NealMustard
FNG
This year I spent a lot of time working on improving my field care and processing. I read most threads that I could on rockslide on the topic and talked to as many old hunters as I could about which means I mostly spent my time encountering Fudd-lore about meat.
Below are the things I heard that gave me pause, and some explanation. As the thread fills out I'll update the main body of this post with more myths, explanations, or data if people post it.
Livers/organs
Don’t eat livers during the rut - if the liver looks white and has spiderweb like veins running over it you should throw it away.
Liver needs to be kept separate from all other meats - the people that say this have either put the meat immediately in a ziplock where it can’t breathe, or they’ve put it in the “hamburger” game bag.
Liver spoils and you should only take it if you can get it cold and out of the field in a day - I’ve heard these same people say that they throw the liver into their grind pile
General meat care
The more rutted out the bull the longer you let it hang - This person claimed that the standard time to hang a carcass is a few days, but if the meat smells off or rutted out you should have for 1-2 weeks.
One hair can spoil the grind pile - coming from people who don’t clean hair off of their meat in the field
Never get your meat wet - I haven’t met any Alaskans who will claim to have had meat spoil. I’ve talked to a number of people who are happy to put their meat directly on snow to cool it off. At least up here the preference has been cold > dry.
Don’t get any silver skin in the grind pile - One friend claims to have ground a muscle with all tendons/silverskin attached, done a taste test vs clean meat, and not been able to tell a difference in taste or texture. There’s whole threads on this that I won’t like here, If anyone has done a side by side comparison of the same muscle from the same animal I’d like to hear it.
Bones
Bones hold in a lot of heat, and if you want to cool the meat you need to debone the meat - is this not just an issue of meat thickness and surface area to cool?
Bone marrow is delicious - Coming from the same people that say that all fat needs to be trimmed from the animal. One time I heated up some moose bone marrow and it made my whole house smell like bad moose fat. When the marrow was cold the taste was unnoticeable.
Deboning in the field - I won’t even try to compile all of the opinions on this. I’ll just state my opinion and let people tell me im wrong. You should leave meat on the bone for the first night and let it go into rigor. If it’s going into the grind pile it’s acceptable to debone in the field after it’s been in rigor, but only if you need to save weight. This opinion is based on feelings, not facts.
Useful things learned this year
Having a pre-process sit-down is useful. I would take 5 minutes after finding the animal and confirming its death to tape my barrel, eat a snack, drink some water, and throw in rain pants. This gave me some time to let the adrenaline spike go down, and saved me from feeling completely spent when the animal was in my backpack.
Having an agreement about how the animal is going to be consumed before beginning field processing made life significantly easier. On a recent hunt we agreed that we were only taking roasts from the neck, and hind quarters. The entire shoulder and rib area was destined for the grind pile. This made it significantly faster and easier to field process animals as a team.
Use the game bag to cover meat as you skin it. The way this works is by first cutting off the hock, and covering the shank with a game bag (putting the quarter in “upside down”). As you work the hide down, work the game bag down with it. Doing this resulted in significantly less cleaning off the quarters. On the shoulders you can use the game bag to “punch down” in the hide, and the meat never has a chance to get contaminants on it.
Taking the hind quarters off as a pair, attached to the pelvis, made for cleaner roasts and less waste. This is viable on smaller animals but It makes for an awkward pack-out.
Below are the things I heard that gave me pause, and some explanation. As the thread fills out I'll update the main body of this post with more myths, explanations, or data if people post it.
Livers/organs
Don’t eat livers during the rut - if the liver looks white and has spiderweb like veins running over it you should throw it away.
Liver needs to be kept separate from all other meats - the people that say this have either put the meat immediately in a ziplock where it can’t breathe, or they’ve put it in the “hamburger” game bag.
Liver spoils and you should only take it if you can get it cold and out of the field in a day - I’ve heard these same people say that they throw the liver into their grind pile
General meat care
The more rutted out the bull the longer you let it hang - This person claimed that the standard time to hang a carcass is a few days, but if the meat smells off or rutted out you should have for 1-2 weeks.
One hair can spoil the grind pile - coming from people who don’t clean hair off of their meat in the field
Never get your meat wet - I haven’t met any Alaskans who will claim to have had meat spoil. I’ve talked to a number of people who are happy to put their meat directly on snow to cool it off. At least up here the preference has been cold > dry.
Don’t get any silver skin in the grind pile - One friend claims to have ground a muscle with all tendons/silverskin attached, done a taste test vs clean meat, and not been able to tell a difference in taste or texture. There’s whole threads on this that I won’t like here, If anyone has done a side by side comparison of the same muscle from the same animal I’d like to hear it.
Bones
Bones hold in a lot of heat, and if you want to cool the meat you need to debone the meat - is this not just an issue of meat thickness and surface area to cool?
Bone marrow is delicious - Coming from the same people that say that all fat needs to be trimmed from the animal. One time I heated up some moose bone marrow and it made my whole house smell like bad moose fat. When the marrow was cold the taste was unnoticeable.
Deboning in the field - I won’t even try to compile all of the opinions on this. I’ll just state my opinion and let people tell me im wrong. You should leave meat on the bone for the first night and let it go into rigor. If it’s going into the grind pile it’s acceptable to debone in the field after it’s been in rigor, but only if you need to save weight. This opinion is based on feelings, not facts.
Useful things learned this year
Having a pre-process sit-down is useful. I would take 5 minutes after finding the animal and confirming its death to tape my barrel, eat a snack, drink some water, and throw in rain pants. This gave me some time to let the adrenaline spike go down, and saved me from feeling completely spent when the animal was in my backpack.
Having an agreement about how the animal is going to be consumed before beginning field processing made life significantly easier. On a recent hunt we agreed that we were only taking roasts from the neck, and hind quarters. The entire shoulder and rib area was destined for the grind pile. This made it significantly faster and easier to field process animals as a team.
Use the game bag to cover meat as you skin it. The way this works is by first cutting off the hock, and covering the shank with a game bag (putting the quarter in “upside down”). As you work the hide down, work the game bag down with it. Doing this resulted in significantly less cleaning off the quarters. On the shoulders you can use the game bag to “punch down” in the hide, and the meat never has a chance to get contaminants on it.
Taking the hind quarters off as a pair, attached to the pelvis, made for cleaner roasts and less waste. This is viable on smaller animals but It makes for an awkward pack-out.
