Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Hanging

There's a rule of thumb for hanging meat for tenderness. The enzymes in the meat work faster at higher temps. For every 10F increase in temperature above 35, cut the hanging time in half.

35...14 days
45...7 days
55...3 days
65...1 day
75...eat it now

Plus 1. Slice of The Wild is very helpful.

I processed most of my elk yesterday, just have a hind quarter to process and then grind the burger.

Only comment I would make is that I think it would have been better to remove the burger meat, neck and rib meat from the carcass earlier. Maybe if i had a chilled room with 80% humidity it would have been ok, but as is I lost most to drying.

We ate the hanging loins last night in the garlic butter recipe and they were well received.

Only class I regret not taking in highschool- meats class. We had a full butcher shop but the schedules/ tracks did not jive.

Drying is an issue, which is why I tend to hang a carcass in the jacket until just before skinning. The trade off is that they are then a bitch to skin especially when they've been hung at only a couple degrees above freezing..

I say that but do appreciate that sometimes an elk needs to be skinned asap...

How much meat did you loose do you think?

Is the dried meat really unusable? I believe the drying is only a cosmetic issue, and over here I am sure it ends up used for burgers and sausages?

I did not save any of the blood for sausage nor did I save all the trimmings for hotdogs. Probably, 25 pounds of trimmings so far.

This is the end of the first week of hunting with my son. We have deer, antelope and elk. Not one was skinned until it was cut up. Once cooled and hung for around a week, there is no taste or toughness issues on any species. We have killed tons of critters and every year we hang every animal with the skin on until it is cut and year after year, it turns out the same.

That is interesting... I have always heard antelope especially should be skinned as soon as possible..

Shrapnel, do you use antelope as steaks, roasts, etc.?? I have almost always made mine into jerky.. It makes the best jerky of all.

Do you have any special method for skinning game after leaving the hide on for a week?? I always found it tough to skin game once it got cold..

Finally, do you peel that blueish membrane off the carcass before cutting it up?? That is why I liked to skin my game immediately.. Not only was it easier, but it took that stuff off when I cut the crust off the meat..

Thanks.

Shrap. I just read your other post on the study of aging game.. I am still interested in your thoughts on my questions, if you don't mind...

Yes and I have skinned all big game animals I have killed immediately and every year it turns out the same. Darn good eating. Different strokes for different folks and that doesn't make anyone person right.

Especially antelope. Get that hide off those stinky bucks and throw it as far as you can

saddle, that is what we have always done.. Get things skinned as soon as possible.. But here I often kill my antelope in mid Sept. to late Sept. I often hunt deer in the early season which opens Sept. 15th.. The latest I usually kill my mule deer is the first week in Oct.. Pretty warm at that time of year.

Same here. The deer I killed in ML season was early Sept. Elk in ML season is earlier yet.The moose I killed on Oct 17, it was 60 degrees during the day and not down to freezing at night.The elk I killed on Oct 20 (three days later),the temp was about 55 and the nights were right at freezing.
Any one of those animals would have spoiled if I didn't get the hide off immediately.

My antelope season this year is Dec 6th. We usually kill 2-3 during the day and skin them all that afternoon.

I am fortunate as my hunting partner has small walk in cooler so we are not hanging meat in a dusty old barn or garage. Except for the little bit of drying while we are still out in the field, we see no drying when the meat is in the cooler.Once we get the meat home we usually hose it all off to clean it further. That probbaly helps some to keep it from drying.But truthfully,I have never been concerned about drying. I think hanging without the hide ,also permits any blood to drain out of the meat which also helps the taste.

One year ,I hunted elk in Alberta and it was 25 degrees below zero. Another fellow had killed an elk in late afternoon and they left it until them next morning. It was frozen solid and it took four of us to skin it.

What I do works for me and I don't really care what others do.I am just trying to answer the OP's original question

Understood, but I am always interested in what others do and how it works for them.. One year I shot a buck pretty late in the season, and it was below freezing at night.. I let it hang in a big old shed and skinned it down as we wanted meat.
The meat developed ice crystals in it, but never froze solid.. It was excellent..

That is BS! People have so many misconceptions about antelope and their musky odor. Unskinned and cared for properly, antelope can be some of the best game meat you get, elk included...

Antelope rounds make better steaks than elk backstraps.

For any ungulate, whether skin is on or off, insert a knife blade deep next to the dorsal protrusion in front (neck side) of the withers. Pretty much just the same way you’d begin to remove a backstrap except you aren’t removing anything. Give it the smell test. It will tell the story. This location is at the core of the animal and is one of the most difficult places to get cooled properly. I have detected the odor of sour in as little as a day on a large bull – a well dressed bull and not in particularly warm conditions. For smaller animals the time can be even less.

Do whatever you are going to do but this test has convinced me that anything I can do to cool an animal’s core outweigh any benefit of leaving the skin on.

That is only you opinion of which isn't necessarily fact.

Any off smell on an animal's hide can be easily transferred to the meat. An animal's hide will never add to the taste of any big game ,but it can sure detract from it

I have killed elk in WY,NM ,and CO. Both does and bucks. Everyone that I didn't get the hide of ASAP was poorer meat than those I did.

I like my big game meat so I don't have to smother it or marinade it for a week to cover up strong taste.

You were bragging about how well you take care of your game, if you got bad taste from an antelope with the skin left on, it surely wasn't the antelope's fault...

If you'd waited 6 hrs before cutting it off the corpse, it would likely have been the tenderest meat you've ever eaten. I've made that mistake, too. I cut some loin chops from a fresh kill and cooked them immediately. They were unchewable.