Thread: Advice on handling meat after the kill

Originally Posted by cally woo

I tried googling but there are crazy different answers on the net.

Remember a lot of this info comes from the US where they have a hunting season and only hunt deer in weather often colder than most of NZ gets in winter.

Only two ways to age meat
Dry aging; as in a commercial walk-in chiller or beer fridge but the beer fridge must have circulating air. The outside of the meat will dry out and will need to be trimmed before you eat it. You'd also get away with hanging meat outside (flyproof) during the colder months
Wet aging; get the meat home and cut it into your selected cuts. Vacuum pack the meat same day and leave it in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, then eat it or freeze it.
All to do with bacteria breaking down the muscle fibres, and trying to control that natural process.

Wet aging is what is used with vacuum packed cuts in the supermarket, and even most of the "aged ribeye" you spend megabucks on in the restaurant

So many factors to consider:

Hanging has rule 40degrees - 1day (so 20degrees - 2days, 10degrees - 4days but you want that breeze use a fan if your keen enough) learn to smell your meat so you know when it’s going, if it smells super gamey like the guts it’s gone.

But I reckon it’s best to break down muscle groups asap (like nz hunter does) cool then chill if possible. Better to cut up and chill in fridge once you get home unless you have a chiller.

Ya don’t need plastic bags, let it breathe in Mutton cloth, pillow cases ect but don’t let it get fly blown.

Where was it shot - a ruptured gut bag will spoil meat super quick don’t get it on back legs ie leave arsehole in before you gut so you don’t expose meat. Get this meat chilled asap

Keep hair off meat - this brings that game flavour

Drain the blood and get it all - game flavour

Don’t burst gut bag - game flavour

Take ice and get it chilled

Keep it clean that’s the key!

To many shit butchers have turned people off game meat - me included!

About 2 hours after hanging these legs up i took the shoulder out and placed a small rock between each leg just to keep them apart.Yesterday i had the a/con going in the rear of the truck for the 3hr journey home keeping the meat cold.All in the freezer now,34kgs of meat.

Cool it. Cool it fast...

Basically if you're in the bush, hang the carcass out of a tree and gut and skin it as a minimum, pegging the gut cavity open to allow air to circulate. It gets surprisingly cold in the winter in the bush especially at altitude, I've been up in the central plateau at -4 with a big red stag for a total meat recovery between two of us of 48Kg plus the head. That was a brutal carry out, but the meat was amazing. Worst thing you can do, is fluff your shot and end up chasing the animal around for a few hours - it'll be full of lactic acid and the meat will go rancid and end up with near instant bone taint and green striping. I've often seen pig hunters come in with a buggered absolutely destroyed animal, flanks covered in sweat and chew marks all over it and I'm always like - yum, actually (not).

Probably great fun, but I wouldn't want to eat it.

How do you know it's off? Smell isn't a good indicator surprisingly, I've taken animals that stink from the get go and others have been quite free of smell but the meat is green striped and curled up (full of bacteria and past 'aged') so you can't really rely on that. It's quite dependent on age and sex of animal, general health, time of year and also what it's been feeding on. I tend to run off appearance and condition of the meat, any green striping needs to be cut off and also freezer burn or anything overdried or scaled. If it stinks like seriously sweet decay then it's probably a bit past it, put if you slow cook it and then curry it you'd be surprised what you can get away with.

How you treat the meat is the key, as I said cool it quickly. If it's cold enough, and you are boning the animal out a clothesline arrangement between the trees and the meat cuts sectioned out and hung over will cool it very quickly. If you can, bleed the animal (hilar or neck shot, or cut the main vein if the animal is still alive when you get to it) as this removes a lot of the nutrients and acids that promote meat spoiling. Once the meat is cool, you can bag it in plastic or anything really and go from there as it won't sweat and promote bacteria growth. Do the best you can at this stage, even if it's just a mesh bag and skinning and gutting and pegging the gut cavity open in the shadiest spot you can find (this is the minimum level I would accept for an eating animal, you gotta get it cool!!!).

With the cuts, if you section the cuts out along the fascia lines in the muscles they will cool and skin off and last longer than if you have ragged chunks of meat sliced everywhere and anywhere. If pays to learn as much as you can about the processing of meat - I find it really difficult to do this justice with the animal on the ground so if possible I hang it (I carry a little set of yacht pulleys and braid and a little stainless gambrel for this reason, in the right area with good sticks you can dispatch with the gambrel and use a stick to keep the legs apart). With it hanging it's much much easier to set up the cuts of meat and section them out without making a mess of the whole deal, and you can get cuts that equal anything from the supermarket.

Originally Posted by cally woo

Nice information to get me a better overall picture of what to expect. So we got the goat and took steaks and legs within about 20mins from bow release to cuts. Bagged in pillow case and hucked the meat out of the forest within maybe an hour and a half to car. Car ride home was about hour and a half too in the boot with air conditioner on cold haha. Got back and cut it into bite sized chunks, washed them under the tap to get hair off (whoops) and then chucked it all in a big bowl to marinate over night in the fridge. Gonna cook a big goat curry tonight for the fam. Did I do anything wrong? What did I do right and what can I improve?

the only thing I could suggest to improve on what you did would be to go to a local Indian supply store ( big one at Fitzroy ) and get some authentic spices for your curry - they can help with dried spices - neighbours could help with green herbs - just make it so much better - but ya going great mate - wash when ya did okay because you then continued processing - its when you wash and then hang up or store wet without cooling you have problems - no learn a good recipe with authentic spices for you goat curry and you are half way to becoming a legend

What everyone else has said, it depends on lots of things, everyone that’s done it for a while has a different recipe. I’m probably a bit fussy but my personal method for goats is once on the deck get it in the shade if possible (flies aren’t as keen on shade but they are still keen). Then cut the head off and then get the guts out. I generally carry the carcass out whole if it’s not too long to walk. Goats are fairly light to carry and keeping the skin on keeps the bush off the meat.
Having a gambrel hook and a couple of pulleys is well worth while along with some running water to rinse the knife as you’re skinning.
I hang in the garage with a fan keeping it cool and skin and butcher within two days. At butchering time I just cut the back stakes off first and then any front wheels that aren’t bulleted. Then one back wheel taking as much meat with it as possible and then the spine comes off the other back wheel which is still hanging. Spine and ribs are given away as dog tucker. Everything else goes in the freezer.
I do the final breaking down in the kitchen after defrosting the part that I need for the meal.

I use the back stakes for spicy roasting usually for meals to serve 1-2
One back wheel makes a curry that lasts two of us two nights.
One back wheel and one front wheel for a curry to take to a potluck.

If anything does go wrong with the meat between shooting and freezer/table it will most likely be maggots after it’s had a visit from flies, mould after getting wet, or sweat after being suffocated in a hot bag in the sun. In all of the above you will know by looking/smelling and how to avoid it happening.

Different handling techniques may elicit different flavours but after it’s full of curry spices I don’t think any particular popular way would consistently win the Pepsi Coke challenge.

Which is another fair point, discard any meat contaminated by organ tissue or gut content - and also anything with bullet damage plus a safety factor of about 60mm past what you can see as visible bullet damage or if you are really keen on that meat cut it into very thin strips prior to mincing and then any bullet/lead fragments will be obvious by the tissue damage where they have cut through. It pays not to eat that contaminated meat as not only do you have potentially powdered lead in there but also the blood and tissue products promote the formation of bacteria and meat spoiling. Not a good combination!!!!

Originally Posted by No.3

Which is another fair point, discard any meat contaminated by organ tissue or gut content - and also anything with bullet damage plus a safety factor of about 60mm past what you can see as visible bullet damage or if you are really keen on that meat cut it into very thin strips prior to mincing and then any bullet/lead fragments will be obvious by the tissue damage where they have cut through. It pays not to eat that contaminated meat as not only do you have potentially powdered lead in there but also the blood and tissue products promote the formation of bacteria and meat spoiling. Not a good combination!!!!

yup no 3 dead right and ya cant hide it with curry either

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

yup no 3 dead right and ya cant hide it with curry either

Well, funny story: was in Auckland with my cousin who mentioned to one of his co-workers of the time that he'd been out hunting goats. This perked up the ears of one of the gentlemen over the way who was working at this outfit, who promptly enquired if we could get him goat. Cousin was like yeah, guess so - what do you want, kid, nanny? No no no no no, and then with a lot of waving and hands spaced out we worked out that he wanted old, stinky billy goat (or that's what I was thinking him pinching his nose meant). Turns out what he was after (with a bit of translation from the young lass who didn't say much to anyone until directed) is literally a dirty old stinky billy goat, and why that was important was for this one ceremonial curry dish the way to tell if it was done properly to tradition was by cooking a piece of billy belly piss strip. And when you couldn't taste the piss, the curry was ready (and probably capable of powering a small urban centre...). I'm still not sure that I have the right end of this story - and I was there...

Originally Posted by No.3

Well, funny story: was in Auckland with my cousin who mentioned to one of his co-workers of the time that he'd been out hunting goats. This perked up the ears of one of the gentlemen over the way who was working at this outfit, who promptly enquired if we could get him goat. Cousin was like yeah, guess so - what do you want, kid, nanny? No no no no no, and then with a lot of waving and hands spaced out we worked out that he wanted old, stinky billy goat (or that's what I was thinking him pinching his nose meant). Turns out what he was after (with a bit of translation from the young lass who didn't say much to anyone until directed) is literally a dirty old stinky billy goat, and why that was important was for this one ceremonial curry dish the way to tell if it was done properly to tradition was by cooking a piece of billy belly piss strip. And when you couldn't taste the piss, the curry was ready (and probably capable of powering a small urban centre...). I'm still not sure that I have the right end of this story - and I was there...

And right there is a great reason not to get too excited about experiencing all cultural events.

From the explanation, I have the sneaky suspicion that a bit of piss on the belly flap would be well down the list of my concerns if I was to try that dish...

Originally Posted by No.3

From the explanation, I have the sneaky suspicion that a bit of piss on the belly flap would be well down the list of my concerns if I was to try that dish...

Gold!

If gutting and hanging fly proof, well bled and pop the hip joint asap if it is warmer too, that's usually first place the taint starts.

I tend to use a gutless quarter method (YouTube it if unsure what is meant, many videos can show you better than I can explain) and hang de-boned in pillow cases in a shady breezy spot if possible until cooled. Never put it in plastic while warm and keep as much hair and stuff off as is possible. Cut from inside skin out to not transfer small cut shards of hair on to (into the meat).

Washing it as you are putting into marinade etc is not a problem as is likely the marinade is already moist.

Cold, clean, chur

Sounds like you have a good idea already though @cally woo