will soften. may take a week or more.
Then it's time to start carving it up. Take a leg a night inside and care it up and wrap it for your winters meat.

Eh, I had to put down a horse two weeks ago. Being the frugal backwoods folk we are we naturally butcherd the beast and hung the meat in the barn.

That old horse needed to hang for a few weks to soften it up. Sadly, all the work and meat went to waste because it got to warm to hang the meat ( I think the barn was also to warm, not good enough ventilation )
and because the animal had cancer. Turns out the meat was shot full of cancer so we just fed it to the coyotes.

[Rancher]

Commercial aging of beef in packing houses is done under controled temperature and humidity conditions based on the quality grade of the carcass.
Prior to 1949, when I worked as a cowboy on a large ranch, where we had no electricity, our beef was butchered and hung in a shady, cool location, near the bunk/cook house, covered to prevent flies laying eggs. The meat was cut into portions needed for each meal by the cook at meal time. It was not hung to age since a whole steer carcass lasted only a couple of weeks or so for the crew of a dozen cowboys.
After I returned from duty in the military in 1954, on my own ranch, for years we did our own butchering. Every year I, and my hired men, butchered two yearling bulls, and hogs. We cut and wrapped the meat to deliver to the local locker plant for freezing. We have never aged any beef or pork. After a few years, it became more convenient to just have the locker plant manager come to the ranch and take the killed carcass into the plant for processing. If the carcass is of the right quality, I personally see no advantage to aging.
From the time that I killed my first deer, in 1939, I have always butchered the deer as soon as possible after killing. Usually the deer (I always select a fat buck, not a doe) is killed early in a morning and I bring the carcass into the ranch house and butcher and freeze it the same day. If the deer is killed before breakfast (as often on our ranch near our house) I gut and hang the deer in the barn, then after breakfast I skin the deer and cut the meat from the carcass, leaving the bones. The boned cuts are then brought into the house and cut into serving size, wrapped and promptly frozen in our walk in freezer.
I handle the Elk that we kill every year the same way except that many years the Elk is killed miles from the house so I have to quarter it and pack it to our house with horses before buthering.

[DM]

I personally see no advantage to aging.
From the time that I killed my first deer, in 1939, I have always butchered the deer as soon as possible after killing. Usually the deer (I always select a fat buck, not a doe) is killed early in a morning and I bring the carcass into the ranch house and butcher and freeze it the same day.

I pretty much agree with you... I no longer go through all the hanging time either, and i don't miss it a bit.

I gut my deer as soon as i shoot it, and then take it to the barn where i hang and skin it. Once skinned and propped open with a board holding the rib cage open, i start cutting it up as soon time permits.

Sometimes it's the same day or maybe i start on it a few days later?? I can't see that it's made any difference in the animials i've harvested...

DM

[fishinhunter]

Hey backwoods bob.I just wanted to ask you where you got your beef.Any big grocery store buys from a supplier and i was told by a state inspecter that it never hung more than 3 days.I let mine hang for 15 days and after that they would grow beards (which did not hurt meat).Now hogs i would kill 1 day and let hang in cooler over night and cut the next day.I would hang bacons for 5 days to cure before smoking and hams in sugar tank for 7 days before smoking.

[Backwoods_Bob]

Well, Fishinhunter, after looking around a bit it seems that beef isn't always aged much any more.

To answer your question, we don't buy beef much anymore at all, but make do with rabbits, goats, and deer.
Anyway, here is a detailed PDF on aging beef -
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/sa/v62n5/25990.pdf

And here is another bit I lifted from the internet -
Dry Aging
Dry aging occurs while the beef is hanging in a
refrigerated cooler, at a specific temperature and
humidity, for 10 to 28 days after harvest and prior to
cutting. When beef is dry aged two things happen. First,
moisture evaporates from the muscle creating a greater
concentration of beefy flavor and taste. Secondly, the
beef’s natural enzymes break down the fibrous,
connective tissue in the muscle, tenderizing it. Most of
the tenderizing activity occurs in the the first 10 to 14
days. Some high quality restaurants age their meat for
28 days or more. Increased aging adds to the shrinkage
and trim loss due to the drying and surface mold.
Roseda Black Angus Beef is dry aged for 14 to 21 days
for the best combination of tenderness, taste and yield.
Up until 20 years ago, dry aged beef was the norm, then with the advent of vacuum packaging along with increased efficiencies in
beef processing and transportation, we lost the dry aging process. In today’s modern processing plants, the carcass is broken down
and vacuum-sealed in plastic bags within 24 hours. Much of this beef will show up in a grocery store meat case within 2 to 4 days
after harvest. Beef can be "wet aged" in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag for improved tenderness but it will not have the characteristic dry
aged flavor. Because refrigerated storage is expensive, only the high priced loin and rib cuts are aged (wet or dry). At Roseda, we dry
age the whole carcass so even our hamburgers have the same dry aged flavor as our porterhouse steaks.
Because of the higher cost associated with storage and trimming, few restaurants and even fewer retail stores offer dry aged beef.