Taking care of your meat?

[Born to be Wild]

I'm in a hurry and I'm sure this has come up before.
So I am asking a simple question (I think).

I have always taken care of my meat in a different fasion than some others I know and respect.

I always trim the meat to where you would pressed to find any fat or otherwise.

My questions are;

I have had great luck power washing my meat and drying it off.

I have never used venegar & water and heard rumors that it does the opposite of what you are seeking and actually promotes spoilage instead of retarding it?

I've also been told by a meat cutter that it doesn't help "hanging" game animals to make them tender as it does for beef.
(Including "mad" beef).

Sorry to bore you with this subject that has no doubt benn discussed several times but I have had excellent success washing my "critters" and cutting them the very next day after they have cooled down.

Dano

Please if you are bored with this subject matter, please email me with some URL's

Thanks,

Dan

[fishuntr2]

If the meat is real messy, hosing it off can only help. I always use vinegar/water and have never had a bad experience with it. As for hanging, wild game doesn't benefit much like a locker beef. I do try to hang for 4 days if the weather is cold enough, otherwise cut it up and freeze after an overnight cool down. My family has never complained about "funny" tasting meat and we eat alot of deer and elk.

[BigFishFever]

Dan

Whenever we butchered game, we always used the vinegar/water solution to remove any hair from the carcass, not necessarily to avoid spoilage.

For Deer we always hung it for a day in either a cold garage, or a meat locker and then butchered it.

Elk, well I dont have a lot of experience in this, but I asked my uncle about this (one of those guys that gets his animal every year). And he hangs his till he gets a good scab/crust on the outside. He then peels that off and then processes with as little sawing through bone as possible.
His elk always seem to come out tender and only a slight hint of "gamey" flavor. He always told me that the gamey flavor came from the bone dust from cutting through the bone, and from any hair left on the carcass.

as for the vinegar...the deer that my family gets, is taken to a ole butcher that makes jerky and he will not take any meat that has any hair.
So the vinegar/water solution works great to remove all hair.

Hope this helps!

[Don Becker]

see: http://www.ifish.net/ubb/ultimatebb....=002093#000011