How you care for your animal in the field defines how the meat will taste. Make sure it’s high-quality.
All that pre-season scouting and hard hunting during the season paid off. Your animal hits the ground and it’s time for celebration! It’s also time for the most critical part of a successful hunt—meat care. How you care for meat (in the field and out) determines how it tastes for the rest of the year. Here are some tips to help you make sure none of your hard-earned meat spoils and that it tastes as good as it possibly can. You’ll be amazed how fast those packages of steak will fly out of your freezer and onto the grill.
Get a cooler ready. Sure, it can feel a little presumptuous driving around with a giant cooler in the back of your car. Learn to ignore that feeling. You have to plan for success. Start with a large one like a YETI 210. A day before the hunt you can put a bag of ice in to precool it. The day of the hunt, line the bottom of cooler with block ice, pour cube ice in to fill the gaps and then place ice packs over all of it. Then cover all of that with another layer of cube or block ice. Close the cooler and keep it closed until you need it. Store your cooler in the shade. This will help the ice last longer.
Be quick—once your animal is down, heat is your enemy. The faster you get the body heat out of the animal, the better your meat will end up tasting. This is especially important if you are hunting in a warm season such as an archery season. Get the hide removed as soon as you can. Consider using the gutless method to quickly remove the hide and quarters. The center of a quarter where the bones are hold the most heat. If it’s really hot, bone out the quarters to get more airflow (which will help dissipate heat) and to prevent the meat spoiling from the inside out or “bone souring.” Hang each quarter or bag of boned-out meat in the shade as you continue to break down the animal. Once you’re back to your vehicle, get the meat into your cooler right away.
Keep that meat clean. When you are cutting up your animal, there will likely be a lot of dirt and grass that could contaminate your meat. Dirt is very hard to clean off once it gets stuck on there. To avoid grime, carry a small tarp to place underneath the animal as you process. Use quality game bags to keep dirt, bugs and bacteria out of the meat. This carries over into your kitchen as well. Make sure when you are cutting and processing your meat that you keep it clean of the animal’s hair and dirt and don’t introduce any additional grime.
Store, cut and package it right. Make sure you continue to keep the meat cold as you are processing the animal at your home. Try a method like OutdoorClass instructor Hank Shaw’s seam butchering technique to get the most of your steaks and roasts, and use a vacuum sealer to package your ground meat, steaks and roasts so they stay fresh longer.
If you follow these tips, you should have a great supply of incredible-tasting protein to enjoy with family and friends!