2020 Moose Success and RIB success!

Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
I’ve dealt with a good amount of moose over the years, I always do my own processing and the ribs have always been a real pain to deal with. In my game unit you have to remove rib meat on the bone, so the whole rack on both sides has to be taken out until processing. After hanging these on the camp meat pole for a few days then bringing home to hang in the garage while I begin processing the meat, the ribs always seem to dry out and become nothing more than dry shoe leather. After removing outside crust and silver-skin/sinew, we always ended up with little meat to show for our efforts. Last year I proclaimed that I was sick of it, and by golly, next season we will eat the ribs out at camp!

I had made this proclamation known to my hunting partners, and in prep for this one of them brought out a bunch of cinder blocks in his SxS bed to make a fire pit out of. It looked great and we were all excited to bring the first moose down.

A few days later, a fork horn ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was able to bring him down. I will always shoot the first legal animal I see, and a few shots into the boiler room tipped him over. The special part of this was my entire family was able to watch the whole thing unfold! The wife and my two youngest kids had never had the opportunity to see one get shot, so while it wasn’t the biggest moose by any means, it was probably my favorite moose to take so far. They even got to help in the process of breaking it down.
forkie.jpg
moose gutting.jpg

The next day I woke up and after a failed morning hunt to lure a bull down the mountain with a buddy, we got back to camp and I grabbed the ribs off the meat pole. As this was a small forkie, I thought there would be no better time than now to try this out. Luke and I took the ribs down to the creek and started cleaning them up.

cleaning ribs.jpg

Unfortunately for this occasion, I shot him twice behind his front shoulder, and both of these shots passed through and cracked ribs on either side. I lost the middle section of ribs due to bloodshot throughout the muscle fibers there, as you can see in the picture. But bloodshot ribs are better than a hit through one of the quarters, so we couldn’t be too sad. We trimmed gristle/bloodshot and grime off to chef quality (in our opinions), cut them down to manageable sections, and gave them a liberal washing in the creek.
bloodshot.jpg
 
OP
SaltySailor
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
At this point we laid out what we had, and let the chef pro’s go to work. They trimmed a few pieces further, but said we had done a pretty good job. A foil bed was made for the whole batch at this point, in order to keep as much moisture in as possible through the cooking process. The grease from the bacon that was cooked that morning was saved for this event, and now was slathered all over the ribs. Some seasoning salt, and the ultimate ingredient- BEER!
clean.jpg
seasoned and ready.jpgsecret ingrediant.jpg
 
OP
SaltySailor
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
The fire was knocked down low to coals and flame, and we slid the whole ensemble onto a waiting cooking rack. Low and slow we were told, this process should take around six hours. At one point, we were getting more sizzle than we liked, and had to raise the rack up another cinder block height. With an old metal sign over the top to keep heat around the foil a little better up top, things seemed to be doing great.
low and slow.jpgon the pit (2).jpg

About three hours in, a health check was done. A peak inside revealed glory in the making! But just to be safe on the moisture side of things, more beer was added.

midway peek.jpgmidway beer.jpg
 
OP
SaltySailor
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
Another 3.5 hours and a few beers with buddies later and a final peak…..they were ready! Everyone dove in like vultures at this point, and all exclaimed the flavor was fantastic. Still moist, and falling off the bone. There were a few tough sections as to be expected, but it was WELL worth the time and effort, and from now on this is how we will deal with moose ribs.
finished.jpg
luke chowing down (2).jpg

So success X 2, moose down, ribs down!
happy man.jpg
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
1,027
Location
Kansas
Looks delish! Our pilots wife made some moose ribs for us the one night we stayed at their place. She pressure cooked them and them grilled them with BBQ sauce. They were AWESOME!!! Better than I expected them to be. They told me next time we knock one down and don't have very far to pack them that it's worth bringing them back on the bone. We will absolutely do that next time!
 

fish impaler

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
100
Shot my first moose last week, garden loppers made getting ribs off and cutting them into maneageable sections really easy.
 
OP
SaltySailor
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
Shot my first moose last week, garden loppers made getting ribs off and cutting them into maneageable sections really easy.

Its funny you bring that up, one of the guys brought long handled garden shears for just that task! We found it was a little bit of a pain to remove from animal with them, but when we sectioned the ribs up into smaller chunks they worked excellent. And no bone dust!
 
Joined
Nov 26, 2018
Messages
364
Location
Upstate NY
Outstanding post. My mouth is literally watering. Thanks for sharing...the story that is. Sadly I’d have rather shared a couple of those ribs. 😂
 
OP
SaltySailor
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
302
Location
Palmer, Alaska
Outstanding post. My mouth is literally watering. Thanks for sharing...the story that is. Sadly I’d have rather shared a couple of those ribs. 😂
Lol, I'm just glad we hunt with people who love/know how to cook! I can throw some burgers and steaks on the grill, but a multi-hour process was beyond my skill. I'm learning though!
 
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