Backcountry meat care

[Tim M]

I have been reading and studying about using citric acid to help lower the ph on the outside of meat to help with bacteria and flies in addition to using good game bags. Any roksliders have any experience with doing this?

 

[CGSwimmer25]

We use it on float trips but I've never taken it on a mountain hunt. Both float hunts we would spray it on daily along with proper meat care and the meat was perfect 7 days later when we were putting it on the pallet to anchorage. Longest I've had goat and sheep meat in the field was 5 days but it's pretty cool on the mountains at night and bugs were never an issue for me. Bugs were pretty bad on those float hunts though so it must have worked.

 

[Tim M]

Did you just bring powdered citric acid and mix it with filtered water as you needed?

 

[CGSwimmer25]

Yeah, we brought a couple of spray bottles and the packets we bought from Sportsmans in Anchorage. At night when we made camp we would spray the meat and change out the game bags as needed and also spray the game bags down.

 

[gmajor]

I'm planning on bringing it with me this year.

 

[Tim M]

perfect, I am planning on trying this also. don't have much trouble keeping meat cool as long as I can get it hung up but it is a real battle trying to keep the flies and yellowjackets off of it even with good game bags!

 

[turk870]

heard a guy say that he would soak meat bags in it and let them dry,then the moisture from the meat would reactivate it

 

[dangerousD]

There was just a thread on here recently about this topic with lots of good info also. If I remember right, the citric acid was pretty popular, although I've never used it. I may go that route this season since you can carry it in powder form and then add water. I carried a small spray bottle with some vinegar that I was going to dilute with water had I been successful. I've used that on deer before if I was going to hang them for a while. I've read that black pepper is good also to keep flies off. I may carry some pepper and citric acid this fall.

 

[BackcountryMT]

I used Chili Powder on my game bags this year. Worked great!

 

[ridgefire]

I have had elk hanging for up to a week in my caribou gear game bags in sept with nothing else and have never lost any meat. Get the hide off quickly and then hang it by a creek in the shade if you have any nearby and you will be fine.

 

[Poser]

I've never had to resort to any of these methods, but sprinkling salt on the surface of the meat will deter bacteria growth. I'm not sure why that is not a more common method used by hunters. Michael Ruhlman suggests that when you bring meat home from the grocery and intend to keep it in your fridge for more than 2 or 3 days, to sprinkle salt on the surface.

Traditionally, black pepper was used to keep bugs off of meat. In fact, because it was used so prolifically in that manner is the reason that black pepper is such a cooking staple in the modern world. We developed an aesthetic for something that was purely functional. Black pepper is still used for this purpose when hanging cured meats in cellars for long durations.

 

[Violent Hippie]

Poser, Have you are any others personally used the black pepper method ? Seems easy to just bring along a shaker tin of it . There were flies immediately on one of the deer I shot this year . Sure got me moving fast and thinking about the pepper idea. I've heard of it as well but never used it.