I'd leave it on the bone and take off the lower legs, less chance of cold shortening then.
60 qt would work fine.
“cold shortening” ? memtb
Tejano,
There are a couple of related phenomena, one called "cold shortening" and the other "thaw rigor."
What you especially want to avoid is the meat freezing before it goes into rigor mortis (thaw rigor), but simply cooling down too quickly can also cause "cold shortening," even if the meat doesn't freeze. Either causes the meat to stay tough even if it's aged meat considerably.
I learned about it after hanging a young mule deer buck up in the open during a day down near zero, in a pretty stiff wind, one morning many years ago. The buck was field-dressed but not skinned, and froze solid by evening. After thawing the buck out and "aging" it for a week, even the backstraps were tough!
The big trick is to prevent the meat from chilling below about 60 degrees for the first 10-12 hours, and then not freezing until it comes out of rigor.
