Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Now that we have addressed tenderness, how about taste?

I am mulling over cashing in my preference points to hunt a big bull elk in far northwest Colorado. I've killed cows and small to medium bulls and always had great tasting meat. Never have gotten an older bull. How bad can a trophy bull be? Not sure I want 200 pounds of not very good burger and sausage.

Old bulls taste just fine if cleaned and hung properly. They can be a little tough but if your making burger and sausage it's not an issue!

I killed a bull in Unit 201 back in 2009.It tasted fine, but it sure was tough even after aging. I butchered it as normal in steaks, roast, burger, etc. I finally ended up grinding it all and I think even the ground meat was tough. It took me 5 years to eat that sucker

Just my opinion ,but I don't think elk vary as much in taste than say deer or antelope because they are primarily grazers and not browsers.

Not about taste but:

From, my experiences and what I have seen coming out of Unit 10 lately, I would sure apply for 10 instead of 201. 201 is easier to access in ways of public land, but with a good GPS and Coordinates for the BLM land, you can work around the private land and get back in Unit 10 4-6 miles. You can get those coordinates from the BLM web sites.

In Unit 10,you can reasonably expect to kill a 380 bull. In 201, I'd say 320-340 is more like it. There are some bigger bulls in there, but not as many and they transition back and forth between the public and private land.
If you do decide to apply for 201,send me a PM and I'll tell you what I Know about it.

I've killed some pretty old deer and elk, and 100% believe that taste/tenderness is much more dependent upon #1) how you take care of it, both in the field and while cooking #2) what that animal has been eating, like saddlesore sort of alluded to and 3) whether that animal was rutting or not.

Don't fret about age. Some of the best meat I have ever had was properly cared for elderly animals.

T Inman is spot on. A lot of guys don't take very good care of the meat once the animal is on the ground.

Saddlesore, thanks for the info. 10 is actually what I was looking at and your input helps. Seems like less points are needed for 10 as well.

Pardon me, but I am not too familiar with Colorado. Which unit in CO is 10?

Is it near Hiawatha? Vermillion Basin? The WY/UT/CO border? That area has some incredible elk in it.

Don't over cook. Medium is over cooked.

Cook slow for tough cuts.

Don't be scared of sauce.

Elk is [bleep] delicious.

Elk tenderloins are fantastic, no matter what the age of the animal or aging of the tenderloins themselves. I will always cut them out before tagging the animal, put them in a plastic bag and place them in a cool spot or cooler to avoid drying out. I have never aged them and never had a bad one.

Tenderloins are on the inside of the back, not backstraps or any other name. Some people don't know the difference but chops on the top of the back are not tenderloins.

I have killed all ages of elk from calves to a cow that was over 24 years old. I can tell you that the old cow was awful, I have never had a bad calf. There are so many variables in elk due to diet, habitat, age, time of year, etc.

The only thing in your control is how well you take care of the meat. Cooling quickly is your best bet and keeping them cool is necessary. Skinning them right away is not necessary either, you will lose meat that way and need to skin it again after it ages...

Yep, but I make a MESS if I skin the critter after aging. Leaving the skin on prevents having to trim all that red crust, and thus wasting meat, but it is such a PITA that I just deal with the second "skinning"...I guess it's all in what we're comfortable with.

To skin or not to skin is very dependent on the temperature to some extent. An elk shot and left to lay overnight in deep snow can sour just as bad as one shot in early archery season. It also makes big difference whether you are winching it into the back of a pickup and take it to the barn right away or if you are5-8 miles from the nearest roads.

Personally, I have no interest in eating an elk that the hide was left on with all the rut semen between the pecker and front legs and all the mud from the wallows with crap and urine it.

Guess I'm just not tough enough.

How many guys or gals would buy beef that they know was killed and then hung or not with hide on. Myself, once that elk hits the ground it is treated the same as I would any beef I butcher.

The waste is trivial if it dries a little. The meat is better if you skin all the silver tissue of anyway. That may entail maybe an 1/8" if one uses a good filleting knife. Anybody that takes more sure as heck don't know much about butchering. Probably most waste more meat from the bullet than that.

If you know what T-Bone steak is the tenderloin is the piece of meat that makes up the small portion of the T-bone. The bigger portion being above the spine. It is also known as Filet Mignon.

These late season hunts where guys kill elk in January can yield some pretty poor meat if the early part of winter was hard on them and they have started to use up their fat reserves.

Closest town, if you want to be generous would be Rangley I guess. If you are familiar with Unit 201,, unit 10 would be south of that bordering the southern boundary of Dinosaur National Park.

Few people even know how a commercial beef processor even handles the beef they buy in a store. Beef vs elk are not the same. Beef has a layer of fat that will protect the quality of the meat, that wild game doesn't have. Beef and elk are different and should be handled accordingly.

It is still debated if aging game will benefit the meat as it does beef...

Aging Big Game
— by Ray A. Field and C. Colin Kaltenback

Hunters seldom agree as to the length of time a big game carcass should be aged.
What is involved in the aging process? When is it beneficial to age game meat? Under what conditions is it inadvisable to age game? This pamphlet is concerned with answers to these questions.

Let's assume that the hunter has made his kill and properly dressed the carcass. Now we want to know what he should do from the time the carcass is eviscerated until it is ready to be cut into steaks and roasts.

What is Aging?

Aging of meat--also called seasoning, ripening or conditioning--is defined as the practice of holding carcasses or cuts at temperatures of from 34ºF to 37ºF. Thus enzymes (cateptic or proteolytic) function to break down some of the complex proteins contained in the muscle.
Quick aging of beef is brought about commercially by holding beef at temperatures of 62ºF to 65ºF for 2 or 3 days. High relative humidity is maintained to prevent dehydration; ultraviolet lamps are used to prevent microbial growth.

Some Meat Should not be Aged

Aging usually results in improvement of tenderness and flavor. However, not all meat should be aged. Aging carcasses with little or no fat cover is not recommended by meat specialists. These carcasses lose moisture rapidly; excessive weight loss and surface discoloration of lean meat result. In addition, lean meat is exposed and is susceptible to deterioration through microbial growth. Slime formed by bacteria and mold growth then must be trimmed.
Because grinding or chopping tenderizes meat, aging is not justified for carcasses that are to be ground, or made into, bologna, frankfurters or other sausages.

Pork never is aged because the animals are young when slaughtered and the meat is naturally tender. Additionally, the unsaturated fats found in pork fat oxidize during aging causing rancidity and off flavor.

Veal has very little protective fat covering and is high in moisture; thus it does not lend itself to aging. Most markets require the "hog style" veal carcass (skin on) because it prevents the outer surface of the carcass from becoming dark and dry.

The above examples show that not all meat benefits from aging. Whether or not game carcasses should be aged can be determined by first understanding the changes which occur during aging.

Changes in Tenderness

Immediately after the animal's death all meat decreases in tenderness ( Figure 1). This is because muscle fibers shorten and harden as a result of rigor mortis. The changes are similar to those which occur during muscle contraction. The third day after slaughter, meat which has been cooled at 34ºF has returned to its original tenderness level.
For example in Figure 1: Immediately after death all meat decreases in tenderness. From one to approximately 14 days, tenderness increases at a constant rate. After 14 days aging, tenderness continues to increase,but at a much slower rate.

If the carcass is to be made into chops, steaks and roasts, additional aging at 34ºF is often recommended. At 34ºF and high relative humidity, it usually takes 10 to 14 days for bacterial slime to develop on meat. This, along with the fact that tenderization proceeds more slowly after 14 days aging than it does from 3 to 14 days, is the reason aging should be limited to a maximum of 2 weeks.

Aging game that has been skinned often results in drying and high weight loss. For this reason properly chilled game should be aged with the hide on unless it is to be stored in a cooler where the humidity is high. Some people think that leaving the hide on causes off flavor, especially in antelope. However, research on factors affecting flavor of game has failed to substantiate this claim.

Many meat processors do not recommend aging game. One reason for this is that much of the game delivered to a meat processor has already been aged long enough. Quick aging of the meat often occurs because the game carcass could not be chilled at 34ºF after the kill.

I don't have as much experience eating elk as some guys on here, but I reckon I've cut, packed, butchered, and subsequently eaten close to 20 of them.
The only bad ones I remember laying teeth on were one ancient cow, a cow that was hit by a semi truck and floundered around in the ditch for half an hour before we killed and quartered her, and one big 6x7 bull in seemingly perfect health.
The cows I can understand as there were fairly obvious reasons for them to be poor eating. The bull on the other hand remains a mystery. He was killed post rut, by himself, 30ish degrees outside, quickly skinned and quartered, bagged and kept clean. He hung for about 5 days before butchering and looked and smelled good. Was tough as shoe leather and stunk up the kitchen when you cooked it.
Our group has killed at least 6-8 other big bulls as well as numerous raghorns and cows during the same timeframe in the same area and never had another that was poor eating.
I think with any species you just get a bad one occasionally and there's nothing you can do about it.

How does the Rut effect the condition of the Bulls?

Over here, mature red deer stags (a close cousin of the elk) loose condition rapidly in the rut and the quality of the carcass drops markedly and the effects are easily seen during the gralloch and later, when butchered.

Because the stags wallow in mud holes laced with their own p1ss ect, they literally stink. If you shoot an animal in this condition, you have to be very careful when handling the exterior of the carcass such that you don't contaminate any of the cut/exposed surfaces.

I would image this would be an even bigger issue if the the carcass is skinned and butchered in the field without the appropriate care..

Regards,

Peter

I would take some properly done experiments to determine whether hanging does or does not help. You would have to cut the animal lengthwise and hang half, not hang half. You would have to compare cuts from exactly the same place on each half, like a loin chop taken 3" behind the last rib on each half, or a round steak cut the same from each hind leg.
You would have to use a different animal to compare hanging with the hide on half and off half, comparing cuts from the same place on each half.

Taste is subjective, unlike tenderness that can be measured using instruments. What tastes good one one person can be pretty raunchy to the next person.

Nice to see you on Peter...I always enjoy your posts.
Stag and elk are quite similar in that when they are rutting, they're NASTY. You do have to keep them clean when breaking them down in the field. I've killed rutting stag in New Zealand and Argentina (never your part of the world) and feel they pretty much are small elk in their behavior and the way a guy needs to take care of them.

As a side note, I had some backstop from the bull I killed in NZ that same evening and it was incredible. No aging whatsoever. It must have been how it was cooked I guess because we didn't do anything different as far as field care, as compared to the elk I kill here at home.

Thanks for the kind words..

As you probably know, the New Zealanders have an extensive commercial wild and farmed venison industry, and I believe the industry has come down on the side of hanging carcasses even if it does add to the cost.

The problem with the debate (as Rock Chuck alludes too|), is that there are so many variables..as stalkers we simply can't adopt one rigid approach to dealing with carcasses as might a slaughter house, but have to constantly change tactics to cope with different conditions plus the unexpected..

The other contentious debate over here is whether to wash, as in hose out, a carcass before storage, or trim and wipe..

I was always taught the trim and wipe approach was the best for carcass quality, but I know many commercial game dealers want the carcass washed...

There is a slaughter house in Colorado Springs that not only washes the carcass down, but they have some means of attaching a water line to major arteries and veins to pump iced water thru the carcass, chilling them down even faster. They process beef and bison

I just had some of the bull I killed 10/27/15, and that sucker is awesome! Tender and excellent flavor! The bull I killed last year was at least as good! Both were way mature 6x7 bulls. Cool them out as quickly as possible. Both last years and this years bulls I was only able to gut them and prop them open for the night, as I didn't have any game bags with me. Both bulls were good and cool the next morning. I then skinned and game bagged the quarters, packed them out with my horses and had them to the guy that cuts up our game. So this year's bull was shot on Tues. evening and to the cutter on Fri. We picked the packaged meat up on Mon.