Temp for leaving elk carcass overnight

[Ucsdryder]

I like to see what I'm doing.

That’s why God made head lamps!

Did you make that meat pole in the back country or was that back at camp?

 

[Stache Attack]

I’ve seen elk gutted make it through night fine at 35 and have seen them spoil at 28. I’d do a rough job pulling quarters and straps over gutting myself. After that up to you on what else you do when it’s that far past dark.

A good headlamp and then take a good sleep after knowing you’re just packing tomorrow

 

[cnelk]

Trophy’s of the night

 

[roadrunner]

That’s why God made head lamps!

Did you make that meat pole in the back country or was that back at camp?

1.6 miles in from the trailhead at 8,652' elevation in SE Utah.

Would like the lat and long?

 

[Ucsdryder]

1.6 miles in from the trailhead at 9,000' elevation in SE Utah.

Would like the lat and long?

That’s a nice meat pole! Usually I’m trying to hang crap off scraggly fir that break under the weight.

 

[35WhelenAI]

I like to see what I'm doing.

That's called a headlamp...

 

[roadrunner]

That's called a headlamp...

I have one of those too. No point in getting hurt if you don't have to...

 

[35WhelenAI]

I was saying that tongue-in-cheek, but with a headlamp I do not feel I am underprepared for taking an elk apart for as long as it takes after dark. And again, Fire will keep a person warm well into the night. However with it all said and done, I think the cases of an animal spoiling are sometimes over emphasized in the grand scheme of things in western hunting even during archery season given the night time temps. When one person has an issue and another one doesn't, there was something done differently with respect to the game care if all else was equal with similar temps. No question it has happened, however with good game care, the freezer is full.

 

[cnelk]

I carry two headlamps.

There’s been times I’ve left one at the kill sight flashing, just in case I get a wild hair to come back for more meat during the night.
Also works to keep any critters away

 

[35WhelenAI]

Interesting strategy to leave a headlamp on at the kill site, that is worth the cost of a set of AA batteries. Flashing is absolutely an alert for any predator type animal. Learn something everyday. That makes some very good sense.

However, truly, why the hell would you come back in the middle of the night? Piss a circle around the animal, leave your flashing headlamp there and get a good night's sleep in your warm sleeping bag.

 

[cnelk]

^^^ yep. I’ll take take the weight penalty for an extra headlamp

 

[roadrunner]

I was saying that tongue-in-cheek, but with a headlamp I do not feel I am underprepared for taking an elk apart for as long as it takes after dark. And again, Fire will keep a person warm well into the night. However with it all said and done, I think the cases of an animal spoiling are sometimes over emphasized in the grand scheme of things in western hunting even during archery season given the night time temps. When one person has an issue and another one doesn't, there was something done differently with respect to the game care if all else was equal with similar temps. No question it has happened, however with good game care, the freezer is full.

We've had our fair share doing them at night too. Walked up to this one well after sunset.

 

[cnelk]

However, truly, why the hell would you come back in the middle of the night?

Adrenaline

 

[35WhelenAI]

I edited just as you posted. And I mean this in jest, but also in some rational questioning form. Why would you come back in the middle of the night? The only thing that's going to be gone is the guts, from the experience of my buddies who haven't pissed a circle around their elk.

 

[35WhelenAI]

Damn, we keep crossing posts. Adrenaline is a great thing! I take adrenaline back to camp, have a good supper or whatever hour of the morning since I probably didn't make it back to camp in time. Have a beer or two, and call it a day. You know what though? We've got animals on the ground so all is good no matter how it goes from there.

 

[cnelk]

It’s not a secret that I don’t venture much more than a mile from a vehicle when elk hunting.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a second trip at night, but I have that T shirt

 

[ScreamingPotato]

That meat will last a lot better at warmer temps than most people think. Having said that, I'd never leave it intentionally. My cow from last year wife and I made it back to camp at 3am. I'm not gonna leave anything without hanging quarters just because it's dark.

 

[Elkoholic87]

If you’re able to gut it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to get it all dressed out. The last bull I killed I shot in the evening and didn’t get back to camp until 4am.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LoH]

The relationship between environmental temps and what we do/how we handle the meat in the first 24 hours especially, I think is a somewhat misunderstood thing and more nuanced than many of us were typically taught.

Let me say off the top that I am personally hyper invested in the quality of my final product: tenderness, flavor, etc. Like my pride and ego is involved when I serve it to guests, and I get a little obsessive. But just so you know where I'm coming from with this business. I gotta be me. And you do you.

Of course, erring on the side of too warm can ruin meat entirely, whereas erring on the side of too cold (i.e. you allowed cold-shortening to occur) won't make you sick or rot the meat, but it will be so permanently tough and flavorless I would personally probably end up feeding it to the dogs.

(to review: "cold shortening [is] when the meat, still in its pre-rigor phase, reaches temperatures of 50°F or lower. These conditions cause irreversible contractions of the muscle tissue which toughen the meat even after prolonged ripening."

In the first 18 hours or so, depending on conditions, I'm thinking about the meat cooling too rapidly, and to too low of a temperature (cold-shortening). I am also thinking about the meat cooling too slowly, or holding at "too high" of a temp. I put too high in quotes because this is one area I think there is nuance and context lost in a lot of discussions.

For elk, I start thinking about moderating heat loss if overnight temperatures are below 32F. I start thinking about encouraging heat loss if overnight temps are holding above, say 50F. Again, this is for elk, with their thick hair and large body mass.

In a commercial/industrial setting, there are competing priorities between food safety/efficiency on the one hand, and the actual tenderness and max awesomeness of the final product on the other. Generally, more is given up on the latter, in order to ensure the former. And I think this is partly what informs our ideas and attitudes around this subject. From an article on carcass chilling published in the journal Meat Science:

Most postmortem chilling processes of livestock carcasses are primarily employed to ensure food safety, maximize shelf-life, and reduce shrinkage with less emphasis on maintaining tenderness and color factors of the finished product. Whether chilling conditions are being met for regulatory requirements, as part of a critical control point of a HACCP system...other factors may be more important than those factors effecting direct consumer satisfaction of the product.

But meat scientists know that in an ideal world, beef, lamb, venison, (pigs are a little different) etc, should experience what is termed "delayed chilling." We would "[employ] chilling parameters that minimize cold shortening" as a matter "of greatest importance and [which] can be best addressed by ensuring that muscle temperatures are not below 10 °C [50°F]" during this critical time-frame (i.e. while rigor mortis is developing and then relaxing, i.e. the first 6-24 hours)

In small critters like rabbits rigor begins and concludes rapidly, within a few hours. Deer will take longer. Elk, moose, even longer still. It is body mass and temperature-dependent (as well as dependent on other variables like if the animal full of adrenaline before it died.)

So, to repeat, Ideally rigor mortis is allowed to develop—and then relax—normally, at moderate temperatures of between 50-60F. (After the first 18 hours or so—where I'm perfectly happy if it spent that time between 50-60F—my elk quarters spend the rest of their hanging/aging period between 35-50F. By this point they're at home in my shed if the temps are correct or in my friend's walk-in cooler. Lower temps, they would hang longer, 7-14 days. If temps were flirting with 50, then they would have a shorter hang, maybe just 5 days, it depends.)


What does this mean for me post-shot? Well I personally don't want to stay up past midnight if I don't have to, and I've never had to. I like my sleep and I'm a morning person.

Elk:
If shot in the day I do gutless and pack out as normal.

If shot just before dark, with typical hunting season overnight temps of 25-45F, I'll gut the animal and I have no issue with propping the body cavity open for air flow and leaving the carcass overnight. If overnight temps are at the lower end of that scale, or even lower, then I'm actually glad for the hide and the moderating effect it provides slowing heat loss.

(1,000% you do not want to leave the guts in the animal for any longer than necessary. That is where the bacteria are, and decomposition begins immediately upon death. People referred to gasses yup and other leakage as well—plus it retains a ton of heat. Too much heat. And mostly just a f-ton of bacteria with all the ideal conditions to reproduce exponentially.)

If it was going to be warmer than 50F all night maybe I'd skin back one half and remove that shoulder, hindquarter and backstrap, miscellaneous meat. Again, just air flow. Finding that goldilocks zone of "not too much not too little, not too rapid, not too slow" heat loss.


This is all for clean kills too btw. All bets would be off for a gut/paunch-shot animal. In that case, bacteria is no longer contained in the GI tract. I would quarter and cool an animal like that ASAP. I'm actually not sure how I would handle hanging/aging such an animal, as I haven't had that experience. Anyone who has, please chime in on how that meat turned out. Please school me.

But anyway the muscle meat of a cleanly taken critter is basically sterile to begin with. I'm happy to make elk tartar or carpaccio with prime cuts.

 

[MallardSX2]

Any animal imo needs to have the hide stripped and 1/4’d and hung up to cool immediately.


I know there are some guys who hang with the hide on, but you’ll never catch me doing that. I tried that a couple times and I didn’t like the meat.

The only reason to leave an animal overnight is if you are 100% unsure of the shot.

That’s just my opinion though.