Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How to tell meat went bad???

I'd eat Tinman's meat anytime.....

Cooling too fast will cause the fibers to contract too fast, making the meat tougher. Let it cool more slowly until it goes into rigor. I've done the gutless method 8 times, 6 with elk, 2 with moose. All 8 were the toughest animals I've ever eaten, all because the meat was removed from the bone and cooled too fast before going into rigor.

Here's good article about cold shortening and removing the meat from the bone before it goes into rigor: TENDER MEAT

I know you would, along with everyone else.

It's a gift.

That's too bad on her first elk but at least you recovered it and salvaged most of the meat. I had a similar experience this year with a bull I shot near the end of legal shooting light. We found him the next morning and while it was down around 40 that night some of the meat spoiled. I took it to a processer since I was hunting with an outfitter and asked them to check for spoilage. They told me I lost about 15% of the meat. Most of it from the hind quarters and some from the neck. I had some when I got home and thought it was fine but my son called me a few days after I gave him some and said one package of round steaks smelled funny so he tossed it. I found another bad package last weekend so that's something you might run into. I'm guessing it's hard to get all the slightly spoiled or tainted meat cut out during the butchering process.

No. And it's an eyebrow raiser in this instance.

I honestly think being in an airtight cooler will cause an off smell into its own right.

For example take a whiff of meat immediately after taking it out of the cello wrap. Often a sulfuric rotten egg smell can be detected.

Look at the meat closely as you slice it for discoloration, I hope it turns out OK.......best of luck.

On a side note according to Steven Ambrose literature about Lewis and Clark their Christmas dinner was putrid elk meat.

Giving the meat air flow really helps reduce anaerobic bacterial spoilage of meat ........even more so than temperature drop in my experience.

There's an interesting line between fine aged meat and spoiled flesh. I like walking along that line. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I've got a piece of backstrap dry aging for Xmas right now.

I would pay attention to Rock Chuck's posts. He has it nailed, about several things, including the fact that the front end of an elk (especially a bull) will "sour" quicker than the rear end within the first 12-24 hours. This is because the front end is actually thicker through the shoulders, retaining more heat.

There are various ways to deal with this, including skinning out the top of the shoulders, even if you don't want to skin out the entire elk. One of my elk-hunting mentors cut off the neck in front of the shoulders, where the neck is thickest.

This spoilage is often called "bone sour," because the souring is popularly linked to the heavier bones. Instead it's heat not leaving the meat quickly enough to prevent/suppress immediate bacterial action. It can easily be smelled--and even seen as different color--in meat that didn't initially cool sufficiently; unless you have no sense of smell there's no need to cook any to determine if it happens. (Meat that starts spoiling after a few days is another thing.)

Ice or snow doesn't necessarily prevent this, if there's little or no air circulation. A couple of novice elk hunters I know once killed a bull and, after field-dressing, packed snow around the carcass inside and out. It acted as insulation, and the entire elk soured during the 12-hour drive back to their home town.

Circulation of cool air around the entire, opened-up carcass does a far better job, even if the hide's left on. I once killed a 5-point bull on opening day of bow season here in Montana, on a ranch owned by a friend. The afternoon high had been 65-70 degrees, but I killed the bull just at dusk, where we could load it into a pickup. All we did was the standard field-dressing, then hoisted the elk up in the air with the ranch's front-end loader and left it hang there overnight.

We didn't skin the bull, since the predicted low was around 40 degrees. We skinned and quartered it the next day, putting the skinned quarters in a walk-in cooler. It was perhaps the best-tasting elk my wife and I have ever taken.

Clostridium spores are sequestered in the muscle and other tissues.

When blood flow stops, oxygen stops, immunity stops, and bone sour begins.

Leaving an animal overnight...especially one with a rumen, that is dead, is not conducive to gourmet meat.

I’m not criticizing the OP, but a heart shot elk usually doesn’t usually go very far. Sheit happens....

There's a couple topics like this, so I will give more detail to what happened, what we found etc.

Gun: 7MM-08 shooting off the shelf 139g Interlocks from Hornady.
Shot distance: about 100 yards.
At the shot, the cow froze, among the rest of them. This prevented an immediate follow up as neither my wife nor I could 100% figure out which cow it was.
After a few seconds the herd spun 180 degrees and went back the way they came from, except one cow.
that cow, all I could see via binoculars was one rear leg angled at about 45 degrees like she was struggling to stand. Told my wife to shoot again.
She did, after moving to get an opening and missed (she tried an offhand shot, which was a mistake)
cow SLOWLY walked off about 15 yards and briefly stood there, all either of us could see was the butt end, Wife tried moving for an open angle and cow walked off.
Blood at shot site was great, in a wide splatter pattern so I figured at least the bullet went through.
Where she walked off across snow was EASY to follow. Woods where about 25% snow 75% pine needles as temps had been 70 during the day.
Tracked for about an hour until dark, about 300 yards according to the OnX tracker. Couldn't fine next blood in failing light, I was thinking liver hit so we pulled out
First light, tracked another 250-300 yards (OnX track was not a straight line as we were doing circles looking for blood). Found cow around 9 AM
Entry side bullet hole was seemingly perfect in the armpit creast/shoulder blade, about 1/4 to 1/3 up the body, exit side about 4 inches back from armpit crease/shoulder blade

After doing gutless and bagging the meat, when pulling the inner loins I noticed zero blood in the back of the body cavity and the diaphram was in tact. so I sliced her open and went through the diaphragm. The chest cavity was a bloody mess, here's what I found:

- Entry side lung was a destroyed mess of bloody jelly
- Exit side lung was mostly in tact, I pulled it out and it was hit, the back edge was a ragged mess, but the majority of the lung looked fine.
- I couldn't find anything of the heart.
- liver and guts and diaphragm 100% intact

Did I simply not find the heart and it was essentially a single lung hit? Possible, it would explain how she went that far, but I couldn't find it.

Not having a functional heart may also explain the spotty blood trail, no pump working so no good blood flow. Neither entry or exit hole looked plugged, in fact when I leaned on the chest to move around the cow, you could clearly hear air escaping.

Bottom line: wife got her first elk and the vast majority of the meat is in the freezer, the fried tenderloin for dinner last night was DELICIOUS.

We did have a "lessons learned" for next year:
- She did move to find her first shot, that was a lesson learned from not getting a shot the day prior.
- She should have moved faster to get a second shot
- She should not have taken an off hand shot, but moved more to get a solid rest. I believe a second bullet in the chest would have put that cow down right there (and given us a downhill pack to the truck)

I think we made the right move pulling out. We weren't sure of the shot, couldn't find blood and I was concerned about jumping her. Even in full daylight it took us close to 2 hours to find her. The blood trail had gotten pretty weak and on pine needles in the dark we wouldn't have found her.

So there ya have it, did I miss the heart during the autopsy? Possible, but it's a big thing in a mostly empty chest at that point, could have missed it, but I looked.

I have a picture that shows the entry hole, but don't have an on line picture place so can't link to it

I think you nailed it. You missed the heart in the chest cavity.

139 grain 7 mm bullet would not be my choice in a cup and core type bullet. I tried em, in the 7 mm 08... not too impressed. ( 140 NP)

I am glad you find the meat delicious!


Timber Runner....could you describe your dry ageing techniques?
I am super interested please!

Thanks John

It would be unusual for a elk to go that far with a heart destroyed. It would be unusual for a heart to to be so destroyed that you could find nothing of it. I think your thought about just not finding it is probably correct. I'm also wondering about what the actual distance the elk traveled was, considering your track on OnX includes circling looking for sign. Which that would seem like a pretty normal thing to do when trying to follow a trail.

All that said elk are tough and can do some amazing things. And halting the tracking due to getting dark and not wanting to continue to bump a wounded animal is also a very reasonable decision, that lots of hunters make every year.

And getting follow up shots, especially on a cow in a herd, can also be tough.

It's cool that you didn't give up, found the elk, and that most of your meat is good.

Correct. People on these boards time and time again say to keep pushing a wounded critter, either to "run it out of blood" or for whatever other reason. I completely disagree, especially if you don't have the warm and fuzzy about the shot. It's a great way to just push her down into a hell hole or worse, onto private.

As far as a critter traveling 600 yards: who knows...I'll agree it is pretty much impossible if a critter's heart is blown to bits. I have seen one doe antelope run about that far, if not further while blowing chunks of lung the size of a quarter out of her nostrils and the entry wound. She still needed a finisher once I spotted her again. I swear she lost enough lung to fill a couple coffee cans. I do not remember if that bullet exited or not but the whole deal was an eye opener.

Thanks for the insight into the aging of meat, gentlemen. I've never had any problems, but I've never really understood everything involved, either. Circumstances have often dictated how long I've hung meat, and the temperature during the hanging and aging. This has been a very informative thread for me.

Bob
I’m happy to see you guys recovered the elk and most of the meat is edible. I do agree that if only 1 shot was fired and you clearly saw lungs with holes in them then I doubt the heart was hit and completely destroyed but strange things do happen.
Have you tried any other bullets in the 7-08? The interlocks aren’t high on the list of a premium bullet for me personally. I’d recommend giving the 140 Accubonds a try. If you handload then there are multiple options available better than interlocks.

Couple answers:

The first night of 300 yards is pretty accurate. The second "leg" is much more circling and it's a guess just looking at the map.

805, I don't handload. The interlocks have worked well and honestly I can't argue with bullet performance here either. We do have a box of 140 accubonds from Federal I believe. May swap her back to those. She's taken a big mulie buck, 2 antelope and now the elk with the interlocs.

I've never had issue with vanilla Interlocks. They're called "The Poor Man's Partition" for a reason. They got used around here quite a bit 15-20 years ago.

Really simple. Use whole cuts, I'm currently dry aging a 8 inch piece of elk tenderloin but have done it with whole cuts of beef.

Put on wire rack over a metal sheet pan (in case it drips) and put on bottoms shelf of cold refrigerator. And that's it. Let it rest. The recommended Temps are under 35-36 degrees. I do it in my beer fridge which is cold.

Some wrap in cheesecloth, I don't do any of that.

On the day you eat, you need to trim the outside "rind" that has form as the meat has dried. This is important in considering which cut to choose, because you will lose 20% of weight or so through dessication and trimming the rind. There maybe a little white mold. That won't hurt you. Trim it off. Black is supposed to be bad, I've never seen black, only white.

For first timers, try 3-4 weeks. I don't think there's much change until you hit 3 weeks, so I wouldn't mess with it for less than that.

At 3-4 weeks, there will be some enzymatic breakdown, and some concentration of flavors but won't be so broken down. I like pushing it to 50+ days.

Just requires a little preparation.

Bob, glad the meat was mostly recovered. Enjoy.