Aging venison questions

[Thundarstick]

Some people on this thread are confusing aging with rotting and they are not the same obviously. I too have shot a lot of deer, averaging 3 or 4 a year. Some I shot and had in the freezer within a couple hours. Others were at deer camps where the quarters had to sit in ice chests for up to 7 days. The procedure was always to drain the melted water off the meat every day and replace ice as needed. What I found over time, contrary to what I expected, was that the venison in the cooler was less gamey and more tender than the immediately processed deer. This approach makes even 6 or 7 year old post rut bucks taste like a yearling doe. This is a common approach used by many people I know and most wont do it any other way. I was a big skeptic at first but years of using this technique has changed my mind. That said, there are many ways to make great venison and this just happens to be the one I prefer after much testing.

Here here!

[Lloyd Smale]

good point. Typical guy shoots one deer a year. So you aged this years deer and it was tender and last year you cut it up an hour after shooting it and it was tough. Two totally different animals. Ive eaten 8 pointers you could cut with a fork and some that would about dull a knife. Just watched a tv show yesterday. Some gourmet cook that serves wild meat in his resteraunt. He goes around shooting it himself. He shot some kind of a deer and they gutted it skin it and cut the back straps into chops. Now im one that says NO BONE! he cooked them on a fire at camp and both the other guys said it was the best venison they ever ate. This guy serves 100 dollar a plate meals from wild game and didn't feel he had the need to age that deer before he threw it on the grill.

Like I said I kill a lot of deer. every deer is slightly different. You shoot a rutting 250 lb buck and its not going to turn into a 100 lb doe no matter how long you hang it. Heck if you shoot a 150 lb doe its not going to turn into a 100 lb doe. All ill say is next time your at camp with your family or friends and shoot a deer peal the back straps off of it cut them into 3/4 inch think slices sear them and then cook them slow till there still pink on the inside and see if you get any complaints. If you do I will sure take the left overs. Will ageing make bad cuts of meat taste better? I don't know. I don't make steak out of front shoulders and any steaks I make from hind quarters go through the cuber. Why not? there always tender that way! Only steaks that don't get cubed are back straps and tenderloins. The rest of the deer other then cube steaks is roasts and burger and most of my roast get cooked in a pressure cooker. Why not? There allways tender that way. I don't want a round steak cut off ANY deers hind quarter with a saw.

Ive been eating deer I butchered myself for over 40 years. NEVER ONCE has anyone complained that ate it. What does that tell me. This stuff is more in your head then it ever will be on your tongue . My wife didn't like venison when she met me. Her dad hunted but had some butcher cut up his deer. The butcher didn't even bone it. He cut it like a cow. Chops with bone even round steaks from the hind quarter sawed with the bone still in them. Her dad also allways insisted on cooking it till it was about black. I think he thought that wild game was full of disease that needed to be burnt out of it. He ate venison once at my house before he passed. I grilled some back straps for him. He asked me where the heck I killed that deer because it tasted like a completely different animal then the ones he shot!

Sorry if I hurt any feelings but I don't put much store in advice on bullet casting from someone that's casted 500 bullet in there life and don't put to much store in butchering advice from someone that might have cut up 10 or 15 deer in there lives. Id dare say ive ate more venison in my life then anyone here. I think ive got a fair grasp on what helps and what hurts venison. I change when I see improvements. Im an old school caster that's the first to admit pc coating is superior. If ageing a deer was id be the first to admit it and do it. We basically live on venison in this house and id be a fool to not want it the best it possibly could be.

Comparing one animal to another means nothing. Comparing the same cut of meat from the same animal is easy. Age some, freeze some and prepare them at the same time. Question answered.

[BK7saum]

I've cut up deer and vacuum sealed them immediately, I've let them hang for convenience until I could process or placed them quartered into the refrigerator. I've had them on ice in the cooler with drain opened so the water could drain. I can't say that any of them taste any different. They all taste like quality venison.

I do get them gutted, skinned and cooled as quickly as possible. Usually shot to deboned and in cooler or hanging with skin off in less than 1-2 hours.

I recently have started deboning and layering the meat in the cooler on ice. Call it anecdotal if you will, but several mature bucks, not just one, have been very tender after being on ice for 3-5 days. I don't run steaks through a cuber, so my personal experience indicates that the wet aged venison (on ice) results in a more tender venison than freshly killed and packaged. I have also had professional meat cutters agree with that scenario as well. Again, taste or quality doesn't seem any different, just that a mature animal seems much more tender.

I package the muscle whole (vacuum seal) and then cut the steak into the thickness I want when I thaw it out. I actually make most of the deer we harvest into jerky, usually a 15-20lb batch of meat at a time.

[Tripplebeards]

I’ll complain,lol...that it tastes great but gave me explosive diarrhea! Lol. Pink equals blood and will instantly tear me up. A lot of times within minutes. I’ve learned if I don’t soak out the blood i can’t eat it without food poisoning type symptoms and diarrhea within a half hour after eating. This happens EVERY time I’ve eaten deer since the early 70’s. I know I’m not the only one who has this issue as well. I’ve made venison sloppy joes over the years and taken to work to pass over the years with a lot of people who won’t eat it and pass telling me the same problem with consuming venison. The salt/vinegar brine soak for 2 days to remove the blood has fixed the issue. I’ve eaten four deer since December without an issue! I always clean and process my deer the same or next day. Then I’ll put the boned quarters, shoulders, and neck in my fridge and let it sit a day or two before cutting up. The straps and lions get wrapped immediately. My meat still pours blood when thawed. Two days of soaking and two more days in milk and it’s all out. I’m excited to have finally learned how to love deer meat as much as I love to hunt them. What I have learned in the last couple months is I don’t have to age my deer as long as I brine soak out the blood. The vinegar does the same, if not better than aging as it brakes down the enzymes in my meat and is softer than any top notch restaurant hi dollar steak I’ve ever had. I’d tell the non believers to at least try it once.

So I don’t think it’s the aging thing issue I’m having it’s not being able to consume the blood. I have made the mistake of trying to age my venison in a cooler decades ago and never cut the outer layer of skin off the rear quarters that had gut smell and whatever other fowl smells On it. It soaked into the meat. Fowl...tasted and smelt like deer dung. That was a ONCE thing. Learn from your mistakes. I have always sacrificed cutting a good 1/4” of the inside layer of meat of the inside quarters now. I guess if I don’t gut them I wouldn’t have to deal with the guts on the quarters. Just quarter and leave the stomach in tact. Might try that this year. I’ll just have to give up on the liver and lions.

[Lloyd Smale]

it’s not being able to consume the blood

Like I said before the human digestive system isn't compatible with blood. Prime rib (or what I call raw roast) is even worse. If I eat a rare steak or even medium rare im bound up for a couple days. I like my venison and beef cooked so there just a tinge of pink in it. Some claim a steak cut like that is shoe leather. I have to argue. I can cook back straps on the grill till theres just a very light ting of pink in them and cut them with a fork. A steak that tough because its cooked well done is a crappy piece of meat to start with and or is cooked by someone who isn't going to eat it. If you cant get a well done rib eye or tenderloin that's not tough its time to buy your meat somewhere else.

[gbrown]

+1 on the above.

[MDC]

So you are saying that you wouldn't eat this?

[MT Gianni]

So you are saying that you wouldn't eat this?

There is no blood in that, just a good rare roast.

[Lloyd Smale]

No thanks. you might want to put a fence up around it so it doesn't run off Have to eat that indoors up here. Youd have every fly and mosquito in 5 square miles buzzing around your plate. Family reunion would be easy. Walk a cow into the back yard put a 22 in its brain and hand everyone a sharp knife and a fork. Well I guess you wouldn't even need the fork.

So you are saying that you wouldn't eat this?

[MDC]

No thanks. you might want to put a fence up around it so it doesn't run off Have to eat that indoors up here. Youd have every fly and mosquito in 5 square miles buzzing around your plate. Family reunion would be easy. Walk a cow into the back yard put a 22 in its brain and hand everyone a sharp knife and a fork. Well I guess you wouldn't even need the fork.

Hahaha!!! All in good fun Lloyd.
I myself can't imagine soaking my venison in vinegar, diesel oil or brake fluid for a couple of weeks before burning it to death again.
It will probably make your skin crawl, but after it is chilled while trimming back straps I'll cut a few very thin slices and sprinkle a little salt and eat them like sushi.

[MaryB]

No thanks. you might want to put a fence up around it so it doesn't run off Have to eat that indoors up here. Youd have every fly and mosquito in 5 square miles buzzing around your plate. Family reunion would be easy. Walk a cow into the back yard put a 22 in its brain and hand everyone a sharp knife and a fork. Well I guess you wouldn't even need the fork.

A perfect steak is seared outside and body temp in the center!

[Thundarstick]

A perfect steak is seared outside and body temp in the center!

BINGO! We have a winner!

[Thundarstick]

A perfect steak is seared outside and body temp in the center!

BINGO! We have a winner!

[Lloyd Smale]

my old man will too. He also is big on ground venison raw dog. No thanks. Cant be to bad for you though because it was his 87th birthday yesterday and hes eating his buck from last season. He must have saved a few thousand bucks through the years because he sure didn't use much fossil fuel cooking meat.

A perfect steak is seared outside and body temp in the center!

[Lloyd Smale]

just like a bird or coyote on the side of the road. Sun baked for a crust and body temp on the inside. YUM! back in the stone age when man invented a way to make fire id about bet the first thing they said was boy this fire thing sure makes meat taste better. Might even kill those worms crawling in it. remind me not to close both of my eyes if were stranded on a island

A perfect steak is seared outside and body temp in the center!

[rking22]

MDC, that looks Wonderful!!! I’m another in the seared outside with cool center camp. I often tell the waitress to “just walk him in here and I’ll cut me off a piece”, especially at the chain steak houses. They have no concept of how to cook a steak. Now, Jimmy Kelley’s in Nashville , they can do it right! My venison is clean and safe, no need to try and “kill” anything in or on it. I don’t age it but I doo spend up to a week cutting it up a bit at a time. It stays on ice from about an hour after it was walking till I eat it or freeze it. Can’t say that it’s better still warm from skinning or the last day grinding. I have had aged venison, was not good but I think that is more an aspect of the harvest and initial field care than aging. The hunt story on that one was not inspiring, they had chased it for an hour after a gut shot, another hunter killed it finally. Pure luck it was recovered.
As far as the idiot processors that saw cut rounds or anything else, no quicker way to ruin a deer! 26 years ago, I let a butcher shop do my deer due to a work call in. Told them to cut it, package and freeze it for me. Later when my pregnant wife was cooking it she could not stand the smell. I got home and found that they had left bone and bone meal on my meat! Most of that deer was inediable, and my wife will no longer eat venison. Seems that every time she tastes it it reminds her of that smell, guess it’s a pregnancy thing??? Went back to cutting my own, I KNOW what I have and how it was handled.

[Lloyd Smale]

Had to laugh. My nephew sends his deer to a butcher in a different town. I was going there to shop and he asked me to pick up a deer that was done. I was blown away by how many packs of meat he got off of one deer! I half thought to my self "Lloyd you must be wasting lots of meat!" Found out the next summer why. I went to camp and he was cooking steaks on the grill. I walked over and asked him jokingly why he would buy round steaks (he makes decent money) he said there not round steaks there hind quarter steaks off one of my deer! He asked me if I wanted some and I said no thanks I brought burger! I would NEVER bring a deer to a butcher that cuts deer with a saw!!! Comical thing is id about bet some of the expert advice gotten here by those expert butchers are butchers with saws in there hand. Beef or buffalo bone? Sure deer antelope or elk. Id kick you you know what if you touched a saw to mine. Well I have to admit an exception. I do use a battery chain saw to cut the bottom of the legs and heads off of deer. When your doing 3 a day its saves some time.

MDC, that looks Wonderful!!! I’m another in the seared outside with cool center camp. I often tell the waitress to “just walk him in here and I’ll cut me off a piece”, especially at the chain steak houses. They have no concept of how to cook a steak. Now, Jimmy Kelley’s in Nashville , they can do it right! My venison is clean and safe, no need to try and “kill” anything in or on it. I don’t age it but I doo spend up to a week cutting it up a bit at a time. It stays on ice from about an hour after it was walking till I eat it or freeze it. Can’t say that it’s better still warm from skinning or the last day grinding. I have had aged venison, was not good but I think that is more an aspect of the harvest and initial field care than aging. The hunt story on that one was not inspiring, they had chased it for an hour after a gut shot, another hunter killed it finally. Pure luck it was recovered.
As far as the idiot processors that saw cut rounds or anything else, no quicker way to ruin a deer! 26 years ago, I let a butcher shop do my deer due to a work call in. Told them to cut it, package and freeze it for me. Later when my pregnant wife was cooking it she could not stand the smell. I got home and found that they had left bone and bone meal on my meat! Most of that deer was inediable, and my wife will no longer eat venison. Seems that every time she tastes it it reminds her of that smell, guess it’s a pregnancy thing??? Went back to cutting my own, I KNOW what I have and how it was handled.

[rking22]

Lloyd, I rarely remove the head until all the meat is secured. With CWD showing in Tn I wonder what those of you in states where CWD is common do about spinal fluid. When I do remove a head I just work my knife between the bones and give a twist. Can’t decide weather a saw slinging it into the air or pouring over my knife and hand is preferable. Not overly concerned presently, but I can see it being an issue for me down the road. Any thoughts?

[dale2242]

I hang our smallish blacktails a couple of days just to get them cooled out.
I butcher my own so no bone dust on my meat.
I split the chest , remove the ribs, and cut the back bone into smaller pieces with a Sawzall
No CWD in Oregon yet.....dale

[redhawk0]

I have a butcher that does my deer for me. I've done it myself in the past but its a lot of time consuming work. I'd just as soon pay for the service. I do know his methods though. I drop off the deer, they skin it and remove the head same day. Hang it by the rear haunches and give it quick rinse with cold water. Then a torch is passed over the carcass to burn off any remaining hairs that stuck to the meat that were not rinsed away. The carcass is then hung in a 40* trailer for ~12-16 days before processing.

My meat is still red but not bloody, and it's very tender. I'm happy with my butcher's process...I'll continue using him until I don't have a choice any longer.

redhawk