Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Tough Elk meat....?

Had some elk backstrap tonight. Taste was Great, but it was pretty tough and chewy. Will marinades break down the meat some or should I go nuts and use a tenderizing hammer.?

What do you guys do to make it tender..? Or can you..?

Hammer or crock pot

Another thing you can do is let the next piece of backstrap sit in the refrigerator for a few days after it thaws out.

Contrary to what many people believe, meat will still "age" after it's been frozen and thawed.

Just curious: Did you let the elk age some after killing it?

We haven't been lucky enough for an elk ever... but no deer that I touch goes less than 7 full days on ice in a cooler, and some get to go almost 10-12 days or so depending... MUCH better meat in the end.

Elk burger....Pretty tough to beat. Or run the steaks through a cuber.

Gotta ask if you overcooked it, or if it was sliced other than perpendicular to the grain of the meat?

Yep if it don't get ran through the grinder it gets ran through the cuber

I am on the same quest as you are. The backstaps from my bull taste ok but are tough, even grilling it rare. Marinating helped some, but was not what I hoped for. No doubt, being an older bull in rut dosen't help but I am thinking about sticking the rest in the Crockpot. A mallet will help and maybe a little pan-frying but I am curious to see what others say.

i put all my backstraps thru a tenderizer (cuber). i cut the tenderloin into small steaks for the grill. imm, if you need to use a hammer, one might as well just skip that step and go straight to the tenderizer. ymmv.

Try slow cooking in a crock pot.

A Pressure cooker works great on tough meat!

I thought mine was going to be pretty tough a he was a older bull and prolly frozen solid 4-5 hours after I shot him. It was 24 below when we were skinning, and the hide was freezing as we took it off. Wind was up pretty good all night and by morning he was hard as glass. But the meat so far has been pretty good. We do let it thaw a few days in the fridge and maybe that helps. So far so good.


LC

Some marinades and time in the reefer will help. A hammer will help too, but sure screws up the appearance of a nice steak. Minute/cube steak machines do very well, but good ones are horridly expensive.

There's always the roast in the oven, toss in thermos w/ dressing for 20 minutes or so trick. Can't imagine meat that wouldn't come out tender and tasty that way.

Worked on the 16+ year old bull I shot... and was the only way any of the roasts or steaks were even edible. The rest became tamales and summer sausage.

Never have tried beating the shcitt out of meat with a hammer to try to eat it...

I use a tenderizing hammer and Montreal Steak Seasoning, then broil. Be careful becuase it's real easy to over cook elk meat.

I have had less than satisfactory results with a crock pot.

KC

Tough meat can occur by several means.
One that flies in the face of most hunter's logic is caused by an effect known as "cold shortening"

Cold shortening is the result of the rapid chilling of carcasses immediately after slaughter, before the glycogen in the muscle has been converted to lactic acid. With glycogen still present as an energy source, the cold temperature induces an irreversible contraction of the muscle (i.e., the actin and myosin filaments shorten). Cold shortening causes meat to be as much as five times tougher than normal. This condition occurs in lean beef and lamb and esecially wild game carcasses that have higher proportions of red muscle fibres and very little exterior fat covering. Without the fat covering as insulation, the muscles can cool too quiclly resulting in extremely tough meat.

I've been guilty of boning meat before rigor mortis sets in and as a result have ended up with meat so tough it was barely edible.
sometimes it is unavoidable, like shooting a buck at dusk in bear country.

I do love burger though.

Personally, I prefer a Cow if possible.

Then it is skinned, quartered, & bagged immediately. I hang the quarters for 10 days, then bone and cryovac the cuts. If I'm cooking steaks, I will soak them in buttermilk for 6/7 hours, drain & wipe the steaks, then pan fry them up, sometimes larding with bacon if I feel the steaks are overly thick(read over 1").

I've yet to have a dry, or tough, steak complaint!!

Respects,

Richard

I killed a 4 1/2 year old mule deer in the rut this year. I beat it with a tenderizer and cook it really rare, turns out great.

That's better than how swampy does it. He shot a 8 1/2 year old forked horn, beat the hell out of it with a golf club ran it over a few times with the golf cart and then drug it behind the golf cart for a couple of miles to his house. Ask him how tender it was though.

I'm not sure on elk but here is what works for me with whitetail.

+1 on a tenderizer/hammer, marinade 24 hrs in Italian dressing, marinade with buttermilk and or plain yogurt. These have worked in the past and here is one that works but sounds odd. Take the meat once it is thawed and run it under very cold water and twist it like you're wringing out a rag each way. It helps to break up the muscle tissue to make it tender. I then hammer it lightly with the back of a knife or my fist and season it to my liking. I know running water on meat is not always the best idea but it works for me.