Meat care after late recovery

[RAM190Hog]

Well, I screwed up. Hit a cow elk in the hind quarter and guts yesterday and we could not track her before dark...almost no blood. Fish and game had reports of wounded elk and then bumper her from her bed at about 6:30pm, and told me she was moving slowly.

I found her until this morning around 9:30AM. Overnight lows were about 5 degrees fahrenheit. I can't be sure when she expired, but I expect it wasn't too long after she was bummed based on how stiff and frozen the body was. Could have been dead for 6-14 hours when found.

We were able to pull off 3 quarters, took the backstops and tenderloins. The front shoulders were cool up top, frozen near the hocks. Rear quarter is probably bad, was still very warm especially near the hip joint. Backstraps are a maybe...I think the tenderloins are probably bad.

Anyway, recommendations on storing until I can get this to butcher? Lows here at home around 20F tonight. Do I leave it outside in the truck or bring it into garage where its likely 40F?

Fell pretty shitty about my first nearly lost animal and want to retain as much of this meat as possible. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Wrench]

Does it smell sour?

 

[541hunter]

I hit a buck a bit back last year. Shot was around 1pm couldn’t weather quickly turned and made blood trailing hard. Pulled out and went back out first thing the next morning. Recovered him around 10:30 am. All the meat was still good. Temps were in the mid to high 20’s at night and low to mid 30s during day. Given your was an elk, so quite a bit bigger, as long as nothing was visible bad or smelly I would think it’s still good, especially since your temps were a lot colder.


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[gbflyer]

Nothing wrong with 40. Inside. It’ll be hard to tell what you have while frozen. Get the rest of it thawed out and give it the sniff test. It’s probably ok.

 

[Wrench]

You'll know instantly when it's sour.

 

[RAM190Hog]

The hind quarter smells a bit off, it was still really warm inside despite the low temps. Who knows she may have only expired a few hours before I found her. It was difficult to tell by the carcass as there was smell from the guts, but now that its all almost frozen hard to tell.

 

[canyonhunter47]

Happens to the best of us. I would start trimming away off-smelling meat from areas that stayed warm until you get to clean-smelling meat but if it was 5 degrees outside and possibly only dead 6 hours I would think most of the meat would be fine. As long as the meat can stay under 40 degrees going forward it should be ok. It wouldn't hurt to age it a little anyways

 

[RAM190Hog]

Thanks for the advice all. Left the meat about 40F last night. Did some trimming and cleaning this morning and it smells and looks good. Thankful it was as cold as it was.

 

[OXN939]

Thanks for the advice all. Left the meat about 40F last night. Did some trimming and cleaning this morning and it smells and looks good. Thankful it was as cold as it was.

I'd be willing to bet the off smell you mention on one hind quarter is probably contamination from the shot. Temporary wound cavities mix fluids around a much larger area than you might think, which in this case probably resulted in digestive fluids in or on that quarter. Bottom line is, as suggested above, most everything should be just fine after a quick trimming.