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

We've been soaking our deer in ice water and salt for years and I truly believe it provides the best meat. It draws a lot of the blood out turning the meat pink in color and there's no gamey taste. SOP has been placing the meat in a large cooler, filling just above the meat with cold water, dumping about 30lbs of ice on, then sprinkling approx 1/2lb of salt on. We drain and repeat every other day for about a week, then process. That process provides a much better taste than dry aging in a cooler IMO.

It works well on hogs as well and for a smelly boar you can add baking soda to the process, which will remove the smell and provide a great taste.

My Father-in-law does this so often for the local family's meat that he found a couple of old iron bath tubs and placed them near the skinning rack. He plumbed them, insulated the tubs, built a sheet metal base around them, and made some foam lids as well. He has a nice ice machine as well, so it's a pretty simple process to brine one around his place.

I also soak tenderloins in salt water in the fridge for a few days before cooking after a fresh kill.

I've heard the myth that wild game doesn't benefit from aging a bunch of times over the years...

Not only does most deer and elk meat benefit from aging, but gamebirds as well. Aside from meat science "shear tests," made with a sharp knife connected to a pressure gauge, we've proven to ourselves many times how much more tender wild game from Hungarian partridge to bull elk can be after aging.

All of this is explained in far more detail in Eileen's book SLICE OF THE WILD, a "cookbook" that details how to deal with big game from bullet to table.

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.

Some use salt some don't...what are the benefits?

R7RM...

I'm not quibbling here, but I have two problems with your post & process. I'd like some info back from you (or others) to clarify.

First issue: salt water doesn't "draw out blood". Salt (sodium chloride) in solution, depending on its concentration, can result in sodium ions perfusing into the meat and/or water diffusing out of the meat. Blood, by which most people mean red blood cells (RBC's) isn't "in" the meat at all... what blood you don't drain out of the carcass in the butchering process remains in the blood vessels. Myglobin, the molecule in muscle cells that gives it its red color, is likewise trapped in the muscle tissue for the most part because the molecule is far too large to pass through cell membranes.

The red coloring you see in the ice water around your meat is mostly extravasated blood that diffuses out of the exposed blood vessels of the carcass. It has no effect on the meat, positive or negative.

The effect of the salt water on your meat may be real, however, depending on the salt concentration in your water bath. If the concentration is less than 0.9%, the water in the bath will soak into the meat and soften it up some. If the concentration is greater than 0.9%, it will "suck" water out of the meat, which will make it firmer and possibly tougher. But if it's exactly 0.9%, there will be no net movement of water or salt, and your meat will simply benefit from aging.

It's my belief that using hypotonic saline solution (less than 0.9%) will enhance the tenderness and possibly flavor of old/tough/gamy meat. But I don't know, as I don't use ice water aging. Yet.

Which brings me to my second issue... what concentration of salt are you using? I want to try it on the next big hog I kill.

After a week in salted ice and water the blood is drawn out to the point it looks like armadillo meat, whiter than skinned chicken. Delish.

^^^^ +1, I'm with you !

Gut, Hang with skin on, clean with water vinegar solution, trim bloodshot areas & thoroughly clean with water vinegar (again).

5-7 days later, skin, wash with water vinegar solution again, break down, butcher to our "exacting" standards, vacuum pack & freeze (including trimmed "chunk" meat for later grinding into burger).

P.S.; Water alone breeds bacteria !

Sir, I honestly can't tell you any of the science behind the process, but I can tell you with certainty that it reduces the gamey flavor of the meat(At least my wife and I agree that it does). When I was much younger, we processed our own meat. That usually consisted of quartering game, placing the quarters in a refrigerator, then later either cutting the meat and freezing or freezing whole quarters and cutting when we thawed to cook. That meat was often dark red in color and always had a gamey flavor. I personally didn't mind the gamey flavor, but many people I knew didn't care for it at all. Approx 15-20 years back a man told me of the salt/ice water process, so I gave it a try and liked it so much that I continue to do it to each animal. I have to admit that I sometimes forego the salt depending on where I'm at, but I prefer to use it when available. I also have not computed the concentration either, I simply apply approx. 1/2lb to a large cooler(120-150qt with water/ice just above the meat to keep it submerged). The first couple of times you drain the water from the cooler, it definitely has a large enough blood content to make the water bright red, but after a few days the water is nearly clear when drained. The resulting meat does not have that dark red color except twd the core, its more of a dark pink color. On some smaller cuts it's pink all the way through, but on roast and such the meat will still be dark red at it's core. I can say that for me, it definitely impacts the taste of the meat by vastly reducing the gamey flavor. It also does not taste salty if that is a concern. So, as mentioned, I can't explain the science behind the process, but I can simply state that for our family this process provides a better tasting meat and I definitely do not feel it makes it tough.

I never would have believed the process would work on a smelly boar hog as the boars I've killed in the past and tried to eat had a terrible smell and taste. That changed about 8-10 years back when a fellow hunter told me that the combination of salt and baking soda added to the above process would remove the smell and taste from a boar's meat. We gave it a try on a 200lb boar, then smoked the entire pig for 24hrs. It was some of the best pork I've eaten to date and was every bit as good as farm raised pork to my taste buds.

Give it a try Doc, I can promise you it will not ruin the meat.

Doesn't the salt melt the ice? Also, what kind of salt are you using? Table salt, Kosher salt, Sea salt, Rock salt or doesn't it matter? Thanks.

So if I want my deer to be tasteless like boiled chicken..
Phouc that, I like deer meat.
We rinse after skinning, or wipe with vinegar water.
Then let it hang.
Would do the cooler thing I guess, with out pooled water
I don't like the grey look of soaked meat

Doesn't the salt melt the ice? Also, what kind of salt are you using? Table salt, Kosher salt, Sea salt, Rock salt or doesn't it matter? Thanks.