Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Butcher Paper vs Vacuum Sealed

as I now slow down, Freezer paper. GRF

We package ours (there are two of us) in sandwich bags, wrapped in foil with freezer wrap on the outside. Couple of years they are fine. I also have quite a following of friends that will take game if there is a surplus. My biggest issue is giving it away prior to cutting it up.

bigwhoop,

Good question!

We have three 15 cubic-foot freezers, two chest and one upright. All are "defrost as needed," which we do annuall, about this time if year.

But we haven't bought a freezer for at least 6-7 years.

Anybody?

JB we always do ours with a layer of Saran Wrap, to seal out the air, then tightly wrapped in the butcher paper...good for two years....



You never complained and I always feed you the old stuff......












DOH!

Probably shouldnt have said that....

I wrap each cut in cellophane, then bulk pack those in gallon ziplock bags. You can get quite a few small cuts in a gal bag. It's very fast, and very cheap. It's easy to find a particular cut because you just have a few gal bags instead of dozens of smaller packages. I've kept meat 2 years that way with great success. Repeated openings of the gal bag doesn't seem to matter as long as we squeeze out as much air as possible each time. We've never needed to keep it longer than that. It disappears long before it gets to 3 years.

Before I started this method, I used a lot of butcher paper. Properly wrapped, a single layer will last several years without inside wrapping.

We use a saran type freezer wrap, then that goes into the freezer paper. Like others have said, I've used meat that was 4 or 5 years old with no loss in quality.

I bought a vacuum sealer thinking it was going to be the ticket, still use it on a few things like sausages or tamales, but wasn't pleased with the long term results. Seemed to lose too many seals which resulted in freezer burned meat.

Saran wrap and butcher paper here. Of course we go through it fast enough that hardly any of it is over a year old, but the oldest still tastes as good as the freshest.

I've been using Glad Press'n Seal for I guess about ten years now with excellent results. Good for three years anyway, meat doesn't last that long unless it gets lost in the bottom of the pile. In case you don't know, it's a plastic wrap that's coated with a tacky adhesive on one side about the strength of the adhesive on a Post-It.

The plastic is a little stiffer and easier to manage than the standard poly film. With the adhesive the stuff tends to stay sealed when you squeeze the air out. Beats bags because you can size it as you need and you just wrap.

I over wrap with freezer paper, not very carefully, mainly so stuff doesn't slide around in the upright. I buy packages of chicken leg quarters or thighs on sale and wrap individually with Press'n Seal. Then back into the store bag and in the freezer. Works just fine without the over wrap but I'd get the Press'n Seal freezer version for longer storage without the over wrap.

I've had elk and whitetail venison last a couple years even in a regular frost-free kitchen freezer, if well wrapped in freezer paper.

We buy our beef and pork in bulk from local farms. All of the slaughterhouses (three different ones so far) use vacuum packs, and nearly every package ends up leaking when you get it out to thaw. Still, most of them are tight enough that the meat's fine. Even a six-month-old Boston butt with a lot of frost on it turned out well after nine hours in the oven.

I'm still working on 2008 Axis sausage and it was tightly wrapped in butchers paper. Good stuff with my morning eggs.