Anyone use the gutless method on their Whitetails?

[Shrek]

One of the old guys I hunted with was a butcher and then a meat buyer for forty years and he was the one who showed us the way to slush the ice and then drain and ice age.

 

[mattm94]

Guess I should clarify, immediately means still warm. IE, ice chest full of ice next to the animal you're working on, tossing still warm boned meat into a cooler full of ice. It's called cold shortening, and I assure you it happens.

If your meat has time to cool to even close to ambient temperature prior to being placed on ice, it's not an issue. Having left at least a dozen elk and just as many deer in coolers on ice, for up to two weeks, I'm quite familiar with the process and it's related high rate of success...

 

[Jay Kyle]

Guess I should clarify, immediately means still warm. IE, ice chest full of ice next to the animal you're working on, tossing still warm boned meat into a cooler full of ice. It's called cold shortening, and I assure you it happens.

If your meat has time to cool to even close to ambient temperature prior to being placed on ice, it's not an issue. Having left at least a dozen elk and just as many deer in coolers on ice, for up to two weeks, I'm quite familiar with the process and it's related high rate of success...

Huh! I just google'd cold shortening, it's everywhere. Sounds like sage advice to watch out for. It also sounds like we walk a fine line between cooling too fast - where cold shortening can occur - and cooling too slow - where spoilage can occur.

 

[WyoBowhunter21]

I have been wondering this question exactly. In my opinion I can gut pretty darn fast and I don't think that would save much time. I have been butchering my own meat since I started hunting so I do know my way around an animal and how to cut it but I just can't see it. So I guess I would like to know where it saves you time.

 

[mattm94]

Huh! I just google'd cold shortening, it's everywhere. Sounds like sage advice to watch out for. It also sounds like we walk a fine line between cooling too fast - where cold shortening can occur - and cooling too slow - where spoilage can occur.

Say it ain't so...

 

[Backpack Hunter]

WyoBowhunter21; How much time does it take you to gut a deer?

 

[mattm94]

TITLE: meat processing
SECTION: Cold shortening
Cold shortening is the result of the rapid chilling of carcasses immediately after slaughter, before the glycogen in the muscle has been converted to lactic acid. With glycogen still present as an energy source, the cold temperature induces an irreversible contraction of the muscle (i.e., the actin and myosin filaments shorten). Cold shortening causes meat to be as much as five times tougher...

 

[WyoBowhunter21]

WyoBowhunter21; How much time does it take you to gut a deer?

Deer, I would say 20 minutes or less. We did a smaller elk last year in 15....

 

[Craig Van Arsdale]

Deer, I would say 20 minutes or less. We did a smaller elk last year in 15....

Man i could barely do a hog in that amount of time!!

I'm in no rush though after the kill. I like to gut them I want my tenderloins!

 

[2rocky]

Deer size game (Pigs, WT, BT, Mule deer)

What it comes down to for me is whether the additional time I spend at the Kill site is better spent than at camp skinning and bagging. If it is a downhill drag to the road, I'll go whole animal & drag. Usually there is running water and a cold beer back at camp to make that more attractive anyway.

Add some down fall timber and an uphill hike out and gutless is looking pretty good. Hence my earlier statement.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

Deer, I would say 20 minutes or less. We did a smaller elk last year in 15....

That's pretty fast, still gutless would save you the 15 minutes.

 

[Craig Van Arsdale]

Man i could barely do a hog in that amount of time!!

I'm in no rush though after the kill. I like to gut them I want my tenderloins!

My bad, I read that wrong thought you were talking about breaking it down to I was amazed lol.

 

[WyoBowhunter21]

Haha no sorry. Just gutting. Most of those we could drive to so we loaded them whole. We have a walk in freezer, we do all our processing at the house. Anyways I would say to quarter, get back straps, tenderloins, I would have to say 30 to 40 minutes for a deer, elk another ten. I wi have to try it and see. I just would think getting the back straps and tenderloins would be kind of hard

 

[reid]

This may be off the subject but could cold shortening occur when you gut a animal in extreme cold temperatures?

 

[2rocky]

This may be off the subject but could cold shortening occur when you gut a animal in extreme cold temperatures?

PH is a factor as well

An excerpt from an abstract...

This irreversible loss of extensibility at temperatures between the freezing point (-1°C) and physiological temperatures (38°C) starts at various pH values and ATP concentrations in the muscle. At 38°C the rigor onset occurs at pH 6·25 and about 2 μMol ATP/g muscle, dropping at 15°C to pH 5·75 and 1 μMol ATP/g muscle. At 0°C, as at all temperatures below 10°C, the loss of extensibility at medium loads (about 250 g/cm(2)) begins shortly after cold shortening. This loss of extensibility is reversible by increasing the load or raising the temperature. The irreversible loss, or rigor onset, however, occurs at 0°C with pH of 6·1-6·2 and 1·8-2·0 μMol ATP/g muscle. Thus, the onset of rigor is influenced by more than one factor. Temperature, pH and ATP concentration each play a rôle. Maximum loss of extensibility or completion of rigor is reached between 10°C and 38°C at pH 5·5-5·6 and less than 0·5 μMol ATP/g muscle. At 0°C the completion of rigor takes place at pH 6·0, but still at 0·5 μMol ATP/g muscle. The latter fact shows that the completion of rigor is solely dependent on the ATP concentration in the muscle; nevertheless, the pH of rigor completion is higher in the extreme cold shortening range. This is apparently due to a different pH/ATP relationship in muscles at low temperatures. The results are discussed in terms of changes in the concentration of Ca(2+) ions and ATP. The results are of particular interest for the handling of hot-boned meat; that is, for both the cooling of pre-rigor muscle and the use of hot-boned meat for processing.

Muscles on the bone will generally have some load on them and will relax after rigor. Boned meat doesn't have any tension so it can stay contracted. This and the amount of surface area that loses moisture is part of the reason commercial facilities dry-age meat on the carcass.

 

[Jay Kyle]

I also read that some facilities are experimenting with running AC current through the carcass to reduce this cold shortening effect (?)

As for pH, is that something we as hunters can control, i.e. does an excited animal have a different pH than one taken unawares ?