How Long Have You Let a Deer Hang??

[Savagenut]

Bearded butchers you tube page.

Good knowledge.

I used to go 10-14 days depending on temps. They argue for much tighter controls on temp and humidity.

 

[gvsugod]

QDMA tweeted an article a few months ago. Basically if you can control the temperature/moisture no reason you cant hang it a couple few weeks. I tend to hang it a couple of days at least assuming its cold enough in my garage.

 

[renagde]

I once shot a gnarly old buck the first week in December. Hung it up in the barn with plans to skin it out and process it. The weather took a turn for the worst, he froze solid and was hanging until the last week in March when he finally thawed out enough to process. It was the best tasting, most tender whitetail meat I've ever had.

 

[bmf0713]

I’ve had back strap still warm to the touch right off the deer cooked up and I have stuff hung for 7-10 days. I haven’t notice a difference. I see difference in the age of the animal, older bucks are tougher front and hind quarters, and 2-3 year old does are the best eating. All the back straps and tenders are roughly the same. Older bucks may have a little more silver skin in them. But I eat Illinois and Iowa corn fed whitetails.

 

[Savagenut]

I’ve had back strap still warm to the touch right off the deer cooked up and I have stuff hung for 7-10 days. I haven’t notice a difference. I see difference in the age of the animal, older bucks are tougher front and hind quarters, and 2-3 year old does are the best eating. All the back straps and tenders are roughly the same. Older bucks may have a little more silver skin in them. But I eat Illinois and Iowa corn fed whitetails.

The inside tenderloin? That’s tender no matter what.

 

[bmf0713]

The inside tenderloin? That’s tender no matter what.

Yeah. The inside tenderloins are always tender just differ sizes. And I’ve never had a tough backstrap/loin On any age or size of dear. Usually I use front quarters for jerky/salami, tenders and back loins for little steaks and the hinds for burger. But there are some cuts in the rear I’ll use for roasts or also cut into steaks depending on the grain of meat.

 

[Savagenut]

I killed a doe in September in 80 degree temps. didnt have a way to safely hang the deer so I had to process it right away. Toughest meat I’ve ever had. Not sure him much you gain after a few days but I think 2-3 days is minimum for me. The weight of the deer alone stretches the fibers.

 

[tumble]

7-10 days if the weather is holding below 40F

 

[BeardandMane]

When my dad was younger him and his buddies built a "cave" off a guys garage partway into a hillside and a little below grade. It was constructed of CMU walls and a poured concrete ceiling. It generally stayed around 38 -42 degrees all through deer season. Had to hang them in the walk in cooler in August. But, they all hung in there at least a week sometimes up to two. The the environment was right.

 

[ChrisA]

My muzzleloader doe hung for 74 days this year. Shot on January 6th, she was froze solid for most of the time. Loins next to spine, and hams next to bone were still stiff and very cold on the fingers. Very good meat.

 

[RnnHntr]

If you do a search, University of Wyoming did an excellent study on aging meat, based on time, humidity, and temperature. The bottom line was that unless you can keep it at the correct temperature and humidity, the quality was generally better cut immediately. That jives with my experience. I cut most of my own meat, and will butcher and freeze as soon as practical. I have not had a tough or gamey one yet after 50+ animals killed in conditions ranging from 90-degrees plus to -20-degrees. I personally think getting them butchered and frozen as soon as practical is imperative with antelope, as the stronger flavored meat has been that which waited the longest to be butchered and frozen.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

I don't hunt deer much but have aged elk for 3.5 weeks, moose for 4 weeks and bison for seven. Much better when ya age it properly (under proper temps).

 

[Stalker69]

We used to let ours hang as long as we could ( temps would allow.) Some time up to 17 days. Then other times temps would not allow it, ( we would cut up some times 12-15 elk and that many or more deer, and the walk in cooler would be stuffed) and we cut them up sooner. So we got to thinking, the meat wasn’t any more tender , or taste any better at 17 days then when it was cut and wrapped right away. So we have done little experiments a lot of different ways. But we normally hunt 10 days. So some guys would get there’s the first day and some guys would get there’s sometime in the 10 day period. Then when we got home we hung them and stared cutting the ones that were killed the last day. So only hung for a day, and cut up the rest from shortest time to hang to longest, we would take meat from them and cook it while we were cutting up the meat. And there wasn’t a single person ( a lot of us, and our wives, girlfriends ,neighbors and friends) that could taste a differance. So now we kill, field dress guy less method, get to camp and freeze. When we get home and decide to butcher we thaw them all out and cut up, taste great this way. When we hung beef you could tell aging helped, but they have a lot more fat content in the actual meat and it seems to help. Venison and wild pork don’t have that and don’t seem to benifit the same way. Much easier freezing immediately and butchering at our convience. Sorry for the long read, but we have tried this numerous times. And as far as quality ( taste) of the meat, it seems to depend a lot more on how fast the animals expires, and how fast you get them cooled down ( frozen).

 

[kurtis12]

I've done 6 days. I thought that was just fine.

 

[Bojangles21]

Never went past a week, does it benefit that much from it?? Just curious!


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