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bone sour meat?

17K views 17 replies 17 participants last post by  cascaderosey 
#1 ·
i was just wondering if you have to leave an animal over night, and find it the next morning, how can you tell if the meat is bone sour? is it a visual thing, or is it when you eat the meat you find out?
thanks
 
#6 ·
It is very important that when its hot like it is, you bone out your elk if you are at all leaving meat over night. Leaving the quarters in tact can help facilitate that spoilage of meat in high heat. ideally it gets in the 30's at night, but when it doesn't that meat needs to be boned on sight and allowed to cool as best as possible.

its a bit more work, but your tastebuds will thank you later.
 
#7 ·
It is very important that when its hot like it is, you bone out your elk if you are at all leaving meat over night. Leaving the quarters in tact can help facilitate that spoilage of meat in high heat. ideally it gets in the 30's at night, but when it doesn't that meat needs to be boned on sight and allowed to cool as best as possible.

its a bit more work, but your tastebuds will thank you later.
This is what I've always done. I also hate packing out bones I can't eat. It is always amazing to me even after an hour or so dead how much more heat is closer to the bone area.
 
#8 ·
Even though it is hot, if you skin and hang the quarters they will keep just fine. Boning is great mainly because it gets rid of the bone weight for the pack out. But boning creates a lot of cuts that will dry out and make for waste (or bad hamburger :) ). So my recommendation is (a) learn the gutless method, (b) bag and hang the meat as soon as possible - in the shade, (c) hunt with strong buddies :)

Regarding bone sour, once it starts the only thing you can do is use your nose and trim. If it doesn't smell right - pitch it. Hip sockets and knees are tough spots - if you can get those areas to dry out then a bagged quarter will keep for a couple of days even though it is in the 70's in the shade.
 
#10 ·
Even though it is hot, if you skin and hang the quarters they will keep just fine. Boning is great mainly because it gets rid of the bone weight for the pack out. But boning creates a lot of cuts that will dry out and make for waste (or bad hamburger :) ). So my recommendation is (a) learn the gutless method, (b) bag and hang the meat as soon as possible - in the shade, (c) hunt with strong buddies :)

Regarding bone sour, once it starts the only thing you can do is use your nose and trim. If it doesn't smell right - pitch it. Hip sockets and knees are tough spots - if you can get those areas to dry out then a bagged quarter will keep for a couple of days even though it is in the 70's in the shade.
Spot on.

Add: don't leave elk overnight if at all possible. Nothing wrong with starting on them at midnight.

Once they are quartered, in the shade and hanging in the breeze they will cool out (meat all one temperature) even if it isn't cool.
 
#9 ·
We retrieved a young buck about 24 hours after it was shot. Luckily a bear had eaten out the entire cavity, minus the lungs. We skinned it and took it home to find out that the meat held up very very well.

I have heard that if the meat is not cooled out that it gets a white coloration to it within 24 hours.
 
#14 ·
If the meat's soured...Notice how the yellowjackets arent on it but the black flies are? Not a good sign.

Clear liquid around the ball sockets...

Have heard this many times and can't be farther from the truth. Have seen yellow jackets on a gut pile 3 days old, while looking for a knife. The best way to check for bone sour is to cut from the knee on the ham, along the bone to the hip.....this is the joint that will sour first.
 
#13 ·
Getting the animal gutted, hung up and skinned is something that I will do,no matter how late it is or how tired I am. When an animal dies, it's body temperature actually rises, before it starts to cool. The "cooling system" is shut down and the heat from the internal organs begins to warm the muscles around them. With the hide still on and the animal possibly running, or stressed before being killed, it just adds to the equation. One other thing you can do to help prevent the hams from souring is when the animal is hanging feel along the inside along the tenderloin where the hip joint is. You can poke the tip of a knife into the joint and it will "pop" the ball/socket open. It takes practice, but once you learn it, it's easy.
 
#17 · (Edited)
You need to take care with boned out meats in bags too. Even on warm nights if all the meat is setting stuck to gether and there is no air flow the meat can spoil in the middle of the bag. wapitbob my experience is eastern oregon cools off faster at night than the coast range:wink:

I was always under the impression that you want your out side of your meat to dry out because then the flys won't lay eggs unless it moist is that true. I mean with deer it was always a good sign when they get a little crinkling hanging in a tree as long as its cool?
 
#18 ·
last year as some of you may remember i could not find my bull and had to recover the next morning . i took it straight to the cooler as soon as we recovered it . It also had been opened up by a cougar or bear a little the liver was missing i belive and some rib meat . I think this helped my case with cooling some . The bottom line is it was a cool day and i got about 50/50 responce from ifishers about what the meat quality would be . bottom line is i lost about 100lbs of meat that the butcher tossed . He should have tossed more . aside from the burger the elk pretty much taste OFF . I have since changed my thoughts on letting anything sit overnight . I will never do that again i will spend all night looking for animal in the future if need be . Any one who thinks that during archery season that they can leave an animal overnight without wasting meat is one "a liar" or two " have never tasted good meat to begin with so there judging curve is off" . I am far from the most experienced hunter on ifish as i only have 22 yrs or so of experience but i guarentee that how you treat your meat and how long it takes to get it into a cooler directly effects the finish product . We all owe it to our game to do what ever is nessessary to not waste not even one pound of meat . After all these critters give their lives for us . Just my :twocents: take it for what it is and no more then that .
 
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