a question about aging venison

[Katrina1735]

Last year I butchered one deer on the same day as it was shot, and the second deer was butchered over that first day and the next. We did not hang it to age beyond that. I removed all of the meat from the bone, trimmed off all of the membranes that I could remove... the texture and the taste was fantastic.

I remember having some venison that my cousin gave me years ago and the taste seemed to have an undertone of the flavor of liver. He had his butchered by a 'professional,' and what I was given still had the bone in.

I've been reading about how aging the deer for 4 - 5 days is supposed to make it more flavorful and more tender, but I am wondering if that also gives it the subtle taste of liver.

Does anyone have any suggestions or comments about the best way to go about this?

[suzyhomemaker09]

Around here if you take your deer in to process you are in a mile long queue...
You receive an equivalent amount of venison to the carcass you brought in. There is absolutely no guarantee that you will go home with the meat of the same animal you brought in. You may receive meat form a gut shot drug behind an ATV piece of meat.

IMO venison doesn't need to be aged...if you are processing at home just cut it up and freeze it.

[Cabin Fever]

IMHO, the "off tastes" or gamey flavor of some vension is due to poor shot placement where the animal lives on for hours in pain and stress, a gut shot, and/or not field dressing and cooling the deer immediately.

[Bret]

You are the expert on your deer from your region. If you can hold the aging temperature in the zone for 4 to 5 days, and that zone may be around 38 to 40 degrees, you will not hurt your deer.

If you do not have the time and the place to hold the deer at the preferred temperature, you will be fine to process right away.

Fat steers can benefit from longer aging within reason. I feel that less fat translates into less aging.

Liver is not a good thing to me.

[Bret]

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

IMHO, the "off tastes" or gamey flavor of some vension is due to poor shot placement where the animal lives on for hours in pain and stress, a gut shot, and/or not field dressing and cooling the deer immediately.

I agree.

[Ed Norman]

Originally Posted by Katrina1735

Last year I butchered one deer on the same day as it was shot, and the second deer was butchered over that first day and the next...the texture and the taste was fantastic.

When I find a system that works, I tend to stick with it.

[kirkmcquest]

I don't hang my deer as I have never noticed any difference in taste either way. A livery flavor is usually from a bad shot or mistakes in gutting it properly.

[||Downhome||]

blood is what makes it taste like liver to me, never aged a deer except in the freezer and thats cause I can only eat it so fast. even then it does not age that long.

stress as Cf points does effect quality, though I think it does not always a matter of hours to cause that, some people stress the heck out of them in the short time it takes them to die. basically running them till they die instead of letting them lie down and succumb.
they could be stressed prior to a shot also.

what they are eating affects the taste too.

the next thing is handling after the kill, I try to remove as much blood as possible prior to storage, thats the first thing to go "off" then fat. a gut shoot deer can taste pretty off also. not sure if all that stuff stays in the cavity or if the plumbing circulates it through the critter?

salt water bath will draw a lot of that blood out of your cuts. you can always do it prior to cooking but I do both, before storage and prior to cooking with a good rinse after to remove the salt.

I will agree its a crap shoot taking it to a processor, more so a large operation, a small time guy may be able to guarantee you leave with what you brought but I will never know as I do my own.

its field dressed, hung and skinned, let to cool, as soon as its cool its quartered and put on ice in the coolers then deboned as soon as possible then froze.

always been happy with it.

the other thing too I think is when its cooked, its not beef and so many people treat it like beef prep would be the final determining factor for overall taste and texture.

[tinknal]

Aging does not benefit venison in any way.

[agmantoo]

||Downhome|| has ID'd what causes the off taste, the blood. That is my opinion also. I visited a deer processor when I first started hunting. I knew then that I would not be eating anything they processed. The place was not clean and the practices were downright nasty IMO.

Just last Thursday I skinned the 109th deer that I have harvested. I do my own processing and we consume a lot of venison as well as give a lot away. I have everything I need to process the animal in a nearly professional and a very sanitary manner. Usually, having hunted hard and done the farm chores, I am tired by the time I finish the skinning task. The meat is placed in meat totes and placed in a recycled commercial freezer that I modified to function at 34 degrees F as a cooler.

All domestic red meat we consume is stunned, then bled as the animals heart slowly ceases to pump. There is very little retained blood. This is not the case with deer! In most instances there is a lot of retained blood. This retained blood will stink and will impact the flavor if not removed. While the meat is kept in the cooler I typically soak the meat in salt water. The water is drained and replaced several times until the blood is minimum. Areas damaged or showing blood from the bullet are cut opened and cleaned or cut out. No hair and nothing foreign is left on the meat. At the 34 degrees of the cooler I can take my time. I am not aging the meat necessarily but I feel comfortable that I can leave the meat in the cooler a week if the meat is wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent oxidation. Once that I am satisfied, it is only then that the meat is processed and packaged. I make sausage, burger, cubed steak, roasts and keep some loins to make "cheese and steak sandwiches".

[big rockpile]

Truth I have no idea how people get an Off flavor I've Gut shot deer with Bow and leave them until next morning,Gut them,get them home wash them out,Skin and Debone them.

The only one that I had an Off Flavor was one my Son had me take to Processor.

big rockpile

[Ed Norman]

The only bad one I ever had is the only one I took to a processor.

[rhome]

You can freeze the venison then take it in during the off season to be processed for summer sausage etc. This might help that the venison you get back is yours.
Good luck

[salmonslayer]

Jeese, I thought your post was about aging vision. Imagine my surprise when I squinted at the posts about deer meat.

[Katrina1735]

Lots of very good information here and I am full of appreciation for every bit of it.

And... yes, I think I will continue to do my amateur job of butchering and do it right away instead of waiting.

Thank you all again. I love this forum...!!

[ladytoysdream]

We butcher our own deer. We like knowing how the meat is handled. I think we only had one deer cut up by someone else years ago. He done a good job. We just like keeping that money in our pocket however.
Hubby cuts the steaks. I finish cutting the balance into stew meat. Some I pressure can. The last deer, we took some of the meat to the local mom and pop store, and the butcher ground it for hamburg. I KNOW I get back what I take there. He charges a $ 12 grind fee, and then whatever the seasonings are, etc. I just have ours done straight. Nothing added.
We normally don't leave one hanging for too long. And if we do it's only a day or so, and the temperatures have to be cold in the garage.

[pheasantplucker]

I got a big doe this year. She went down at @9:45 opening day and by 1:00PM, she was in the deep freezer. My processor charges $50. He is a pro butcher and he takes the week of gun season off, so all he does from 9:00AM till 11:00PM every day is process venison. You never find hair, splintered bone, etc. in his cuts. All wrapped, stamped, and cut how you like. Everyone I've shared with thinks the venison I give them is the best they ever tasted. His policy is you take home the deer you bring in. I really appreciate that, as a lot of processors, simply weigh your deer and give you a percentage of that weight in someone else s deer. I wouldn't take a deer to a processor who didn't give you YOUR deer. Shot placement, recovery time, proper field dressing, age and health of the deer are all critical. I know I've properly field dressed it, I prefer does over bucks, I prefer younger deer, and I cool the carcass as quickly as possible. I saw some of the deer brought to my processor, and they still had full bladders hanging in the carcass. He tells me, he has to be extra careful when they don't properly gut the animal as if that stuff opens up, it contaminates the meat, the customer gets less meat, and he has to disinfect his whole work area. Also, when I went to pick up the meat, a few days later, I saw a deer he was working on that had one of its tenderloins basically shredded (from shot placement) and the hunter must have let the thing sit with blood in the carcass for a while, as the tenderloin was covered with black "scab" basically. I don't know if aging enhances the flavor, but it's good as it is, so I won't experiment.

[Forty Acres]

Quarter the deer and put it in an ice chest (or 2) with PLENTY of ice. Open the drain on the ice chest. Let it set for one week and add ice as needed. After the week is up, process the deer.

I've been using this method for several years. Simply put, aging the deer makes the meat easier to process. Plus, I am always wore out after hunting & skinning. I'll do a better job of processing if I'm rested and prepared first.

With this method there is no blood and no blood splatter in the processing process. Even grinding the meat is a substantially "cleaner" process than with fresh killed meat. Although, I have no way of proving it, I believe that aging meat improves the flavor and tenderness.

[jwal10]

I skin immediately, wash, quarter and hang in the springhouse at least 24 hours, no more than 2 days, debone and cut all sinew out and freeze immediately. The best meat is the next day fresh. I don't grind venison, when I did, I did it after freezing, before use 1/2 frozen. I don't grind fresh meat and package....James

[foxtrapper]

A whole lot is the deer itself. Think goat and sheep. A horny old ram is a lot more gamey tasting than a young doeling. Deer sure should be the same way.

Myatonic goats, fainting goats as they are often called are quite tender and delicious. The animal has a hyper stress response and spends most of its life living in physical stress. Deerwise, I've observed this to have no effect on the meat. I've eaten deer that I or the wife shot that had been severely stressed. One that I shot that took all day to track, another she shot that had its leg blown off some weeks earlier, etc. All tasted good.

Equally, there have been those I've field dressed or butchered that smelled like a skunk, and tasted like it. Why? I dunno.

Deer variations, it's a mystery!