Transporting meat with no ice.

Joined
Jun 14, 2020
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343
Long story short my daughter shot her first deer at the family farm. We where cleaning it and getting ready for prepping it when momma called and we had to drive home. Normally leaving the meat in the freezer at the farm I wasn’t prepared to travel with it. So I Found a polar bear cooler. Put the deer in ziplocks and found a single square feezer pack and stuck it in it. we drove 2 hrs home and when I un zipped the cooler at the house I could feal the heat. So I quickly got it in a plastic tub with ice and in the fridge. Should I be worried or am I over thinking it. Smells fine looks fine.
 

Legend

WKR
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Jun 13, 2017
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It is fine. Heck I have eaten game that was recovered the next day without field dressing it.
 

Raypo

Lil-Rokslider
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Dec 5, 2018
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St. Louis, MO
When raw meat is confined and hits temperatures over 40 degrees it can start to grow bacteria in as little as 20 minutes. After 2 hours the meat is ruined and not safe to eat. Some will argue it, but also my son ate a McDonalds hamburger off the dash that was there for 3 days. He lived. If it was me, I would not eat it. Sorry.
 

2muchhp

WKR
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Oct 26, 2021
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Smells fine, looks fine. I probably would have cooked some up before it the fridge.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
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You would have been better off not putting it in ziplocks and a cooler. All you did was confine the heat. I doubt the meat is a loss but putting warm meat into a cooler was a poor decision.

I don't know what your vehicle situation was but leaving the meat out to cool would have been preferable.
 
OP
S
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Jun 14, 2020
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343
I dont disagree. I was in my wife suburban with 4 dogs. Made a quick decision. Shoulda woulda coulda. If i would have known i would have taking them to the processor.
Life happens
 
Joined
Feb 5, 2020
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The cooler and bags do hold the heat in but it was only a couple hours. If it smells fine I would eat it. Sometimes recovery times are a couple hours or longer.
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 14, 2020
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Well good news. 35lbs of hamburger made
10lbs of jerky. All smelled fine, no slime, no wetness. So I’m a happy camper and not near as worried once I got into it. Thanks for all The responses
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2019
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Fort Myers , FL
I’m glad that worked out. I once had a similar situation. The kill was sort of unexpected. I had to go and I had warm meat and not much ice. At time I had a SUV. I put the meat in 2gallon ziploks and I had only one small bag of ice which was about half melted. I left the ziplock bags open and I cracked the lid on my rotomolded cooler by putting a rag over the side. It gave the meat a chance to cool down without melting the ice in ten minutes. When I got home in a few hrs later the meat had cooled down pretty good. It wasnt cold but cool enough not to spoil. At the time I was hunting in South Central Florida. You learn how deal with meat in warm weather and high humidity hunting down here.
 

Rich M

WKR
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Orlando
We used to drive home with a whole deer strapped to the roof or in the bed of a truck. Would process everything at home.

Don't overthink it. There is a whole subset of society that doesn't ice the hell out of everything.
 
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