Hanging deer in freezing temps

[Firebricker]

I shot a nice mature doe Saturday afternoon hung it in garage like normal. My question is how does it affect the aging process when you get a couple days of freezing temps? I do not think it is to big a deal but want to see what you guys think. Even with the rare below zero we had my garage stayed around 15 to 20 degrees at coldest.

Normally I get stuck with warm fronts and have to quarter and age in the fridge wrapped in old sheets. I thought about doing that over the cold but I think they age better hanging not laying flat although it works just fine. We have a lot of members with way more experience than myself so I like to get some thoughts on it. Thanks in advance,FB

[MT Gianni]

I get concerned if it gets over 40 or below zero for aging. Even at -30 you will get aging benefits but you may dry out too fast.

[Firebricker]

Thanks that makes me feel better according to the thermometer in the garage it did drop below zero. The other deer I shot this year and most years the battle is to keep them cool enough. The one I got in October was iced down on the way home then quartered and put in the fridge since we had a real hot weekend. I would love to have a walk in type cooler to age them in but just not feasible right now.
Thanks,FB

[Teddy (punchie)]

Aging check the ribs inside they should be dry. if not clean and make sure they are not slimy . I leave my with hide on in cold weather for up to 3 weeks. Now skinning if frozen is a pain. Cool them down right after shooting.

[GabbyM]

No such thing as to cold. You want to skin that deer immediately after dropping it. In the field. Bag it and hang it in a freezing environment. Bone it out asap if you know how. Faster you can get the heat out of it the better. Hide and fur is insulation. When you get it home hose it down with about five thousand gallons of water. Bundle it and place it in the freezer. Unless it is sub 35 degrees in the shop. To do it right. You'd kill it. skin and half it, roll it into the freezer inside of five minutes. This aged meat thing you have in your head is some lame excuse to go to bed when you have work to do. But you go ahead and eat whatever you want. It's a free country and you can eat what you like.

[Teddy (punchie)]

No such thing as to cold. You want to skin that deer immediately after dropping it. In the field. Bag it and hang it in a freezing environment. Bone it out asap if you know how. Faster you can get the heat out of it the better. Hide and fur is insulation. When you get it home hose it down with about five thousand gallons of water. Bundle it and place it in the freezer. Unless it is sub 35 degrees in the shop. To do it right. You'd kill it. skin and half it, roll it into the freezer inside of five minutes. This aged meat thing you have in your head is some lame excuse to go to bed when you have work to do. But you go ahead and eat whatever you want. It's a free country and you can eat what you like.

Not an opinion a fact , if you freeze meat too fast it will sour inside. The outside freezes and insulates the rest of the meat and it can not get the body core temp down, meat spoils deep inside.

If you skin a animal hang it outside and it air drys, the outside look like leather or jerky.

Shoot it pack it with ice open up between front and back legs, let it cool.

I have seen so many guys cut the deer all open an then drag them over and though the woods getting, dirt, water, all other types of junk, trash in there.

Hide will protect the hanging animal out side from air, bugs, dirt and water if outside and under a tree or rained on.

It is easier to skin a fresh kill animal

If you have a cooler skin it and get it in by all means.

Aging meat , well you think what you want on that, no since in even address that statement.

[Firebricker]

"This aged meat thing you have in your head is some lame excuse to go to bed when you have work to do. But you go ahead and eat whatever you want. It's a free country and you can eat what you like."

If hanging meat and letting the enzymes break down is a "lame excuse" in your opinion we are to far apart to even discuss that so I'll go with agree to disagree and call it good. FB

[GabbyM]

Yes we are far apart on the process. I know about enzyme ageing. That's not what you guys are doing. I'm also not qualified to give instruction on meat processing. I will say that if it taste good when you're done you aren't to far off the track. I've never personally tasted deer meat that was hung with hide on to age which was fit to eat. Maybe you guys have it figured out. After all. anyone who can freeze meat on the outside and keep it warm in the center has special talents heretofore unknown to science.
Pulling the big bones from the hams helps remove a lot of heat.

[reloader28]

Unless we have to bone out a critter to get it back to the truck, we never skin it until we are butchering it.
Take it home and hose it down and hang it up til we need the room. Thats usually in about 3 days since I can hang 6 at a time in my cool room. Its tougher to skin after 3 days, but we dont waste anymore meat either. When you skin and then hang you basically have to skin them a second time to get rid of all the dried meat.

Now we just hang it for 2 or 3 days, skin it, quarter it and take it into the next room for final cutting and packaging.

[Lloyd Smale]

shoot it drag it through the mud or what ever get it home and hose it out skin it and bone it, pack it and stick it in the freezer. I do proably 50 deer a year like that and have never had a complaint. I have to chuckle at the guys that age there meat. Ive got two buddys that shoot deer with me. Both preached hanging them. Youd go over to there house and sometime there were 10 deer hanging. I made them a bet that they couldnt tell the differnce. I cooked back straps out of 3 diffent deer. One done like i do as soon as i get home. One that hung for two days and one that hung for 4. I told them to tell me which deer meat was mine and niether got it right. Then they said it was because i used back straps intead of some tougher cut. So the next week we did the same and i cooked some round steaks and again neither got it right. Hanging cattle has a purpose. It breaks down the fats marbled in the meat. Venison has no fats marbled in the meat and all your doing is a slow rot. It makes as much sense as throwing some fish on the table for 3 days and then fileting it and cooking it. Sorry boys but if you could come here id be glad to prove to you that its all in your head. Personaly i think 75 percent of the people that complain about venison tasting gammy are probably eating aged (rotted) meat of meat that wasnt trimmed well. Bottom line is i sometimes shoot up to 5 deer in a night and im not one that is real careful gutting them. Couple minutes jerk the guts out and dump the blood out of the cavity and throw it on the truck. i dont see any need for all the careful gutting and people who even skin them imediately. Whe i go to cut up a hind quarter the first thing i do is shave a thin layer of meat off any surface taht wasnt covered by hide. It absolutely takes any chance of having contaminated meat. I would never think of pulling off a hide untill i was ready to process the deer. God gave it that hide to protect the meat. Why would i think some bag would do better. The absolute only time my deer are aged is when i run out time the morning after i shoot them before i have to back out hunting. By the way i asked the local butcher whos been doing beef and deer for 40 years what his opinion on aging deer was and he laughed. He said the absolute only benifit to it was that maybe some of the blood would drain out of the meat but that that happens usually just hanging it overnight and if it didnt it comes out of the meat when it thaws from the freezer and you just drain it then.

[M-Tecs]

This is going to get interesting

[429421Cowboy]

As somebody that has lived and worked in the meat industry my whole life, I can say 4 days isn't going to make a darn bit of a difference in the taste, flavor or tenderness in any kind of meat. It takes 48 hours just for the rigor to let up in the meat, much less for the enzymes to start to break it down and make it more tender. Also, in dry aging beef, they are kept in a climate controlled cooler at 38-40 degrees, for up to 21 days, with 14 being the minimum for us. Up to 10% carcass weight loss can be expected due to drying out. None of these conditions are met when it comes to home aging a deer.

But I do guaran-tee you folks, that if you hung a skinned whitetail in a walk in cooler for two weeks, there would be a difference in taste and tenderness, but the total lack of fat cover on a deer would result in a huge amount of water loss as well as having to do some close trimming.

For the record, most of our game is cut up within two days of getting it home, without bothering to age.

[Teddy (punchie)]

You covered the basic very well said.
I was taught By a person that was a meat cutter, in his 75 years of cutting deer and cutting farm animals for local super markets and his own shop. Earl was late 80's when he pasted, learned from his dad was in his 90's When he pasted. Earl was also sent to packing houses back in the day to learn more about smoking, curing, and cutting meat. He was a meat cutter not a butcher. He did butch, he would go to the farm and kill and skin on the spot to haul to shop. It was easier for him to do this as he din't need live large animals in town. Cowboy You covered the basics.

As somebody that has lived and worked in the meat industry my whole life, I can say 4 days isn't going to make a darn bit of a difference in the taste, flavor or tenderness in any kind of meat. It takes 48 hours just for the rigor to let up in the meat, much less for the enzymes to start to break it down and make it more tender. Also, in dry aging beef, they are kept in a climate controlled cooler at 38-40 degrees, for up to 21 days, with 14 being the minimum for us. Up to 10% carcass weight loss can be expected due to drying out. None of these conditions are met when it comes to home aging a deer.

But I do guaran-tee you folks, that if you hung a skinned whitetail in a walk in cooler for two weeks, there would be a difference in taste and tenderness, but the total lack of fat cover on a deer would result in a huge amount of water loss as well as having to do some close trimming.

For the record, most of our game is cut up within two days of getting it home, without bothering to age.

[HNSB]

The last deer I shot, there was less than two hours from trigger pull to packaged meat in the freezer.
Skinning is no fun when the carcass is frozen, and once the hide is off the meat dries down too much for me. So, the best option, to me, is to skin when it's warm and butcher right away.

[Firebricker]

It started as just a question about hanging in freezing temps as I was concerned about it freezing and thawing a couple times while hanging. Now the conversation is towards aging or not which is a good thing. I do a few deer a year and everything turns out good but I am not a professional butcher nor have a processed any where near the deer as some. So I am always open to learn from others which is why asked here. We have members from all walks of life and climates there is a lot of knowledge here for sure.

Lloyd, Your test on your hunting buddys seems like a great idea. I still have a couple more tags before my limit so if I am blessed with another deer I am going to do a half the way I always have and try your method on the other. And have one of my buddys cook them so I am not biased. The blood is what I what to see about even if a few days hanging does not make it any better it gets a lot of blood out. Several years ago I was given some venison and it was extremely bloody it just ran out of it only bad tasting deer I've had. But I have no idea how or what he did to the deer he was new to it so I only no the blood draining a bit seems good.

I appreciate your guys input and responses here I figure as much as I enjoy the venison I prepare now if I can learn a better way or save time all the better. FB

[RMc]

Along the coastal South, afternoon temperatures often make it well past 60 degrees even in January. When a deer is taken, getting the animal dressed, skinned and on ice is usually a priority. A marine type 168 qt. ice chest is standard deer season hunting equipment in my truck bed.

[54bore]

Here in north Idaho November is prime whitetail hunting, it can also get really cold! We don't bother aging these whitetail, haven't found they taste any better if hung a day or a week, these are by far the best eating deer I have ever had! (Grew up on blacktail and a mule deer now and then) If it's fridgid cold and I know it's gonna freeze my deer solid I don't wanna deal with that personally, so if I shoot one in the morning I will hang it, get it skinned and cut it up that same evening before it turns in to a frozen block

[M-Tecs]

This hasn't gotten as heated as I expected or this subject normally does. Folks normally have lots of strong opinions both for and against.

While I have never worked as a professional meat cutter I have had professional training in meat cutting. When I started deer hunting in 1970 Dad and I always aged as did everyone in the area. A friend had a walk-in cooler that we used to hanger our deer in. Others in the area didn't not have that luxury but still aged even if the temp was way too warm. Lots of spoiled meat.

After I moved from the area I no longer had access to a walk-in colder so I aged when temps allowed. If not I cut it up as soon as possible. I never really could state which I preferred so I did an experiment were I halved the deer immediately butchered half and I dry aged the other half in a standup refrigerator. Ultimately I preferred the non-aged cuts so I have long since stopped aging venison.

This author did basically the some test as I did and prefers to age. http://gocarnivore.com/2014/01/17/ve...g-experiments/

a good read here: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-Aging-Venison

[M-Tecs]

http://www.wyomingextension.org/agpu...s/B513Rpdf.pdf

[toallmy]

I have always shot them , skinned and gutted within a few hours , then I let it air out for at least 24 hours but no more than 2-3 day's. Have not tasted that gammy meat taste since . But I stoped hunting the salt water marsh dear as well. I have the use of a walk in, it is quiet useful as the older I get the less I enjoy late session stand hunting.