I had never heard of "thaw shortening" until I read this thread and am realizing lots of years later that is exactly what happened with a spike horn meat deer that I shot once in late December. The deer lived in an apple orchard and I was really looking forward to eating that one. One tough little critter that shouldn't have been. Thanks for the explanation.
Hanging deer here in the north is always hit or miss to have the right temperature without freezing them or getting too warm. When I worked summers in the packing house, the cattle were killed, skinned, gutted, washed, cut down the spine, partially cut through the torso, shrouded, weighed and hung in a temperature controlled cooler for a couple of weeks. If that works in the meat industry, it should work for game processing as well for helping to break down the meat for consumption.
One of the guys that I hunted with this year is an EMT and we got talking about muscle tissue breaking down over time. I thought that these guys just dealt with emergency medical issues and found out that isn't always the case. When the coroner shows up, they are by themselves and need help moving a body. The EMT's are the guys who get to help and I heard the story of them needing to cut the carpet out from under a guy to even pick him up due to the jelly decomposition of the muscle. More information than you probably wanted to read, but interesting what happens with muscle fiber.
