depends on your taste... or if you really can taste the difference in an aged piece of meat and a fresh one. I break with all advice and butcher while the corpse is HOT and the blood will drain as ya butcher. Ive let them hang and besides having a hell of a time removing the hide off a cold corpse, I didnt find any difference in the meat. I process the meat and can it so perhaps it really wouldnt make a difference in taste then.
if I was in a colder climate and a hanging corpse would stay frozen, id skin it salt it and save my labor, and let nature be my freezer.
I know people who age deer by hanging them in a cellar at 40-50 degrees for WEEKS. the meat smells odd, but they aint dead from eating it and say its "wonderful". Aged meat may be, I will err on the side of caution.... me and gut cramps dont get along.
I have eaten aged moose...I do admit it was really good as steaks go.
as far as the real reason you are "suppose" to hang a deer to age out, I dont know. ive heard it sets the blood up in the tissue and makes more flavorful meat...
I DO know, before the refigeration age, aging meat wasnt antetional move, meat just went bad slowly after it was butchered, andsomeone too it to the edge with "aged" beef... this is also where heavily spiced meats came into being, to hide the rotten taint of the meat.
on the extream other side, you have the norweigians, who delight in eating absolutely putrifed shark meat... not aged... putrified. I had the displeasure of smelling a plate of that once and thought.. "if only they would slather it in limburgher cheese to make it a wee bit edible.."
:haha:
That probably didnt help at all but... your welcome.