The Deer Aging Thread

[Azone]

Robby, have you ever experimented with keeping the meat covered with cheesecloth, or a very light breathable game bag to cut down on the amount of trimming? I would love to try the longer drying time, but I've shied away from it due to the trim loss.

 

[robby denning]

Robby, have you ever experimented with keeping the meat covered with cheesecloth, or a very light breathable game bag to cut down on the amount of trimming? I would love to try the longer drying time, but I've shied away from it due to the trim loss.

I have tried that and even leaving the skin on, yet still had to trim the dry stuff.

That’s kind of the fork in the road for most guys, and I’d never deny that your yield is lower.

You might check out that wet-age method Brendan posted up above, approx post #3. Might be a good trade off.


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[blackdawg]

We used the wet aging on a whitetail for 2 weeks, zero trim. We cooked a top round last night on the grill, very tender, approaching tenderloin.


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[Glendon Mullins]

lots of good info in this thread, makes me want to try the aging process, need to stick a thermometer in basement and see what temp is stays around, i think it may be to warm. Got a couple of storage buildings i could try though might be better

 

[robby denning]

lots of good info in this thread, makes me want to try the aging process, need to stick a thermometer in basement and see what temp

You must have the coolest wife on the planet!

Around here, basements only get into the 50’s


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[MeatBuck]

One thing I want to point out is where he talks about leaving the dirt and hair on the meat and just cutting it off after aging.
That stuff generally holds bacteria that starts those mold spots and makes things "appear" to be no good. If you take the time to clean up the meat prior to aging and then wipe the quarters with white vinegar you will cut down on the mold and bad bacteria.
That way you don't contaminate your butcher block or whatever cutting surface you have by tossing down a nasty moldy quarter with the mindset that your cutting it all off anyway. Then once you've cut the nasty off one side you flip the clean meat side down onto the cutting surface that now has the nasty from the outside on it. Resulting in contaminated meat.

Remedy this by either cutting moldy crust off while meat is still hanging thereby eliminating use of a cutting surface until all nasty is off or by keeping the meat clean and hair free from the start. Wiping the dry aged meat with vinegar before going to butcher block helps keep things more sanitary as well.
Just something I learned from an old butcher cousin of mine.

 

[bradlamar1994]

Good stuff Robby.

When you take a buck out whole, are you talking about fully gutted out but with quarters still attached to the body?

I dry age all my waterfowl, and it is definitely a game changer.

I'll have to get creative here in Washington, as it's never cold enough even during the winter to keep the garage at those temps.

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I wouldn’t mind learning more about this waterfowl dry aging. Do you age just the breast? Also curious if you do it with both geese and ducks?

 

[robby denning]

I wouldn’t mind learning more about this waterfowl dry aging. Do you age just the breast? Also curious if you do it with both geese and ducks?

Hey man, I don’t know as much about the birds. But go visit John’s website it’s wild eats.com. He should have all that information on there. And he had some duck fillets at the expo a few years back, and they were delicious. And they were very light in color like pork. Usually the duck meat I’ve been around is fairly dark. Anyways it’s worth looking into man. And it’s a lot of fun, it’ll add to your experience. Let us know what you find out


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[robby denning]

One thing I want to point out is where he talks about leaving the dirt and hair on the meat and just cutting it off after aging.
That stuff generally holds bacteria that starts those mold spots and makes things "appear" to be no good. If you take the time to clean up the meat prior to aging and then wipe the quarters with white vinegar you will cut down on the mold and bad bacteria.
That way you don't contaminate your butcher block or whatever cutting surface you have by tossing down a nasty moldy quarter with the mindset that your cutting it all off anyway. Then once you've cut the nasty off one side you flip the clean meat side down onto the cutting surface that now has the nasty from the outside on it. Resulting in contaminated meat.

Remedy this by either cutting moldy crust off while meat is still hanging thereby eliminating use of a cutting surface until all nasty is off or by keeping the meat clean and hair free from the start. Wiping the dry aged meat with vinegar before going to butcher block helps keep things more sanitary as well.
Just something I learned from an old butcher cousin of mine.

Hey thanks for chiming in. I wouldn’t disagree with any of that. Good practices.


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[sneaky]

Hey thanks for chiming in. I wouldn’t disagree with any of that. Good practices.


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My thoughts. Any surface contamination on muscle cuts is going to be remedied as soon as it hits that grill . If you're doing a grind then absolutely be careful about contamination. We trim ours while it's hanging and rotate cutting boards as well.

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[robby denning]

My thoughts. Any surface contamination on muscle cuts is going to be remedied as soon as it hits that grill . If you're doing a grind then absolutely be careful about contamination. We trim ours while it's hanging and rotate cutting boards as well.

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Yeah I’ve never had a problem, but I see his point about managing your cutting service.

Plus I just know in the field, especially in the back country especially when you’re alone, sometimes you get a lot of hair and dirt on the meat. By aging it and then cutting off that quarter inch of trim, that all goes away. Inused to spend too much time trying to pick the meat clean until I started using this method.


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[bradlamar1994]

Hey man, I don’t know as much about the birds. But go visit John’s website it’s wild eats.com. He should have all that information on there. And he had some duck fillets at the expo a few years back, and they were delicious. And they were very light in color like pork. Usually the duck meat I’ve been around is fairly dark. Anyways it’s worth looking into man. And it’s a lot of fun, it’ll add to your experience. Let us know what you find out


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Will do! Thanks for the info.

 

[tdot]

Awesome post Robby. Thanks for posting this.

I've dry aged to about 14 days before. I need to push it further. Just a thought about the percentage of meat loss, the difference in weight may yield a difference of roughly 10% between aged and uncaged, bit after seeing what I did with my deer at 14 days, I'd guess close to 1/2 was simply the blood loss & moisture from the meat. Not actually volume of edible meat tissue.

Regarding the hair and dirt. I know everyone is always freaked out about getting meat wet. But the issue is blown out of proportion. Go into any butcher shop or slaughter house, that meat is getting hosed down regularly. I personally wash all my meat once its home, then it goes in the fridge or gets hung to let dry reasonably quickly. Getting it dry is the important part.

I personally also freeze and thaw meat up to a couple times and have never seen a degradation in quality. I think the trick there is to never allow it to warm to room temp. If it does, it gets cooked. I was reading on here about how freezing breaks the barriers of the cell walls and that's what give its poor texture. Taking that a step further, I froze and thawed all the meat that was reserved for grind several times this year. It was in a strainer in a bowl and it was amazing how much more blood I got out of that meat, for very little additional effort. Tasted much better without the blood in it.

Now to go see if my Strata will allow me to hang a deer in the underground parkade.

 

[robby denning]

Awesome post Robby. Thanks for posting this.

I've dry aged to about 14 days before. I need to push it further. Just a thought about the percentage of meat loss, the difference in weight may yield a difference of roughly 10% between aged and uncaged, bit after seeing what I did with my deer at 14 days, I'd guess close to 1/2 was simply the blood loss & moisture from the meat. Not actually volume of edible meat tissue.

Regarding the hair and dirt. I know everyone is always freaked out about getting meat wet. But the issue is blown out of proportion. Go into any butcher shop or slaughter house, that meat is getting hosed down regularly. I personally wash all my meat once its home, then it goes in the fridge or gets hung to let dry reasonably quickly. Getting it dry is the important part.

I personally also freeze and thaw meat up to a couple times and have never seen a degradation in quality. I think the trick there is to never allow it to warm to room temp. If it does, it gets cooked. I was reading on here about how freezing breaks the barriers of the cell walls and that's what give its poor texture. Taking that a step further, I froze and thawed all the meat that was reserved for grind several times this year. It was in a strainer in a bowl and it was amazing how much more blood I got out of that meat, for very little additional effort. Tasted much better without the blood in it.

Now to go see if my Strata will allow me to hang a deer in the underground parkade.

Thanks for sharing. And yes at least a good chunk of that shrinkage isn’t meat. You can visibly see the deer get smaller on the long aging times indicating fluid loss to me. The extra waste comes from the 1/4” layer that dries out that you have to cut off.

Keep us posted on your testing.

For those just finding this, and without a walk-in cooler, be sure and keep an internal meat thermometer and old sleeping bag handy as you can’t get above 40 degrees (nor below 33 or aging stops).


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[journeyman713]

Great post!
Thanks for taking the time to put this together!

I'll be reconsidering my 7-10 day process, I've been preaching so long.

 

[JShane]

I've done the dry aging waterfowl they way wildeats video shows. It works really well and I am pleased with the results of my birds. I have recently switched to a 5 day aging process whole bird, feathers on. The results have been an improvement in that the skin does not dry out like the plucked birds in the video. Ive had no issues with shot up birds being affected by the internal organs remining in the carcass for the full 5 days. I'm saving my gizzards, hearts, and livers from all my birds and have experienced no off flavor or rancid organs. The 5 day dry aging is across the board for all species I'm harvesting from green wing teal to Redheads for size comparison. I'm using the crisper/veggie drawer in the garage fridge as an aging "chamber". I'm sorry if I have hijacked the orginal post just thought I'd offer some anecdotal info on waterfowl.

 

[JShane]

blackbellied whistling duck and a blue wing teal

 

[robby denning]

I've done the dry aging waterfowl they way wildeats video shows. It works really well and I am pleased with the results of my birds. I have recently switched to a 5 day aging process whole bird, feathers on. The results have been an improvement in that the skin does not dry out like the plucked birds in the video. Ive had no issues with shot up birds being affected by the internal organs remining in the carcass for the full 5 days. I'm saving my gizzards, hearts, and livers from all my birds and have experienced no off flavor or rancid organs. The 5 day dry aging is across the board for all species I'm harvesting from green wing teal to Redheads for size comparison. I'm using the crisper/veggie drawer in the garage fridge as an aging "chamber". I'm sorry if I have hijacked the orginal post just thought I'd offer some anecdotal info on waterfowl.

No worries on the hijack. We were wondering about birds too. We all learn from each other on here.


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[robby denning]

Lookie here: Chef Mcgannon himself in the most recent issue of MDF talking dry-aging. He’s the guy I mentioned earlier in the thread:

 

[Indian Summer]

What is an ideal humidity percentage?

I can’t imagine that leaving the hide on doesn’t reduce surface drying and therefore meat loss. Really?