Wilderness Meat Care Thread

[Buglebrush]

Seems like a lot of these questions are centered around multi day trips.

What about downing an elk 3-4 miles in on a day hunt. Dark timber available, but no streams within viable distance. Is it best to let boned out meat lay out to dry before being bagged?

My biggest question has always been how hardy is meat once off the bone? I've never had spoilage but it always scares the hell out of me.



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Most of my hunts are exactly as you describe. I immediately de-bone using the gutless method. I have a sheet of tyvek that I spread out and lay some clean alder branches or something similar ( no bark or dirt etc...) on and just toss the boned pieces onto it. The branches help air to completely circulate rapidly cooling and drying the boned out pieces. I cut off the rib meat and little scraps last so that when I flip the elk over to do the other side all the meat from the first side is cooled/dry so I toss it in game bags and repeat. Hang in a shaded draw or hollow, load my pack with 80 - 100 #'s of meat and head for the truck. Have never had an issue when doing it this way.

The key as everyone has said is to completely bone out immediately as that is by far the fastest way, short of submerging in a creek, to dissipate heat. If I was a rifle hunter in October I may be more open to leaving the bone in, but I doubt it. We killed a bull in a hard rain storm right at dark. Decided to leave the quarters bone in hung from a log over a creek overnight to save time. We rigged a tarp over the log to keep the rain off and it was upper thirty's that night. We boned the quarters out at first light, and I was amazed how much warmer the meat next to the bone was versus the outside. Although with the cold conditions we were fine it just reminded me again how much better it is to bone immediately. I have a buddy who always leaves the bone in, and My burger always tastes better. He refuses to believe that it has anything to do with it, but...

 

[gmajor]

This is somewhat less critical, but to those of you who have shot an animal well before your hunting partner does:

You've done the hard work and the meat is in coolers in the truck. It's now day 2 of an 8 or 9 day season and your partner is understandably hunting the whole time. What do you do? Specific cooler techniques? Do you envision needing to make a run out for more ice? This hasn't happened to me but I always wonder how long I can keep the meat in coolers.

 

[jwb300]

This is somewhat less critical, but to those of you who have shot an animal well before your hunting partner does:

You've done the hard work and the meat is in coolers in the truck. It's now day 2 of an 8 or 9 day season and your partner is understandably hunting the whole time. What do you do? Specific cooler techniques? Do you envision needing to make a run out for more ice? This hasn't happened to me but I always wonder how long I can keep the meat in coolers.

Sounds like you need a car fridge. I've just picked up a 85l fridge which will run for 2.5 days on the auxiliary battery without running the car. It will run indefinitely with solar panels if there is sufficient sun.

 

[elkyinzer]

This is somewhat less critical, but to those of you who have shot an animal well before your hunting partner does:

You've done the hard work and the meat is in coolers in the truck. It's now day 2 of an 8 or 9 day season and your partner is understandably hunting the whole time. What do you do? Specific cooler techniques? Do you envision needing to make a run out for more ice? This hasn't happened to me but I always wonder how long I can keep the meat in coolers.

I would find a meat locker in the nearest town and drive it there, even if it's a couple hours. Unless you have a generator/fridge/freezer. Maybe ice would keep that long in some of these new fancy coolers but I wouldn't want to be worrying about it the whole time.

 

[fngTony]

This is somewhat less critical, but to those of you who have shot an animal well before your hunting partner does:

You've done the hard work and the meat is in coolers in the truck. It's now day 2 of an 8 or 9 day season and your partner is understandably hunting the whole time. What do you do? Specific cooler techniques? Do you envision needing to make a run out for more ice? This hasn't happened to me but I always wonder how long I can keep the meat in coolers.

I make block ice with 2 liter bottles and plastic ice cream buckets. Put them in coolers the day I leave home. This will keep the cooler at about 40 degrees at day 4. This gives you a couple days until you have to make an ice run. If you are traveling a long ways to hunt use dry ice from your home town. This still allows the meat to form a skin since there is no wet ice. Last year my deer kept for 4 days, I only added ice because it was going to be almost 90 at home.

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[Poser]

This is somewhat less critical, but to those of you who have shot an animal well before your hunting partner does:

You've done the hard work and the meat is in coolers in the truck. It's now day 2 of an 8 or 9 day season and your partner is understandably hunting the whole time. What do you do? Specific cooler techniques? Do you envision needing to make a run out for more ice? This hasn't happened to me but I always wonder how long I can keep the meat in coolers.

This might be a good time to place the meat in dry bags (or wrap it up in a waterproof manner) and submerge it in a cold creek/river.

 

[gmajor]

Thanks guys. I usually make ice blocks by freezing bottles full of water. They've lasted a full 8 days before, but that's only when they weren't being used for anything (tag soup).

Anyway, if it came to it I'd drive it home and drive back. But I can actually get more ice much more easily then going all the way home. If I just kept the coolers filled with cold ice and drained any melt water I assume I could keep it in there indefinitely (or at least a week).

 

[Mike7]

gmajor, I think you can keep your jugs frozen for a few days even with an ice chest full of meat by using dry ice. We took a freezer in a trailer to Wyoming and went into town every 3 days to get dry ice. About 20 lbs? of dry ice for a 1/2 freezer froze everything that was physically at a lower level in the freezer than the dry ice. So we had hamburger meat pieces in gallon freezer bags and gallon jug of water below the dry ice, and the rest of the meat spread out above this. We filled the rest of the freezer with EVA foam sleeping pads covering the meat. Once the dry ice dissipated and re-froze the jugs (which happened very quickly), the jugs slowly thawed just as they normally would over several days.

 

[bowieknife50]

One last note about common sources of spoilage threats:

Blood shot areas around wounds and bullet tracts are the most common points of concern. Adequate trim wound tunnels and remove all damaged tissue until the area looks like a surgeon was performing surgery on a wounded soldier. Clean meat is clean meat. Wound tunnels contain bile, grass, hair, blood shocked meat, and tiny shrapnel (copper and lead). All that shit needs to be removed ASAP to avoid source contamination and ideal breeding grounds for bacteria. These wounds are typically deep tissue tracts that carry bacteria through the meat, so you'll have to remove the entire bullet route and damaged tissue. This is commonly missed by hunters, but it will effect your entire shoulder. Remember to also extract any damaged bone fragments around the shoulder blade or leg bone...ribs too.

later

So how crazy do we have to be about cleaning the knife after we trim a wind channel before finishing the rest of the job? Or between skinning and deboning? Does anyone have a specific method for knife cleaning in the middle of the job, or between animals?

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[Scrappy]

I keep a bunch of dehydrated baby wipes in my pack. Rehydrate them as needed. Last year when I killed my first elk I rehydrated all I had and took out my small bottle of hand sanitizer I was using to keep myself somewhat bearable at night. Nocking the stink off my body. This became my cleanup station for my knife as well as myself when I stopped to grab a bite to eat. Just the thing to help keep the whole process clean and tidy.

 

[Scrappy]

I just realized I posted to a super old thread.

 

[Scoony]

You can also get citrus acid where they sell home canning and food preservation items. Walmart and most grocery stores should carry it.