Been saying this for years, but very few listened

[Blood Trail]

Aging deer especially older deer is a must. You do it to break down the tough muscle tissue. Call it controlled decomposition. Makes a huge difference.

[Blood Trail]

I agree with "debone" both for elk and deer. I used to age, but decided it was better not to.
I'm not a great fan of venison, love elk and if you get a change to try ORYX it is wonderful.
Good article!
PJ

Got some scimitar oryx in the freezer right now (God bless Texas!)

[Lloyd Smale]

maybe a 10 year old buck but deer around here rarely make it past 5 years and the majority are less then 3 and ive yet to shoot one that was tough. If I shot one so old that I thought it need to be aged to be tender id grind it into burger. If I want rotted meat ill go to the grocery store. Want an eye opener eat JUST VENISON burger for a year then buy yourself a lb of that store burger from aged cows and youll see how rancid it tastes. Im sure it necessary for good beef but its done under very controlled temps and guidelines. its not done by hanging it in the back yard on a tree or in the back of your pickup running around showing off your deer. Ill go back to this. I kill and butcher probably more deer a year then most here. All are butchered no latter then the next morning. About all we eat is venison for red meat. I also give a lot away and I haven't ONCE heard anyone say it was tough or tasted wild. Just the opposite, ive had some come back to me and ask me what the trick I was using to make it taste so much better then theres. Almost to a man I find out there deer hang for the season at camp and are usually brought back frozen and dried out or spend a few days in the back of a truck or were just aged. No thank you. No semi rotted venison on my table.

[SavageMan2506]

I live in Southern Commiefornia where during deer season 105 degree days are not out of the question, either debone and skin that deer ASAP or hang overnight skinned covered in a bedsheet, allow to cool completely, then depending on type of deer and age of the animal (sage blacktails are what I shoot, and are gamey unless aged) age for 3-14 days on ice in a cooler or in a refrigerator

[Blood Trail]

All aging is controlled decomposition. Makes for more tender meat. I age all my deer. Takes the tuffness out if them

[DLCTEX]

I tell peoplethat say they don't like the taste of venison, that if their beef was treated the way most treat their venison, they wouldn't like it either.

[Lloyd Smale]

I worked in a butcher shop for a couple months as an assistant. Id say beef gets treated as badly if not worse. Just watch a cow go from on the hoof to hamburger. You probably wouldn't eat most hamburger if you watched it being ground.

I tell peoplethat say they don't like the taste of venison, that if their beef was treated the way most treat their venison, they wouldn't like it either.

[tankgunner59]

I agree, in our area we have a lot of out of towners come in from New England and they are looking for that great big buck with "24 points and a 3 foot spread". I've tasted that type of deer and although you can give it flavor, it was best left to burger or sausage etc. I prefer a young buck or doe, I'm trying to get food and you can't eat that rack. After all the most tasty of any meat is the tenderest, I mean look at veal. I think it best, weather cooperating, to hang a deer or elk overnight to give it a chance to drain any residual blood. But I live in an area that usually has a good cold deer season to retard any spoilage, providing it's been cleaned properly. I have eaten elk in the past when I lived out west, but we don't see to many of them in the mid west except on game farms and I can't afford to pay their fee's.

[GhostHawk]

Best venison I ever ate was laid up on a dry edge of a cattail swamp.

3 of us were walking it, he jumped once, guns came up, second jump other 2 guys went boom, boom. He jumped again I went boom and he went down in a heap. As I walked up I saw the head come up and a stub horn and put one in the back of his head.
He was not big, little fork horn and one of those shot off with my 20 ga slug.

Field dressed immediately, hauled out to the truck. An hour later it was hanging and being skinned. By 9 that night it was all processed and in the freezer.

You want trophy buck, grind it. Grind it all.

You want tasty and tender, find yourself a nice corn fed forkhorn and don't let him take more than 3 jumps. Dry doe can be good as well although a truly old one will be tougher.

I shot 3 deer that year for the group I was hunting with. My hunting partner was a taxidermist. My big 10 pt buck went to his son who had 5 kids to feed. Plus I knew he knew how to cape out my head with no mistakes. A doe I gave away. I kept the tender little forkhorn. I was single, did not need 80- 100 lbs of meat. And the forkhorn chops grilled at 3.5 min each side were fork tender and awesome.

That is my experience, YMMV.

[w5pv]

Spot on the only thing I would add is to look for the kernels(glands)in between the muscles they will be about 1/4" in diameter and about 1" long if you cut into one of these it makes the meat taste more gamely

[Lloyd Smale]

ive shot deer standing in a corn or potato field and running in a swamp. Ive shot deer of both sexes both large and small. Ive never aged a single deer in my life. I shoot them gut them clean them out as soon as possible and butcher the next day if possible. In my whole life of shooting MANY deer and eating them my father shot when I was young I only remember one deer that didn't taste good. that was an old 12 pointer my dad shot in a cedar swamp that was so old he had very little left in the tooth dept. The meat stunk when cooked and even my father with 6 small kids to feed had to throw that one out. Only thing I will say is does are usually a "bit more tender" but its a small difference when your talking deer 3 years old or younger. Even then about the only time I notice the difference is when its cook on a grill. I don't know what some of you do to your deer to make it taste bad but you must have to try.

All aging is controlled decomposition

yup controlled rot. It might make it more tender but it sure doesn't make it taste better. Id bet I could put two backstraps on the grill. One done the way I do it and one left to age for a week and cooked properly and you couldn't tell me which was which. Id bet most of the crappy tasting venison some of you ate were deer that hung for a week on the buck pole at camp or road around in your pickup to show off for a few days. Or deer that you had someone else butcher because you had no time to do it yourself. Leaving ANY connecting tissue in a deer that needs to break down to be tender is going to make for crappy tasting meat. Someone processing your deer just doesn't have the time for a 100 bucks to do a perfect job cutting up a deer. Cutting up a deer is more of an art fourm then cutting up a cow. Fat and connecting tissue don't adversely effect the taste of beef. In many cases it adds to it. If you butcher a deer correctly theres nothing there that needs to break down. this all said I don't care what sex or what size or age your deer is theres cuts on a deer that are only good for burger and sausage and if your trying to make steak out of those that too could be why you might have ate venison that wasn't great. They don't try to make steaks out of every part of a cow either. That's why people have been eating hamburger for years. bottom line in my opinion is theres back straps and inside loins and two muscles on the hind quarter that are fit for steak. One more muscle on the hind quarter that fit for a roast and the rest of the deer is burger/sausage meat.

[Blood Trail]

I'm a believer in aging meat simply to make it tender. A few years ago while now hunting, I gut shot an old buck. Arrow blew an exit hole large enough to stick my fist in. His entrails were hanging out touching the ground. There was no way that deer was gonna make a few hours with that wound.

I backed out and gave him 6 hrs. Came out with 4 of my friends at midnight. We ended up jumping the buck 3 times over the course of 3 hrs which ended up with me jumping on the deers back, wrestling it while stabbing it with my KaBar.

I knew after all that, the meat wasn't gonna taste right, so I aged it for about 9 days before I started to butcher it.

The meat was some of the most tenderized venison I'd ever had. No knife required to cut it, however, it just didn't taste right. Not gamey, but definitely not tasty.

I ended up turning the whole deer into sausage and jerky.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Landy88]

Part of aging is draining and drying. Venison that has an organ meat taste to it didn't drain and dry enough.

One season spent, unsuccessfully, hunting horns for the wall left me very late in the season taking a very prime doe for the freezer to fill my tag. The quarters froze before I could get her in and hung, locking the blood and other fluids into the meat. What should've been impeccable venison tasted almost like liver.

[Lloyd Smale]

If I shoot a big buck the first thing I do is cut a chunk of hind quarter meat off and fry it in a pan. If its tough I just grind the deer into burger. Id rather eat fresh burger then 9 day old rotten steak.