Maximum Meat Processing Duration Til Meat Spoilage

[treillw]

What is the maximum number of days you are comfortable with passing from the time of kill to when all the meat is processed and frozen? Wondering how long it takes to spoil.

This time is for a normal kill scenario - you pull the trigger, it drops, you get the meat cooled and back home in a normal fashion.
Thanks!

 

[Kootenay Hunter]

Where? What time of year? What are the daily and nightly temps? What storage method?

It could range from a few hours to a few weeks

 

[treillw]

Where? What time of year? What are the daily and nightly temps? What storage method?

It could range from a few hours to a few weeks

You shoot it, debone it, the meat is cooled (30 outside), stored in a cool location till it can be packed out of the woods, it's not frozen. You have the meat in a refrigerator within 24 hours.

 

[ljalberta]

Some people hang their meat between 1-4 weeks before processing it as long as the temperature is controlled

 

[realunlucky]

It's all about regulating temperature

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

 

[wytx]

We age up to 21 days on elk depending on temps. Our garage is perfect set up for us to hang when it's cold enough outside.
Pronghorn and deer get a week or 10 days usually.

 

[treillw]

My exact scenario is I shot a cow last Monday afternoon. It was deboned within a couple of hours and mostly cooled before packing it out. It was probably 20 degrees and windy as crap. Shortly after dark all the meat was packed back to the vehicle. That night I spread the meat out in the vehicle and it was probably 10 degrees outside. In the morning the meat was icy, but not frozen solid. I bundled it all up in a contractor trash bag and went and hunted a second day. By 9:00 that evening (~30 hours after the kill) the meat was placed in a refrigerator, where it has been ever since.

I always have felt like I have a week to take care of it. Very busy this time however. Got about 75% cutup yesterday and hope to finish it up tonight. Wondering how long I could go through before I have to start to worry. It will be hard to have everything frozen by tonight.

Does it matter if it is hung up? I have the processed stuff in 5 gallon buckets waiting to be ground or steaks frozen and the unprocessed meat is just in a big ball in the bottom of an old fridge.

 

[PantherCity]

You're all good. If the meat was clean, you can go 2-3 weeks or longer. If it was dirty or exposed to alot of bacteria, like from a gut shot, I would want to get the processing done as quickly as possible and cut off all the contaminated surfaces.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

The answer strictly depends on storage temperature and conditions. If it's above 50 F, the four or five days. If over 60 F, three to four days. Less than 50 F, five to seven days. If it's moist in these scenarios, subtract a 1-2 days off your time to reach controlled storage. These are really lose estimates because how clean it is at time of death and storage handling ultimately decides the end quality and dictates the abundance of bacteria as every 24 hours goes by.