Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Hanging

There are experts all over the board on what is best.

Guess it depends on how cold it is where you can hang it and how stable the temp will be.

I left a boned out elk on ice for a week and it turned out just dandy. It was completely covered in ice though so it was probably colder than a standard fridge.

Have a personal freezer (commercial grade) ,been using it for mostly wild game over 20 years .
Nice think about it ,its a place to store the meat until you have time to cut it up.
The longer you hang wild meat the gamer it will taste.
The dryer the cuts are.
The more waste you will have.

We've had long discussions here about how to get the best tenderness. Gutless dressing is very popular and I've done it many times myself but if it's done before rigor mortis sets in, it's sure to make the the meat tougher, sometime a LOT tougher.

RC, I use the gutless method 95% of the time, what causes the meat to be tougher if done to quickly

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.

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...

Why would gutting or not affect toughness? Are you using gutless to mean boneless?

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.

Gutting has no affect on tenderness.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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.

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