Deer cooler?

[marsh chicken]

I think we should with some microbiology on what you are doing when you "age" meat.

People can keep telling me till their blue in the face "thats the way my grampa did it" or the great stories about aging a whitetail (from SC) with the hide ON in a 34 degree walk in cooler for a week or two and talking about how good the sausage tastes...when the sausage was made with 95% someone else's deer.

I dont like to take deer to processors any more because I handle my meat (lol) the right way. Mollie touched on it. GET THE HIDE OFF and guts out ASAP. Cut into quarters OR SMALLER if you'd like. Get on ice. Drain bloody water off and keep adding ice for a week. THEN take it to the processor.

Aging venison is a fallacy. You cant "age" a typical SC whitetail with little or no fat/marbling. All you are doing is drying out the meat.

When do you get to the microbiology part?

[Swamp Rat]

It's all about dem enzymes and muscle stretchin'

[Calibogue]

Skin, gut, and hang for 2-4 weeks typically.
Kevin, stick to dentistry!

[TheVisorGuy]

Skin, gut, and hang for 2-4 weeks typically.
Kevin, stick to dentistry!

Yep

[Calibogue]

Later in the season I don't hang them quite as long as the cooler begins growing more mold from all the death. However early in the season I hung deer for a solid month.

[fuzzy]

Skin, gut, and hang for 2-4 weeks typically.
Kevin, stick to dentistry!

Tougher meat means more chewing. More chewing means more wear on teeth. More wear on teeth means more visits to the toof doctor. More visits to the toof doctor means more fluoride in our bodies. See where this is going? It's all a damn government conspiracy, and all the dentites are on the take!

[Calibogue]

Haha...

[2thDoc]

i love you people for being so quick to think you know stuff. I am just passing along info from both a butcher and a microbiologist with clemson who perfected a spray to put on beef to slow the aging process.

You cant age meat without fat. While i totally agree with taking the hide off....and i totally agree with the ease of cutting dry meat....not a single one of you can actually make a deer age while hanging a month in your cooler. I dont care what you think. You are welcome to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Keep telling yourself it tastes better. I dont really care. The fact is that you arent accomplishing any "aging" during that time period.

So good to hear from you, cali. .

[MolliesMaster]

For 2th's library:

The second factor affecting meat over time is that the muscle enzymes also diminish toughness. The major candidate to explain tenderisation post-rigour is the enzyme called calpain (Hopkins and Thompson, 2002). This enzyme mainly weakens the supporting proteins that hold the contracting filaments in place. Equally it appears that other enzymes have a role in tenderisation.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...78450X11000060

https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpd...011-0025-5.pdf

Source:

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/pjf...011-0025-5.xml

In a brief skimming of the both articles I found no mention of fat but several mentions of muscle enzymes being important in muscle breakdown. I'm assuming that these papers mostly represent beef but venison and beef are both part of the cervid family, so that has to count for something. I don't have any advanced degrees so maybe some you more educated folks can derive more from it.

[2thDoc]

thank Mollie/

I will call the microbiologist and get the answer for you.

keep up the research to discredit me. I know you love it.

http://www.mirinz.org.nz/docs/11-sea...tenderness.pdf

[2thDoc]

The final key in aging is time. While beef is often aged 21 days or longer, venison lacks the fat and connective tissue that make such a long age time viable. Over the years, I have tried various lengths of aging time. I have settled on two to seven days as the prime window for the highest-quality venison. Older bucks might benefit from a bit longer hang time, up to 14 days if conditions allow, simply because they have more muscle mass and connective tissue to break down.

-

[2thDoc]

https://www.realtree.com/brow-tines-...-aging-venison

[2thDoc]

dry aging is a process commonly used in beef production to yield a more tender, flavorful end product. Meat is stored in a temperature and humidity controlled environment for a period of time to allow the enzymes in the muscle tissue to break down the collagen between the muscle fibers. Arranged in a way to allow good air flow, up to 30% of the moisture by weight is driven off, thus concentrating the flavor of the aged meat. In a nutshell, that’s it. No mold or bacteria is doing this job, it is just the collagenase enzymes already present in the muscle.

no mold or bacteria?>?? Wtf?!?!?!

[2thDoc]

So what is the take away from this whole thing? Dry aged red meat is amazing. I tasted this venison side by side with another loin that not aged. The difference in taste and tenderness was huge and undeniable. It doesn’t have to be aged for eight days either. Two or three days is sufficient but I was going for something remarkable. The biggest thing to remember is that you will lose a lot of your final yield to evaporation and shrinkage. You can also ruin your venison by letting the temperature and humidity go outside the accepted range or denying it proper air flow. You’re walking a fine line, so take care.

certainly, this is just an opinion....but once again an independent source says leaving a deer hanging in a walk in cooler for weeks is NOT DOING ANYTHING and be potentially bad for that deer you killed.

[2thDoc]

4. Failure to Age / Purge
I’ve been told that aging venison on ice is a mistake, but I don’t buy it. The mercury rises above 50 degrees on most days of deer season in my area. That’s too warm to let a deer hang, so icing them down is my only option. I line the bottom of a cooler with a layer of ice, add my deer quarters on top of that, and then cover them with more ice.

I keep the cooler in the shade with the drain plug open and on a downhill incline. That’s very important. The idea is to let the ice slowly melt and drain from the cooler. This not only keeps the meat cold, but purges an amazing amount of blood from it. Do this for at least two days, checking the ice a couple times per day in especially warm weather. (Note: if you do this without a drain plug, you’ll get the opposite effect; deer quarters that are essentially marinated in bloody, dirty water. Does that sound tasty? Didn’t think so.)

gotta work. will come back later with some scientific data for those that are open to learning more.

[MolliesMaster]

The final key in aging is time. While beef is often aged 21 days or longer, venison lacks the fat and connective tissue that make such a long age time viable. Over the years, I have tried various lengths of aging time. I have settled on two to seven days as the prime window for the highest-quality venison. Older bucks might benefit from a bit longer hang time, up to 14 days if conditions allow, simply because they have more muscle mass and connective tissue to break down.

It still doesn't say that aging is useless. It says that the length of time is shorter do to less connective tissue, which makes sense considering the different sizes of the animals.

[fuzzy]

certainly, this is just an opinion....but once again an independent source says leaving a deer hanging in a walk in cooler for weeks is NOT DOING ANYTHING and be potentially bad for that deer you killed.

Can't get any worse for it, because it is already dead.

[quack head 11]

I dont like to take deer to processors any more because I handle my meat (lol) the right way, Mollie touched on it.

So Mollie touch on your meat? Does your wife know? Is you wife named Mollie? You dirty dirty dog you

[quack head 11]

I prefer the cooler method myself.

The outer layer may turn white but as soon as you lay a knife into a 1/4 inch and she just as dark red as the day it was killed. And it has a better flavor IMO

[WNM]

I process my own and do the cooler method with the drain plug out. I usually cut up and debone them when I remember about them a week later. I have talked to a butcher and done some googling, and they said that humidity is the most important factor in aging. Mine always taste fine, so I don't experiment much.

What about aging ducky by hanging by the head until the body falls off?