I had to throw out a bunch of whitetail and what I am doing about it

[Hunt'nFish]

I'm in Becca's camp.
40 years of packing meat, all I have ever done is plastic & coated paper.

It's not uncommon to pull packages that are 2-3yrs old, and on a couple occasions I've found pkgs that got lost/found that were 8-10yrs old. And they were just fine.. you'd have never known.
And yes that is in a frost free freezer.

I pkg in ziplock and wrap on the diagnal using plastic coated paper... bricks and they stack nicely.
Hunt'nFish

 

[Ray]

freezer paper - make sure you are buying paper that has wax or poly film on the inner face. If the package says "freezer" it should have an inner seal coating.

If you buy "butcher" paper you may find that it has no wax or poly film coating and will quickly freezer burn the meat. Decades ago my sister bought a roll of butcher paper from her hippy food co-op, and wrapped her boyfriends elk. It took 3 months for the frost free freezer he had to turn an entire cow elk into jerky.

The last caribou I had processed the butcher used a non-cling poly film on the meat then a coated freezer paper. The poly film did a decent job of sealing air off of the meat, but without a "cling" action it had many openings around the edges allowing for air contact causing freezer burn.

My girlfriend cling wraps her sockeyes and then vacbags them. Two to three years and they are just fine in a frosty freezer.

 

[StuartHunts]

freezer paper - make sure you are buying paper that has wax or poly film on the inner face. If the package says "freezer" it should have an inner seal coating.

If you buy "butcher" paper you may find that it has no wax or poly film coating and will quickly freezer burn the meat. Decades ago my sister bought a roll of butcher paper from her hippy food co-op, and wrapped her boyfriends elk. It took 3 months for the frost free freezer he had to turn an entire cow elk into jerky.

The last caribou I had processed the butcher used a non-cling poly film on the meat then a coated freezer paper. The poly film did a decent job of sealing air off of the meat, but without a "cling" action it had many openings around the edges allowing for air contact causing freezer burn.

My girlfriend cling wraps her sockeyes and then vacbags them. Two to three years and they are just fine in a frosty freezer.

That is a good idea. For long term deep freeze storage I will add that tip to the buyer's guide that I wrote. (the cling wrap and vacuum sealing). Thanks!

 

[WoodBow]

I often employ what I call poor mans vacuum sealing. I just put the meat in a Ziploc freezer bag and fill to the top with water until no air remains. Just don't stack them too high before frozen or the water will blow out the zipper. I eat meat that is 2+ years old that was frozen like this with no problems at all. It does take a little longer to thaw out.

 

[StuartHunts]

I often employ what I call poor mans vacuum sealing. I just put the meat in a Ziploc freezer bag and fill to the top with water until no air remains. Just don't stack them too high before frozen or the water will blow out the zipper. I eat meat that is 2+ years old that was frozen like this with no problems at all. It does take a little longer to thaw out.

That is pretty clever. It certainly does remove a lot more air from the ziplock bag than you could normally remove by squeezing. It doesn't get all of the air out, but perhaps it is good enough for most applications.

Part of the appeal for the vacuum sealer for me is Sous Vide as well as easy re-heating and portion control. Though those things are sort of separate from what this forum is about I guess!

 

[StuartHunts]

Just want to pipe in and say that these forums are awesome.

 

[Hunt'nFish]

I will add that my issue with vac sealing meat is that the packages don't stack worth a shit, cost, and I seemed to find a lot that lost vacuum because of cuts & holes from rummaging through them looking for a particular cut.
Hunt'nFish

 

[StuartHunts]

I will add that my issue with vac sealing meat is that the packages don't stack worth a shit, cost, and I seemed to find a lot that lost vacuum because of cuts & holes from rummaging through them looking for a particular cut.
Hunt'nFish

This is sorta out of left field, but have you ever cooked Sous Vide?

 

[Ray]

My girlfriend cling wraps her sockeyes and then vacbags them. Two to three years and they are just fine in a frosty freezer.

That is a good idea. For long term deep freeze storage I will add that tip to the buyer's guide that I wrote. (the cling wrap and vacuum sealing). Thanks!

My girlfriend has a couple boxes of moose in her freezer. Her step son shot a cow in 2011. It was processed with cling wrap and food savers. She is a little intimated by red meat, even though she has cooked steaks fine a few times, she is overly worried about cooking wild game. So this moose sat and sat and sat some more, until I showed up.

This weekend I became curious about the moose and decided to open up a few packages and make some stew. The meat appeared to have a few spots of freezer burn, but it might just be a layer of the cling wrap pulled loose from itself. After thawing the appearence of freezer burn was gone and the meat just looked dark red. My guess that the cling wrap had pulled away from itself was confirmed.

After opening and peeling the cling wrap off, outer surface of the meat was about a shade darker red than the inner. No freezer burn or other discoloration. They had left a lot of silver skin on and I processed the meat for stew by trimming off the silver skin and some small amounts of fat.

I used my insta-pot and this recipe to make about a gallon of wonderful moose stew.

 

[ckleeves]

Put a cling wrapped and freezer paper wrapped roast and a vacuum sealed one side by side in your freezer for 2 years and open them up. Saran and freezer paper win every time.

 

[dble07]

I started using the freezer paper and cling wrap last year with good results. I shot a bull 2 years ago and took it to a processor since I was going to spend the rest of my time off exploring Yellowstone. The processor vacuum sealed all the meat and I have since lost quite a bit of that meat to freezer burn due to broken or poorly sealed packages.
My girlfriend shot a nice bull in Arizona this year that we took to a processor in Wyoming since I had a tag there. I was disappointed to see he had vacuum sealed it.Well sure enough we had at least 8 packages that were broke open or that didn't get sealed good that we found while unloading it from coolers to put in the freezer. I just finished wrapping my WY bull tonight in freezer paper and I know that meat will be good for at least 2 years.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[StuartHunts]

Is there a way to change the theme of the forum? the black background with white text is very hard on my eyes.

 

[JO.]

I have a vac sealer that I have rarely used. My wife uses it on occasion but I have never used it for my game meat. For the last 5-6 years now I have used heavy cling wrap and freezer paper and I have only found 1 package that got a tear in the paper and was burnt. I have never had meat in the freezer longer than 2 years before using, but when we moved I had a few packages of burger that were two years old we grilled up and you couldn't tell it wasn't packaged that week. Like I said I can't comment on the vac sealers for game meat but the cling wrap and paper is cheap and has proven itself for me. I processed almost 300 lbs last year and haven't lost a pound of it yet.