Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Thawed Meat

Freezer in the garage was left open about a foot for 12-14 hours before I caught it. Moose/Caribou meat was thawed. Should have went through it and seen if the meat in the middle was still cold but didn't. The consensus seems to be throw it out but I read where wild game is different than processed beef and can be refrozen. Anyone else have this happen to them?

yep... as long as it is still cold, you are fine

Close the door ASAP and let it refreeze.

Or send it here.

Thanks, most of the meat was processed as burger/sausage in those 1 and 2 lb tube type bags.

Guess I'll take one out and re-thaw and give it a try. I'm only taking a small piece at first. I should make the person that left the door open try it, HA!

I dont care if its my deer or my home grown beef.


I aint throwing it out unless it starts to stink!

If you are not comfortable......pitch it.

A previous home had GFI outlets in the garage where I kept a freezer full of meat.The breakers tripped from time to time and we went through a couple of complete dethaws before discovering it. We refroze it (at least twice) and never had issues...

Another should be okay so long as it didn't have a chance to spoil. May change the texture as every time meat freezes more cells explode from ice crystal formation. Doubt you'd notice with ground meat Muscle cuts can seem a little "mushy," beef particularly, pork not so much. Dunno about venison but I'd guess it would hold up pretty well.

Freezer compressor surge on startup is hell on GFCIs.

I'll report back once I try some. Going to wait until some folks come back from leave first just in case. Thing that was strange is the freezer (less than a year old)wasn't running when I found the door open but worked fine once I closed it. Figured it would be going full bore, maybe a safety feature to prevent overload.

Dont know if Alaska has a commodity program or not but this might be a good time to trade some game meat for some govt cheese.......

The thread title would be a nickname for a friend's ex on those occasions when she put out.

It took happening twice before I got smart and replaced all the garage outlets!

Update, tried it twice over the last two days with no issues and it tasted fine. No change in consistency or smell and that meat was about as thawed out as it could get. Glad I didn't throw it out.

👍

I have had lot of deer and elk that froze solid right after I killed them. I took them home,thawed them out, processed it and froze them.I have been doing it for a long long time and I ain't dead or sick yet from it.