Thread: Hanging up venison.

Shot a yearling yesterday,hanging up the back legs skinned.Is there some method of stopping the outer flesh surface from going hardish,leathery.Id like to keep this for xmas day dinner without putting it in the freezer.Thanks for any helpfull answers.

Keep the skin on?

Wrap it in gladwrap.

In short the only way would be to vac seal it, better to leave skin on when hanging in the chiller in my experience

Originally Posted by dannyb

In short the only way would be to vac seal it, better to leave skin on when hanging in the chiller in my experience

A proper chiller shouldnt dry out a carcass. Butchers generally have to have skin off and they are fine. Fridges will dry it out

move to a different climate ??

Wrap it in a sheet or pull a pillowcase up over it and tie it off, seems to slow the whole drying thing down, but still allows the meat to hang properly.

embrace the skin that forms...it seals in the goodies and helps keep out the badies....simple matter to trim it off before cooking/processing,its going to be mostly silverskin anyway...like the idea of gladwrap all the same if in chiller.

Just hanging in coldish back room.

watch out the the plurry flies bud.........they will be in like flynn given even half a chance.....sprinkle pepper liberally over it will help if one does sneak into room...Ive been known to spray mortien etc all around door and window joins and even place the timed spurter in room pointed away from meat....

Originally Posted by PerazziSC3

A proper chiller shouldnt dry out a carcass. Butchers generally have to have skin off and they are fine. Fridges will dry it out

Quite right, my bad we are using a coverted display/drinks fridge dunno bout the op, but for our application leaving the skin on gives the best result.

As Micky said that dry skin keeps the baddys away and its just the thin guard muscles you will trim off when steaking anyway.

Thanks guys il just leave it as it is.

It doesn't bother me and as a matter of fact you will find quite a few who refer to the hardening of the outer layer of meat as the "rind" forming. I don't have a chiller but will generally try hang an animal for a day or two if the temperature allows, usually in our garage which is huge(can park 4 cars in it..) and has concrete floor, it's attached also so has insulated walls etc and never really gets warm even in summer. Then I'll seperate into muscle groups etc and take any meat for processing to butcher. ALWAYS defrost any meat slowly in the fridge and allow it to sit chilled for 3 or 4 days before eating.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

watch out the the plurry flies bud.........they will be in like flynn given even half a chance.....sprinkle pepper liberally over it will help if one does sneak into room...Ive been known to spray mortien etc all around door and window joins and even place the timed spurter in room pointed away from meat....

Light wipe down with vinegar before salt and pepper application helps chases the buggers too.