Saran Wrap V game bags

wapitibob

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Plenty of ways to take care of game meat. I've hung em and gotten a crust, thrown it in a cooler with ice and no crust, soaked quarters in an ice bath for a week, talked to a guy from the south that hung their deer for 2 weeks with the hide on, and see no reason why saran wrap wouldn't work if it gets to a cool environment.
 
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Beendare

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Lots of guessing here in this thread.

Kevin,
I especially appreciate your comment...and thats the reason I brought it up. If this guy that introduced me to this was some goofball....I wouldn't have mentioned it. This guy is a top outfitter in AZ.....very experienced.

The guys saying, "There is a bacteria everywhere" well of course. His meat is wrapped and on ice in an hour. I wasn't proposing that the meat be wrapped and left in the sun for a day.....

No one I know eats the dried crust on their meat....they trim it off. FWIW, His method has little waste.



I'm not a pro but I do work in a pork processing plant. We have customers from Japan that require our pork to have a 50-60 day shelf life. A couple of things we do to achieve that is to have very minimal water contact with the meat. The meat also gets vacuum packed asap and any product that wasn't sealed 100% airtight is not able to be re-packed for the Japan order. Once the meat is packed it is quickly chilled to bring the temperature down but not to the point where it's frozen. Basically they want to eliminate moisture,air and high temp to prevent bacteria growth.

Probably not applicable to backcountry meat preservation but that's how we do it in the meat processing industry. I think the saran wrap would work if you can wrap it very tight and get it on ice asap.

^ thanks for the comment from a pro.

My buddy that runs a Safeway butcher shop said essentially the same. He emphasizes the handling and cooling of the meat over what its stored in.
 

Scoony

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Lots of guessing here in this thread.

The guys saying, "There is a bacteria everywhere" well of course. His meat is wrapped and on ice in an hour. I wasn't proposing that the meat be wrapped and left in the sun for a day.....
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When you can get it on ice quickly, sure, I would keep some trash bags and gallon size ziplocks at the truck for that. When its going to be a day or three before getting it on ice, that may be a different story. You did mention that you were considering it for a pack out in lieu of game bags.
 

UtahJimmy

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No one I know eats the dried crust on their meat....they trim it off.

Big fan of the crust here, the meat underneath is superb!

I use the crust to make dog treats. Throw them in the dehydrator for a few hours to get that last bit of moisture out. Never had my hound tell me he doesn't like it! ;)
 
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Beendare

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When you can get it on ice quickly, sure, I would keep some trash bags and gallon size ziplocks at the truck for that. .

^ In case you missed it....some of those trash bags are not food grade....some are treated with chemicals.
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After rereading my posts....I don't mean to sound argumentative....if you don't like the idea, disregard. I'm just tossing out a clever out of the box solution for guys that can get their meat on ice quickly.
 

Larry Bartlett

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Yes bad idea, and the literal science behind refusing this technique is anaerobic bacterial spoilage (bone sour). Caused by deep tissue heat retention around bones, and this autolysis within the marrow becomes active at time of death and does NOT require oxygen to thrive (only warmth). Nine hours with stable deep core temps >85 degrees and done son.
 

Scoony

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^ In case you missed it....some of those trash bags are not food grade....some are treated with chemicals.
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No worries, did not miss that. Once had a friend go pick up some large heavy duty trash bags to line our packs, and he shows up with pine scented trash bags. Good intentions, but poor execution.

My son is an Environmental Health Safety Officer (US Army) and one of his tasks is training and inspecting food service folk. Has connections for all sorts of food-safe storage solutions. I refer to him often.
 
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The overriding objective with meat should be to keep it 1) clean and get it 2) cooled. Air dried, crusted, plastic bagged, in the creek or Saran wrapped is less of a critical issue (to me) initially because bacteria can’t grow where they don’t exist (clean) and whatever bacteria are present will not produce spoilage in cold meat. After getting the meat cooled or cold, almost any way of covering it will work until it can be transported and processed. However, I will opine that the conventional methods of using porous or breathable meat bags....protecting and cooling the meat...and letting it develop a dried crust, is likely the best strategy in situations where meat may have to remain in the field for several days. Shorter time frames might offer some alternatives, and high ambient air temps might demand immediate actions to save meat.
 

307

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I would think the ability to get the meat in a COLD environment quickly changes the game significantly. For backcountry hunting, it seems like a really bad idea to do anything that would retain heat. For "road hunting" where the meat can be cold within a couple of hours, it may work wonderfully and reduce the meat loss associated with the crust.

I think both sides are valid, but only under vastly different conditions/circumstances.

It all depends on the circumstances...

I found this thread after purchasing my first synthetic game bags. (Caribou). They want me to bag the meat, move it to hang, then wash the bags and dry them, then re-bag the meat... Not psyched about the proposed process. All this time I've been doing a "bag it and forget it" technique with the cheaper cotton cheese cloth type bags with excellent results and now I seem to have spent more money on a product which is requesting a lot more work...

I'm sure that the bags "breathability" suffers somewhat with the dried blood from the meat and that washing them provide optimal conditions fo rthe game bags but I'm hoping that it's not necessary. I have enough to worry about in those situations and don't want to have to babysit my damn game bags.

Sorry for the mild hijack.
 

JoMa

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Isn’t cooling a function of heat conduction due to a temperature gradient between two media? In this case, the heat is transferring from the “hot” meat to the “cool” air. Does saran wrap provide an insulation barrier around the meat to slow down the cooling process? The air is still moving past the meat whether there is saran wrap or not, so cooling through heat convection shouldn’t be different in either case…correct? I’m just curious about the thermodynamics behind the statement that wrapping the meat in saran wrap impacts the cooling process.
 

Tod osier

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Isn’t cooling a function of heat conduction due to a temperature gradient between two media? In this case, the heat is transferring from the “hot” meat to the “cool” air. Does saran wrap provide an insulation barrier around the meat to slow down the cooling process? The air is still moving past the meat whether there is saran wrap or not, so cooling through heat convection shouldn’t be different in either case…correct? I’m just curious about the thermodynamics behind the statement that wrapping the meat in saran wrap impacts the cooling process.

Evaporative cooling plays some role during the period when meat is wet in a game bag before it is crusted. With meat out of the sun with a breeze I feel like it is cools below ambient. How much of a role, I don't know, but a wet cotton t shirt is pretty chilly to wear in a breeze.
 
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