Meat in game bags
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HeadedWest
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I would imagine it all depends on what kind of game bag , the temp , time since the kill.
dfanonymous
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I've never had it dry out. However, late or early, I get stepping once i butchered the meat.
Because I'm usually 8+ miles and 3000+ elevation into the back country most of the season, once I put the meat in the game bags I stack the game bags in the load shelf and stack the tagged antler head on the top. Then get to walking back at 90% of my pace speed.
Once I get back to the truck, pull the game meat from game bags and trim the tallow and burn the hair off the meat, and put it in the cooler on ice for the drive back. This is to keep the meat tasting good. Once you freeze mule deer meat with that thick white fat on there, there's no way to get that taste out of the meat. In my experience.
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I haven't. The meat goes in the bags, then packed out and into cooler. If weather is below 40 its fine for a couple of days. Never dried up. Warmer then 40 then block ice is in the bottom of cooler or we cycle a freezer on and off.
dfanonymous
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If the meat is left exposed in a refrigerator or over night hanging in a tree for 24 hours, it could.
Again, I don't wait around, and I don't hang meat to cure. I hunt out and live out west. Hunting temps range from 0-120 F. I use the gutless method, pack the meat, pack out the meat, get it on ice, smash through the fire roads to the main highway and I'm gone.
Back straps on the smoker within 24 hours. Whiskey in glass.
Maybe I am missing something here, but what is the problem with the outside of the meat getting a "dry" film? I thought that is why you hang it, to cool it down and dry it a little....I could be wrong...but I see no problem
Plinker147
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Yes it does dry out a little but that's kind of what you want anyways. When you take you meat to the processor they hang it for X number of days in a walk in cooler( or at least they should, I like 10-14 days for wild game) and it dry's out the exposed meat. Everything under that layer doesn't dry out. You cut off the hard outside layer when you process.
The hanging time really helps the steaks, so a little drying in game bags isn't a concern
The hanging time really helps the steaks, so a little drying in game bags isn't a concern
I have never cut a deer up that I didn't let hang for a minimum of five days. Because our Oregon deer season happens to be a warmer part of the year, I installed a coolbot to an air conditioner and put it in a small building. Temperature is consistently 38-40 degrees. I hang deer for 9-10 days now normally before processing. The dry rind that forms is very easy to trim off.
There is a table in my dressing books recommending how long an animal needs to age by size, small deer are 3-7 days, elk/ moose 14+, keeping the meat dry prohibits bacterial growth. The animal needs to be kept below 40* but above freezing. Often times it's difficult to get below 40*C in AZ, so smaller cuts are better to precipitate cooling, game bags allow the meat to dry sufficiently for inhibiting bacteria and insect contamination and more rapid cooling. Dry is not bad, but dry heat is a killer
The dry film will be trimmed away in the final processing either way
I have looked into coolbot but you are the first review I have seen for myself will be doing this in the future
crashlanding
Well-Known Member
It's all temperature related, we hang them in my garage and cut them ourselves. Early season for bow and muzzle loader dictate they don't hang long. First second and third seasons get to hang longer due to cooler temperatures. Our elk shot rarely come out in 1 piece, they need to be quartered and bagged, once home they sit on racks. Everything forms a cap which needs to be trimmed off during butchering, no harm, no foul. Meat that hangs longer tends to lose moisture, a good thing, it's not dry, just most of the blood is gone
ofbandg
Well-Known Member
Our northern hunting trips often last three weeks or more and we are living in the bush the whole time. If one of us gets a moose early it has to hang for the remainder of the hunt. Fortunately, it's cold during the nights, and if we keep it in the shade and wrap something around it the meat stays cool even during the warmest days, which usually aren't all that warm. If we run into an unusually warm spell we cut the meat into sections and put it in a freezer run by a generator during the day and hang it back up at night. That doesn't happen often and it's only necessary for a few hours during the warmest part of the day. The meat doesn't have time to freeze in the freezer. We take a freezer along because it's a day and a half trip home through much warmer country and it's a good place to put much of the food we are taking up with us.
As for that dry skin that forms on the meat, we see it as a blessing. It forms a barrier against insects and other small creatures, it even protects against wind-blown sand and dust. I think it also seals some of the moisture in. Sometimes if the birds are bothering the meat we will hang a tarp over the meat pole or wrap the meat in old bed sheets. We usually shoot big old moose because that is mostly what we are allowed to shoot and the meat is always tender and good tasting after all that hanging. I remember one old bull that hung for three weeks in the bush and then hung for another ten days in a cooler when we got back, because the meat cutter was busy, and the meat was excellent.
As for that dry skin that forms on the meat, we see it as a blessing. It forms a barrier against insects and other small creatures, it even protects against wind-blown sand and dust. I think it also seals some of the moisture in. Sometimes if the birds are bothering the meat we will hang a tarp over the meat pole or wrap the meat in old bed sheets. We usually shoot big old moose because that is mostly what we are allowed to shoot and the meat is always tender and good tasting after all that hanging. I remember one old bull that hung for three weeks in the bush and then hung for another ten days in a cooler when we got back, because the meat cutter was busy, and the meat was excellent.
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