Aging Deer Meat In A Refrigerator

The more surfaces it touches the more likely other bacteria can latch onto the meat.

Aging deer meat in a refrigerator. For those who do not live in cold temperatures of 40 degrees f hang your deer in a spare refrigerator for a couple of weeks to give the meat time to tenderize for a delicious cut of venison. Salt both sides of the meat liberally and cover with more ice. Cooler game locker provides an elegant solution for proper deer aging. Aging deer meat for longer than ten days isn t recommended.

When you re ready to eat some venison remove it from the freezer let it thaw and sit in the refrigerator for 7 14 days depending on the age of the deer the older the deer the longer aging time. The deer meat should be aged at a constant temperature between 38 and 40 degrees. Refrigerator aging if you have an extra fridge or a particularly understanding spouse dry aging via the refrigerator is another valid option. The first object is to rig a rack system near the top of the fridge chamber on which the meat will hang.

In these situations having access to a commercial sized refrigerator that will keep your deer at a constant temperature and free of outside contamination is optimal. Younger deer will be fine with 7 days. Keep alternating meat and ice until that cooler is full and or all of your meat is in the cooler. Deer burgers or venison burgers.

Essentially you want to remove all the racks inside and just hang the meat in there. During the first 24 hours of death the deer goes through rigor mortis which causes the muscles to stiffen. A young doe might need to age for only three to five days while a large older buck might need to age for eight to ten days. If you ever plan on curing whole hams this rack may need to support fairly heavy weights 25 30 pounds per ham for a large one if you re just curing sausages it may not need to be as strong.

Butchering while these muscles contract will result in tough meat. Rinse the meat of any dirt or field debris and lay the front quarters in the cooler. After aging use the venison as you normally would. The aging process in this method doesn t happen until you remove the meat from the freezer.

Unfortunately if you have used the refrigerator for other things your meat may be subject. The game locker is a walk in cooler equipped with up to 8 meat hooks on a sliding rail system.