Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Aging Venison on Ice

Guys, my garage fridge died and I shot a buck. Have ice and a cooler . Question is ; put the quarters in plastic bags or directly on ice? Our temps are unseasonably warm so no hanging possible.

I usually quarter the deer and put in large ice chest. I drain the water from the cooler nearly everyday and add Ice as needed until the next weekend when I have time to process the meat. I don't get hung up on the meat touching the ice or setting in some water. Since starting to do this to my deer, it has made a big difference in how the deer taste (in a good way).

No plastic bags. Freeze water bottles for the bottom and lay the meat on top. The ice will last longer and the meat will stay dry.

Agree being directly on the ice matters not.

My hunting buddy does it every year. I think it's ok as long as there is ice above and below the meat, actual contact with bagged ice. We keep the meat wrapped in plastic so that it is not actually touching the ice but has two layers of plastic in between. Leave the drain plug out. Water isn't going to help anything.

The water isn’t going to hurt anything either.

It works well. A lot of the blood will seep out and make the meat better. I do it all the time. Sometimes I put it in an extra fridge for a few days, sometimes in a cooler, and sometimes straight into the freezer. It all works. Water on the meat does not matter for short term, but I would not leave it that way for too long. No big deal. Just keep it drained. It helps to set something in the bottom of the cooler to keep the meat up off the bottom.

You could also butcher and package the meat first and then age it for another week or more in coolers or in a fridge. Ive done this several times and its a good option as well depending on circumstances.

The cooler thing is my standard procedure for handling venison at home. Skin and quarter, get it on ice and cut, wrap and freeze at my leisure.

If you knew how long commecial beef hung before you buy it, you'd stop worrying.

I used to hang mine. After I tried the cooler method 20 years ago I have never turned back. The ice water drains all the blood out of the meat. I drain it a couple of times a day, and begin to process the quarters and loins after 3-4 days. Much easier and better taste to meat.

Back when we were collecting deer year round, we did this with the occasional animal in the summer that the usual suspects (nursing home, the county jail, etc,) didn't want. Enjoyed a lot of venison aged that way!

if you can get some of the "YETI ICE" or dry ice, put it on the bottom and the put a layer of ice on top, and it will keep your other ice well preserved. if you put either one of those on the top layer, it might freeze all out meat...

The dry ice will freeze the meat no matter if the ice is on top or not.

Thanks, so the consensus is meat directly on the ice? Not inside of plastic?

We do it for about 3 days draining water and adding ice if needed.

When cutting your hands get so cold that you have to take breaks from time to time just to warm up.

The meat tastes darn good.

I used to hunt in a hunting camp where they'd take a doe specifically to be made into deer sausage. All of the meat was cut into stew meat sized chunks and put into a cooler full of ice water to which was added a couple of pounds of salt. The meat was transported to the butcher in the cooler for processing into sausage. Made some of the best tasting deer sausage I've ever had.

How big is your cooler? Use a big cooler an a lot of ice and you could go either way.

I haven't been in your situation but if I was, I'd put 40-60 pounds of ice in a 120 quart cooler. put the boned out buck on that and layer another 20-40 pounds of ice and check it every couple days.

I use plastic bags in the fridge, but only to avoid making a mess on the bottom of the fridge,

On the advice of a lady hog hunter, we started putting the stinky smelly boar hog meat over ice and salt. Took the gamey taste out of the meat. So, we tried it on a smelly buck I recently shot. Gamey taste gone. I wish I’d known this decades ago.

I use a large 120qt cooler filled 1/2 to 2/3 full of ice. I place the dry meat in aluminum trays, the disposable ones like lasagna comes in, and then place the trays in the cooler. However, I flip the meat over every day as the meat will spoil on the bottom if you don't. I keep the cooler in my garage. I have aged meat as long as 9 days this way. I'm sure you can go longer. This has worked well for me in our warm fall seasons.

I soak a lot of our deer in big coolers full of ice, water and salt.

I don't drain any water out of the brine for nearly a week before we process.

Clean meat with almost no smell.