Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Using Marine Coolers to age deer.

A few years back I read a blurb in, I believe, Field and Stream that suggested aging deer in large marine coolers with frozen milk jugs for ice. I think I was at the doctors office when I read the item so I'm a little sketchy on the details.

It seems like you bagged the deer to keep them from getting wet. I can't remember the size of the coolers. It just seemed like a great way to get deer home from hunts a couple of three days driving from your home. I'd appreciate if anyone had any thoughts on this.

I know this will be greeted with howls of derision, but here goes anyway.

I have not aged wild four legged game every since I learned the reason for ageing meat. That reason being, wild game is not grain fed.

Always keep the meat cool until you can cut and wrap. That goes without saying or should.

Get the guts out and (the wind pipe), get the head hide and legs off and quarter. Wrap to keep it clean and head for your method of cooling.

I just know that folks will swear you need to age wild meat. I've done it both ways. Until a wild game butcher explained the facts of life to me. I also found the same information in a book put out by Winchester press on wild game preparation years later.

What hanging wild game does for you, is dry out meat. Meat is better not as jerky, but full of juice.

This is not exactly a howl of derision, but our time-proven method of hanging bull moose quarters produces a superior product. We clean up the quarters and hang them in a near-freezing environment until the outside crusts over and the meat is beginning to soften up. This is generally 10-14 days. Even round steaks are tender.

Never hung deer, as we generally hunted the high country and boned them out on the spot, and backpacked the meat out. However, I have seen many deer hung whole, especially on commercial fishing boats

How do you fish for deer? miles

Swimmers -- tackle normally used is a .223 ---

more howls of derision, maybe

we do the ice chest thing with deer this way: fill ice chest 2/3-3/4 full with ice--get machine ice, frozen milk jugs won't work

dress deer and spread neck, shoulders, straps, tenders and hams on the ice--no need for any bags on the meat

cover deer parts w/ ice 'til ice chest is full--close the lid, open the drain plug and elevate the other end w/ 2X4 or whatever
so it will drain

we figure 5 to 8 days in the ice chest before our deer goes to the butcher to be cube steak, sausage etc. and check daily to see if ice needs to be added to keep the ice chest full

not likely to age deer this way, but it does seem to wash out blood and definitely results in better venison, IMO

Exactly how we do it....only 3-4 days and then process.

Large cooler method here too. I wrap the quarters in plastic bags to keep water off the meat. Last year we used the ice machine at the hotel (which had very soft *read ~30 degree* ice). I was able to let 4 days pass before I was out of ice. After that I butcher.

Didn't the other hotel guests complain about the dead deer in the ice machine?

Thanks everyone. I had one more question. What sized ice chests are you guys using?

I use 120 quart.

I bone out my deer in the field. The backstraps are usually eaten fresh. The meat from the hams and shoulders goes into a cooler small enough to fit in the garage fridge. I wash it good, cover with ice water, close the lid, and leave in the fridge with the meat right in the water. The water is changed each day for three to four days. Then it is ready to grind for burger or sausage. Good luck.

I find it really interesting that some of you put the meat in plastic, and others put it right into the ice/water.