Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Freezer burn?

I have a question, initiated because of a thread in the deer hunting forum about butchering deer. Several of the people who posted there indicated that they won't use just plain butcher paper to wrap their meat. If they do use butcher paper, they wrap the meat first in Saran wrap or something simlar; others use ziplock bags or vacuum seal their meat.

My wife and I normally fill up at least one 15-cubic foot freezer with game meat each year. In fact, we have three 15-cubic footers: one for Eileen's special stuff to use in her cooking writing, one for this season's meat, and one for the meat we'll eat through the year. This last freezer usually contains meat at least one year old, and sometimes 2-3 years old.

We do use a vaccum sealer on gamebirds and fish, freezing them before sealing, which prevents the problems inherent to too much moisture. We've found a vacuum sealer to work great for this purpose.

But we wrap big game meat in butcher paper only, wrapping tightly and using enough paper so there's a double layer over every part of the package. Even with 3-year-old packages we never have a problem with freezing burn--yet a lot of the people on the bucthering thread talked about freezer-burn when using butcher paper.

Are we just lucky? I can't imagine the expense, let alone the time, necessary to vaccuum seal or Saran wrap or ziplock several big game animals every year. That's one reason we use butcher paper. The other reason is that it's always worked fine.

So what are your experiences?

John,

We use both the vaccuum sealer thingy and butcher paper. Most of the times I am doing the work and I just wrap it. I would prefer to double wrap (2 sheets) but often I don't.

I find that with single wraping and with some double wrapping I can't get much more than a year out of the meat b4 some freezer burn begins to creep in.

Each Sept I go thru and clean out the freezer, both by giving away any extra meat and by actually cleaning it out. So I most likely can't be much help on this one.

Best to you and E for a super 2009!

Dober

As a kid and into my teens, my Dad always used butcher paper.We always lost some meat to freezer burn, esp. if it was in the freezer much over a year.So he switched to Ziploc bags.Thats all I use for big game now.Fish gets vacuum sealed.I've had stuff in the freezer for a couple years with no freezer burn.Small game and game birds are usually cooked by me or family shortly after harvest, so we don't usually freeze them.If I do, then I use Ziploc bags.My wife doesn't eat any of the small game, so when I harvest it a lot goes to friends or family.

As far as expense, I only kill 3 or so deer a year, so its not really that big of a deal.If I lived where you do, and could hunt elk, etc., then cost would probably come into play.

John,

Funny you should ask. A couple of weeks ago, we de-frosted/cleaned/organized our deep freeze, during what I thought was a cold snap(now it really is a cold snap!) While doing so, I found a couple packages of MT pronghorn steaks from last Sept, that were somehow missed. They were just well wrapped in butcher paper; no Saran Wrap, and were in perfect condition. Cooked them up for dinner, last Sunday, and they further reenforced the notion that antelope is one of our absolute favorite game meats...they tasted great!

While I personally vacuum most everything we process at home, it ain't the only way to fly. I find it is superior for fish and fowl, but plain old butcher paper works great on meat. Vacuum packed meat is handy, when taking some game on hunting/camping trips, the vacuum bags don't leak blood all over the cooler.

Jeff

Mr. Mule Deer;
We use whatever commercial grade paper we can buy off of the folks who made our sausage, I just checked the 2 rolls in the pantry and the tags says �McNairn Poly Paper�.

The meat is wrapped in that paper as you described. Our custom is to label each package with the animal, year and shooter, as part of our family tradition is to thank whoever pulled the trigger for supper. They also get a double vote if we come to an impasse on what the meat is being made into for that meal.

On a good year like this was, the girls and I have a large (20cu�?) freezer pretty packed and sometimes packages get shuffled to the bottom accidentally. I recall finding a moose roast that was 3 years old that had no freezer burn at all and tasted no different than when it was in for 6 months. Packages of deer meat sometimes end up being in there for at least a year and a half with no apparent negative result that we can see.

Anyway, sorry for being longwinded as usual, but to answer your question, our experience seems to be the same as yours with regard to freezer burn.

I should also note that while I resemble a coyote in what table fair I�ll attempt to consume, my wife and our girls are much less adventurous eaters. If freezer burn was detected, the cook for half the week- me � would be "informed".

Happy New Year to you and yours John,
Dwayne

IMHO, it's all in the "wrap," meaning if there's no air gaps between meat and paper, wrap, or bag, it probably doesn't matter much which method's used. I feel I can get fewer gaps using plastic wrap and then freezer paper so that's what I do. May not be any truth to it, but it makes me sleep better at night.

I'll have to check out that other thread.

I wrap mine in plastic wrap and then butcher paper. I have not had any problems, including meat that was 2-3 years old. However, that's about the only way I've ever done it, so I don't have much to compare it to.

I do know that a vacuum sealer is really nice for fish, but it is a ton of work.

In my limited wraping experience I have gone to plastic wrap in conjunction with freezer paper. In hind sight I think the plastic is covering my thriftyness of paper useage ( not double coverage)and poor folds on ends. Used to use paper only and did have some packages that showed no freezer burn after 2-3 years. Makes a person wander if its all in the wrapping or maybe where in the freezer it located.

I have been using pint and quart plastic bags that require a twist tie to close for years (I just bought 3000 more) then wrap in frezzer paper. dYou can remove the air better with these than with zip locks. Works for me.

I put my fish in plastic containers filled with water. They come out still quivering, well fresh anyhow.

Its all about removing the air--more than what it is in.

If small game gets a little old or some frezzer burn, I boil it in water till tender, salt and pepper to taste and eat it like cold chicken. Actually that is now my prefered method for squirrels now.

If large game meat gets a little old or frezzer burnt, it goes into the crock pot with an onion and a can of cream of mushroom soup.

Don't throw much out around here and the dog only got table scraps--currently no dog, so no table scraps.
JMHO
Tim

We have used the Saran wrap with butcher paper over it for several years. I think as others have mentioned, it is easier to get a good seal with it.

The meat never used to last a season but the kids are grown now and I get to hunt more.

Thanks to all for your answers.

One thing I thought of after my first post was that we use chest freezers for our daily eatin' meat. These stay colder when opened, because the cold air stays in there, instead of falling out and being replaced by moister, warm air, which is what happens with upright freezers. Along with meat surfaces that aren't right against whatever wrapping is used, moisture causes freezer burn, because the moisture turns into ice on the surface of the frozen meat.

Our one upright freezer--the one for Eileen's special stuff--doesn't get opened nearly as often. Plus, she often does wrap the stuff that goes in there with Saran wrap AND burher paper, or vacuum seals it, because she knows it might have to last longer.

I know a lot of people prefer upright freezers for the convenince of finding stuff (which is why Eileen bought hers) but they aren't as good for keeping stuff long-term.

MD,
I'm like you, I use nothing but freezer wrap, and have had game meat stay perfectly fine for up to 3 years with no adverse effects. I agree that there is a lot to be said about the wrapping technique to make sure that the meat is tightly wrapped with no air pockets inside.

What he said.
I think you have to address what "feezer burn" is in order to come up with a deterent for it. My belief is that it's caused from air next to the meat drying the meat out. If you put a barrier between the meat and the air, you won't have freezer burn. Like using Chap Stick on your lips in the cold.
We bone our meat, so there are no protrusions to allow air pockets next to the meat, then use clingwrap and then freezer paper, and it doesn't burn. I've only seen meat freezer burn when it had air next to it.

Frostfree freezers have always had a reputation for causing meat to freezer burn more than conventional non-frostfree freezers, because they replace the air in the freezer regularly. Frostfree freezers were developed to keep people from having to de-ice their freezers, but they have the drawback of drying things out.

MD,
My parents and I have been doing just as you do for well over the 35 years that I can remember with very little freezer burn ever. Besides removing as much air when you wrap as others have stated, I think making sure you have at least two layers of paper over all of the meat is the key. The only time I've ever had a problem is when we've gotten sloppy with the wrapping and only covered portions of the package with just one layer of paper. One other thing that I've always wondered about that could have an effect is whether or not your freezer is "Frost-free" or not. The frostless freezers act as dehumidifiers (I think) and might effect how much freezer burn you get.
Test

Bulletbutt,

Exactly right on both counts. Freezer burn is indeed caused by meat contacting air. We do the same thing with our meat: bone it out so it can be wrapped smoothly and tightly.

Frost-free freezers will make freezer-burn even worse. This is part of the reason why the freezer compartment in most modern refrigerators is a bad place to store frozen meat. Not only are they commonly frost-free, but they're not nearly as cold as real freezer. Plus the air falls out of them when they're opened.

All of our big freezers are NOT frost-free.

One story we tel occasionally is how we once found a package of cow elk steak that somehow had hidden itself in our freezer for NINE years. (How it did that is something of a mystery.) It had a couple touches of freezer burn, maybe a cubic inch all together at the corners, but just cut those off and cooked it. It was fine....

Well, I put down a total of 14 animals this year, all of which I cut and wrapped myself. (I consider the meat cutting part of the hunting process and have only had a few animals commercially processed over the years all due to warm weather considerations.)I've been doing this for twenty years or so and average about 10 animals a years.

The above statement was so you would realize that I have some experience in processing wild game and I'm not just BSing.

Paper wrap on cut meat: I'm just not very good at it and so despite years of struggle and practice I went to vaccume sealing all my cut meat.I found that it was quicker for me to vaccume seal the meat. I also cook all my wild game as roasts or stews, as such I leave the meat in as large a piece as possible and this is generally irregular in shape and difficult to wrap without air gaps. I have friends that also process their own and wrap the meat and have mixed success with wrap. Tecnique seems to be everything.

Paper wrap in ground meat: I grind and make my own sausage. I wrap the one pound meat balls in plastic wrap and then wrap them in coated paper. This has prevented freezer burn even after several years in some cases. I think with ground meat you are able to get an air tight fit with the plastic and if you use good technique with the paper you have a very tough, air tight little package.

The wrapping technique that I use for ground meat and my friends use for all their cuts is the one on the back of the Reynolds butcher paper wrap box. In short, roll the paper down tight, and fold the remaining ends tight and tape. I've seen other folding patterns and tried a few but the one on the package seems to work the best. (Though not as good as vaccume sealing for irregular cuts.)

I buy or scrounge a roll of those bags you get in the produce section of the grocery store, and put all the meat in that, forcing all the air out of the plastic bag before twisting the top closed, then wrap it up good in freezer paper. We have good results with that on all our moose meat and venison. Game birds go in plastic freezer bags, but they usually get devoured pretty soon after harvest.

Been doing that for years, but we usually eat through a moose in a year, or several deer. Anything left over when the next years game is processed get thawed and made into sausages.

First off, Happy New Year to all, and all the very best everyone in the new year.

Mule Deer,

My experience has been similar to yours. Most of the game meat in my freezer's are wrapped in brown paper and most of the time there has been no freezer burn.

My game meat is sometimes commercially done and sometimes I do it, it depends on how my year is going wrt work.

I think someone hit it on the head in this thread regarding no airspace around the meat. I will take extra care with that in the future.

This may have been said already, so forgive me if that's the case. The easy way I have found to avoid freezer burn? Go to your local grocery and buy a roll of the plastic bags they use in the produce / bulk foods section. Meat goes into one of those, then butcher paper.

I have had meat in a freezer for 4-5 years come out in the same condition as when it went in. And the roll of bags are a lot cheaper than a vacuum sealer!

I appear to be in the minority here, because I find vacuum sealing meat and fish to be much easier and faster than wrapping it. I generally get at least two uses out of each bag, sometimes three -- on game meat. Fish taints the bags and they can't be cleaned to suit me, so fish bags only get one use. I don't mind the cost of the bags, because I like the result so much. I have eaten meat as old as six years without a problem.

I bought my Tilia Foodsaver Pro at Cabela's in 1992 -- when that could only mean I had gone to Sidney. Nebraska . I have run several truckloads of game and birds and boatloads of salmon, halibut and rockfish through it since then, and it's still working fine. Foodsavers were made in Italy in those days; they are made in China now. If you want the original Italian-made vacuum sealer -- buy a Vac-Magic, sources for which you can find with an Internet search. The Italians know a thing or two about food, and their food-handling equipment is among the best in the world.

My wife prefers upright freezers; I prefer chest freezers. So we have one of each . The fish and game lives in mine.

Dennis