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Go to an auto parts store and pick up a thermometer for A/C testing. The range is perfect. Stab it into the rear quarter to monitor the temp. You want 38 deg. If it is warmer, shorten your aging time. Colder and it isn't doing what you need, but still doing what you don't need. Age it on the bone at least long enough to relieve rigor mortis (3 days?). Use the guide posted above by UWyo.

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Years ago, it wasn't uncommon to hang beef or Red deer (elks smaller cousin) for up to 6 weeks..

These days for our smaller deer most hang for 7 to 14 days depending on temps.

I like to hang in the skin for for say 10 days at just above freezing ( I have a small meat fridge)..I then skin the day before I intend to butcher to allow the meat a final 24 hours to "firm up"..

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Originally Posted by shrapnel


There are experts all over the board on what is best. I wouldn't wait until January to cut it, but once it is cooled through, it is fine from 2 days to 2 weeks...


Works for me.


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Originally Posted by Whttail_in_MT
Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
In recent years I've stopped doing it gutless, in spite of the extra work and mess involved, and I haven't had a tough one since.

Why would gutting or not affect toughness? Are you using gutless to mean boneless?
You need to separate the meat from the gut to promote cooling and to prevent the meat from picking up a bad taste as the stomach juices start to break down. Gutting removes the gut from the carcass. Boning removes the meat from the carcass. Either way, the meat and gut get separated.
Gutting has no affect on tenderness. The problem is that meat removed from the skeleton too soon will contract as it cools and that's what causes toughness.


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Originally Posted by saddlesore
The gutless method refers to removing the front quarters, usually with the bone intact and then removing the hind quarters by filleting down to the hip socket from the top of the pelvis and leaving that leg bone intact and then filleting of the backs trap from pelvis to neck. Ending up with the rib cage, spine, neck and head intact without removing the guts.

The tenderloin can be removed by pushing in the paunch and cutting the tenderloins at each end and pulling out. Some back packers bone out the leg bones too.

Yes, I know what the gutless method is. My question wasn't to find out what gutless means, but rather why Rock Chuck stated gutting resulted in more tender animals.

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Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
Gutting has no affect on tenderness.

Then why did you state earlier that you haven't had a tough one since ceasing to do the gutless method?

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mudhen,

Meat scientists disagree quite a bit, like many other scientists. But due to considerable personal experience I would firmly disagree with: "Meat scientists with whom I have worked tell me that with elk, you're wasting your time and drying the meat excessively if you hang it beyond five days."

I aged the skinned quarters from the biggest bull I've taken for three weeks before there was suddenly a NOTICEABLE difference in tenderness, even from merely slicing the meat. I was continually taking small test cuts from a section of backstrap, pan-frying them quickly to see how they chewed and tasted. The point where the meat changed from semi-tough to pretty tender occurred within a short period of a day or so.

My wife and I keep an 800-pound freight scale in our shop to weigh the animals we take. I weighed the quarters after bringing them in, but didn't hang them. Instead I placed them on a clean blue tarp and covered them with another. Weighed one of the hindquarters after the three weeks and it had lost so little weight I couldn't really tell if it had lost any on the scale.

Our shop normally stays in the 30's during November unless the temperature outside stays well below zero for several days. Normally we don't skin elk taken at that time of year, both because it's normally cool and the bulls haven't been rolling around in any urine-soaked mud for over a month. But the day I got that bull was exceptionally warm, so took the hide off.


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Sorry Whtail in Mt.I misunderstood your post.

John. It really cracks me up when hunter says to leave the hide on when quartering as it keeps the meat cleaner, when the elk is covered with mud, feces, and unrine from a wallow and all that sticky stuff is on the hide from it's pecker up to it's front legs from breeding or in rut.

I had an elk that fell in a beaver pond after I shot it.I had to pull her out using my mule.You can bet she got skinned right away to get all the mud off.


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Vince,

Same deal with moose--which not only tend to roll around in stink-water during the rut, but often end up in other kinds of naturally contaminated water when shot. Two fo the moose my wife and I have taken ended up in nearby water, despite pretty quick-killing shots. My Alaskan bull ended up in a stream full of dying salmon, and my wife's Montana cow ended up in a shallow swamp. Didn't leave the hide on either of those, either.

But my main point is that while many hunters make generalizations about game care, willd animals are all different, not just in species but circumstances. Which is also what my wife Eileen emphasises in her "cookbook" on big game from field to table.


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Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
[quote=Whttail_in_MT] The problem is that meat removed from the skeleton too soon will contract as it cools and that's what causes toughness.


I think thats termed "Cold Shortening" and it can happen when the carcass is cooled too quickly..

We have been taught the ideal situtation is for the carcass to naturally loose its body heat at a relatively slow rate.

Weather conditions permiting, once the carcass is gralloched and back at the larder, we will often hang outside the chiller for a few hours to let it cool naturally. Also a warm carcass going into a chiller will often "sweat" which again is best avoided..

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To chime in on several previous posts -

Way too many of my elk are killed in the most impossible places you can imagine.

I have frequently quartered with the hide on because I was going to be dragging quarters over deadfall, skidding over snow (or even dirt), or just because circumstances were that I had to get moving as soon as possible.
Under those circumstances I remove the hide as soon as is reasonable.
Normally I wouldn't choose to do it that way and the benefits of cooling w/o hide are important but it is choices and priorities.

On those few where I have quickly cut all of the meat off the bone for transport in those situations I really felt like those were some of the worse eating ones. I try not to do that unless I have to.

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Originally Posted by Mule Deer
mudhen,

Meat scientists disagree quite a bit, like many other scientists. But due to considerable personal experience I would firmly disagree with: "Meat scientists with whom I have worked tell me that with elk, you're wasting your time and drying the meat excessively if you hang it beyond five days."

I aged the skinned quarters from the biggest bull I've taken for three weeks before there was suddenly a NOTICEABLE difference in tenderness, even from merely slicing the meat. I was continually taking small test cuts from a section of backstrap, pan-frying them quickly to see how they chewed and tasted. The point where the meat changed from semi-tough to pretty tender occurred within a short period of a day or so.

My wife and I keep an 800-pound freight scale in our shop to weigh the animals we take. I weighed the quarters after bringing them in, but didn't hang them. Instead I placed them on a clean blue tarp and covered them with another. Weighed one of the hindquarters after the three weeks and it had lost so little weight I couldn't really tell if it had lost any on the scale.

Our shop normally stays in the 30's during November unless the temperature outside stays well below zero for several days. Normally we don't skin elk taken at that time of year, both because it's normally cool and the bulls haven't been rolling around in any urine-soaked mud for over a month. But the day I got that bull was exceptionally warm, so took the hide off.


John,

I share your experience. I didn't want to be disagreeable, rather referencing the above article by UW, which is an objective study on the subject (albeit with a small sample).

My elk typically hang for two weeks. The shop I'm building will have a small insulated room with an air conditioner for aging game (there is an aftermarket purpose-built control that will cool into the 30's). I'm tired of being at the whim of the weather to carry out this critical step in creating proper table fare.

Your wife's cookbook is excellent, and those with game processing questions would do well to get a copy.

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RC thanks, this is a very interesting topic!

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Originally Posted by Colo_Wolf
Best one I ever had mostly froze in a blizzard the night I took him, then hung in my garage for 12 or so days with the hide on at 45*.

The next best didn't even age, we started eating on that one the night of the kill.


So you've shot 2 elk so far. LOL.

Worst meat I've personally had was right after a kill nad put on the grill. Tenderloins of a young deer. HORRIBLY TOUGH


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The problem we usually face is shooting a cow after Xmas in temperatures on either side of 0*. Hanging overnight in a non-insulated shed results in a pretty frozen animal in the morning.
Having no control over our set-up we skin and de-bone pretty much the same day.
As a result, the meat is taken out and thawed a day before the meal and that is where we get some "aging". Been doing it like that for 15 years and have been pretty satisfied with the results.


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Jeff,

Once hunted with a family in their hunting camp in West Virginia, with three generations of the family attending. Somebody killed a deer and that evening the husband of one of the middle generation daughters announced, "I'm going to feed everybody some of the best deer meat ever." Whereupon he took filets from the deer killed maybe 2 hours before, sliced them thin, and fried the slices too slowly in luke-warm vegetable oil. Naturally, they required a LOT of chewing, and didn't taste very good.

The grandmother of the family, the sharpest tack in the family, muttered not quite loud enough for him to hear: "Over-cooked some venison in rigor. Dipschidt...."

A little later the son-in-law was looking for the TV remote and she never mentioned it was lying on her lap, covered by the book she was reading.


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We age at 36* and let our deer hang from 5 to 7 days. Elk from 10 to 14 days. It looks like this [Linked Image]
Great times and a professional meat locker our crew bought and installed is well worth the 800$ a piece.

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The bull I shot in September was aged in game bags in a refrigerator for 8 days. Why 8? That is when I had time to process. This bull also laid out in the woods overnight.

The young cow my son shot was aged in game bags, in same refrigerator for 3 days. Why 3? That is when we had time to process. Cow was broken down and in the refrigerator 5 hours after being shot.

Both are fantastic eating, the cow is actually a little better. But that is no surprise. A young cow vs a mature rutting bull is no contest.

If in a hurry, I have processed immediately and let it age in the refrigerator after being pulled from the freezer.

Eileen's book is one the best common sense books on processing I have read. It re-enforced what I had already learned and would highly recommend it to beginners.


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It has been awhile since this was mentioned, but it can be pretty easy to make walk in cooler for less than $1000 Quite a bit less if you have small room that can be used by insulating.

Cool Bot is device for about $300 that you can buy that lets you use a standard window type air conditioner. It circumvents the air conditioner's thermostat by adding a very small heater to the hair conditioner's temperature sensor so that it can maintain a temperature of 32-40 degrees.

A 10,000 btu air conditioner can be had for about $300 and that will cool an 8x8 room capable of aging meat very well.

Last edited by saddlesore; 11/06/15.

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Yep - Saddlesore is right.

Here is a link to an thermostat outlet for a cheap AC unit to make your own DIY meat locker.

http://storeitcold.com


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