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I agree with roundoak. And Mule deer...gutless is cool but I would rather keep meat on bone at least overnight and preferably at least 24 hours

Most all the elk we kill are not in a spot anyone wants to carry bone. The elk immediately get boned out, bagged up and hung as the pack out begins.

That said big bulls or raghorns we have never had a tough one.

I shot a doe in warm weather and worried it would rot hanging outside. I didn’t have a refrigerator I could have used to breakdown the animal before butchering. The retired butcher who offered to cut up my deer told me to leave the meat open 24 hours in the refrigerator before wrapping and freezing. Something about gases building up and if I wrapped it warm it would sour the taste. That doe was butchered within a couple hours of me killing it and tasted great.

Oh I know how to do it. Just choose not to. I used to butcher my own deer when I was in school and would like to again just simply don’t have the time to do it properly

GRF,

The scientific term for what can sometimes toughen boned meat is "shortening," because the muscle cells actually contract when disconnected from the bones. This can also happen even when left on the bone, if the meat cools down too quickly, especially when it goes from warm to freezing in a few hours, which these days is called "thaw shortening." I had this happen to an eating-size mule deer buck here in Montana one Thanksgiving. We hung the field-dressed carcass on a corral gate to cool overnight, and the temperature dropped below zero. The toughest deer I've ever taken! Even hanging the carcass for several days after it thawed didn't tenderize the meat much.

The warm-meat problem is due to rigor mortis, which is also essentially a muscle contraction. If the muscles start to go into rigor before the boning occurs, then the meat can toughen due to the contraction. Oddly enough, this is more likely to happen in warmer weather--which is when many hunters bone out animals, to "cool 'em down." Warm temperatures accelerate the chemical process of rigor, while cooler temperatures slow it down.

The other factor, of course, is the tenderness of the individual animal. Wild animals are not a consistent "product," like domestic meat sold in stores. They vary considerably in age and condition, and younger animals have less of what is called "organized collagen," the protein fiber that makes meat tougher--which is broken down during the chemical process of "hanging" game. Some species develop relatively little organized collagen even as they grow older, such as pronghorns, so "shortening" doesn't affect their meat as much. In fact we've boned out quite a few freshly-killed antelope with no problems.

Other animals can be affected when boned out, depending on their age and how far rigor mortis has progressed. It's better to bone them before rigor even starts, or after it has dissipated--which normally takes at least a day, though again, temperature affects the chemical process.

As a matter of fact, we've been timing the rigor-mortis process with a mule deer doe I took last week, because my wife Eileen writes game cookbooks for most of her living, and wanted to get some precise results. So we put a thermometer out in the garage, and checked the doe (an older, bigger one) periodically, starting two hours after it was killed. Eileen will probably write it up for our on-line magazine, RIFLE LOONY NEWS. We'll probably take one or two more deer this season, and will repeat the "experiment" on them.

We've started doing gutless, did so on 4 antelope, one whitetail was gutted and dragged, once home skinned and taken apart (NOT boned).

In all 5 animals they then went into a cooler with frozen bottles of water, which where rotated about every 24 hours to keep frozen jugs in there. meat never froze, but stayed nice and chilled.

the ONLY tough piece we've had is one set of tenderloins, which were removed as soon as we got it home (the deer) and eaten that night. The rest have ALL been some of the most tender meat we've had. This included tenderloins removed in the field and put in the fridge for a few days.

We've concluded from this (this process is VERY different than past years where we had a MAX of 24 hours til they hit the freezer), that this several days in a cooler , but on the bone (well backstraps, tenderloins and other scrap not on the bone) is this is results in much more tender meat.

On bone/off bone doesn't really matter, age it at a fairly steady temp just above freezing. We've been doing 4-5 days.

I have read that once it freezes, forget it, the aging after freezing is useless.

Years ago when were spitting the spine with two axes or a saw, the backstraps were the most tender part of an elk.Now with the gutless method, the backstrap gets stripped out at the time of field dressing and it has usually turned into the toughest part of the animal, unless I age it in a walk in cooler for two weeks at bout 38 degrees

I was a little worried about the bull I shot a couple weeks ago in CO. He was the stinkingest elk I’ve ever had the pleasure of dressing, smelled like pee badly. We peeled his hide approximately an hour after he hit the deck and gutless quartered him. We sacked all the quarters and loose meat in cotton game bags and hung it on the meat pole. It hung for 7 days in camp, teens to twenties at night and 40’s to 60 during the day but always in the shade. When we got home I put it all in an old CocaCola refrigerator we kept when Dad got out of the store business for another 5 days until I had it all processed.

Thankfully it has been outstanding. No smell or gaminess and the steaks cut from the back straps are fork tender.

John; thank you so very much for your detailed and informative answer.
GRF

Here's a local guy that can clean a deer in under 2 minutes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLXJ5hUeFYk#action=share

Gutless and straight into a pack due to the nature of the hunting I do here. Depending on the distance/time/weather the meat may come off the bones or not. I've never noticed a difference in taste....granted I'm not very picky nor are my ravenous kids.

Y’all wouldn’t believe how many yups haul their whole deer into processors in the Texas heat around here. SUV’s, cars, etc, with tailgaters. Then bitch about how venison is “gamey”. Makes me sick.

Mine hit the ground, then into the cooler within an hour.

On deer I ream around the anus and tie off the gut. Then open the skin and mussel from the bottom of the sternum to the pelvis. Then split the sternum, cut the windpipe, cut the diaphragm, and remove all the innards at once.

There is a problem with old dogs and new tricks, but this works for me.

I played this game as a yunkster. 'Ream around the Rosie'..... pocket fulla posie....

Rosie Palm?

Other than splitting the sternum, when I field dress, that's it exactly! Takes about 10 minutes and sticking my arm up past the diaphram.