HuntingNow

I like the idea of a walk in cooler myself. I don't have one yet and I'm still looking for a good solution. What do you use furgitter and at what temperature do you maintain it? Is it going to burn a hole in my pocket to build and maintain one? I'm also looking for other inputs and suggestions. Thank you in advance to anyone who could help me out.

Newhunter1 at work

I don't have a walk in cooler, but I do have is experience and a basement fridge. This past opening day I got one at 3:30 pm and it was 88 degrees out when I recovered him 10 minutes after I shot him. He died quickly for me.

Anyway, I drug him out of the woods intact...(the flies and mosquitos in the woods are horrible) and gut him on the levee. Then I walk out with him. When I get home I immediately hang him up on my deer pole at the end of my driveway. I skin him (about 10-15 minutes) and start cutting him up. I debone the deer right there...

I start with the backstraps and inner loins (however if gut shot I feed the inner loins to my dogs--had a couple of loins that tasted foul after recovering a gut shot deer--won't do that again[:'(]) Once I remove the straps and loins I put it a zip lock baggie and put it in my basement fridge. Then I work on the rear hams. I cut the hams out in two pieces...the front ham and the back ham. These go into zip lock baggies as well and then into my basement fridge. Next I start working on the front quarters. Take them off, cut off the meat as this is either going to be my grind for burger or stew meat. So its not pretty when I cut this meat off the bones. After these quarters are clean and void of any meat that I feel is salvable for grind, or stew meat then the bones are thrown over the fence to my waiting dogs.

Next I work on the neck of the deer. Since I don't like the neck as a roast I cut off all the meat and throw that into a zip lock bag. Cut the meat off and from in between the ribs, and then work on any section of deer that has any meat left. All of this is considered as grind or burger meat and into zip lock baggies. Finally, when I feel that I've gotten off as much meat as possible I dump the carcass into an industrial black bag and put in my trash can for pick up the next day.

When all is said and done...from the time I get the deer hung up to the time I take it down...about 1 to 1 1/2 hours and that's taking my time.

Next the deer sits in my basement fridge for 7-10 days and I start processing and really cleaning the meat up. From the time I start till the time I finish cleaning up the kitchen (my wife is a saint) it is around 2 hours of cutting, and sealing that the deer is done.

My wife and I had a roast from my buck, and last night we had some steaks from the doe I shot. Both deer sat in my fridge for a minumim of 7 days and both times I could not believe the tenderness of the meat.

It doesn't take me 12 hours anymore to process a deer by myself. Now I'm done in around 3 hours per deer as I've become much more experienced in the process of processing deer.

Paul

jlsherr

You have got great advice. I do the same as the others. The weather is so warm here I quarter the deer and place in a cooler ( ice chest ) fill to the top with ice, leave the drain valve open and add ice as needed for two or three days. This helps to bleed the meat. It also provides time to get to the "butcher" I use alocal meat market for my speciality sausage and " slim Jims " the rest I process myself.

HuntingNow

How I envy you! Usually I just take mine to a butcher. I don't have the knack for it yet but I'm not giving up hope.

Well, I'm seriously considering converting a small room in our home into a walk-in cooler. I've read a lot about some people who successfully built a walk-in cooler without burning a hole in their pockets and I'm aiming for the same. There's this site, whitetailcooling.com, which I came across last week that sparked my interest. The coolbot thing looked promising but I'd like to know what you guys think about it. I would really appreciate any opinion or advice you could give. Thanks for everything!

kingvjack

Man, to have a walk in freezer would be the ****!!!
I just burger my briskets and shanks, cut my ribs, take my backstraps, Cut everything else into roasts. and get it in the freezer, then if I want steaks or whatever later on I just cut up a roast.

peakrut

My Unc built a walk in cooler and butcher area with sinks and all on the farm I can hunt here in Wi.
Now If I could build a mustang ranch and .................NM

Stoningtonwhitetail

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS HANG YOUR DEER, rigamortis needs to set and release in all of the muscles, if you dont allow this to happen, your meat will taste "gamey"....on warm days I hang my deer and pack it with ice in a dark dry room, like a garage.....

npaden

I skin the deer while it is laying on it's side in the field. I just skin 1 side at a time. Then I cut the hind quarter off at the hip joint and the front shoulder off and cut the backstraps out and put them in a bag. I then cut the meat off the front shoulder and cut the hind quarter off the thigh bone and put the meat inthe bag. It is amazingly easy to just reach in and pull the tenderloin out sometimes you can just pull it right out without even using a knife. Then I flip the deer over and repeat the process for the other side. I don't mess around with gutting it. The entire process takes about 30 minutes and you have 2 nice bags of boneless meat to take home and process the rest of the way.

I've done the ice chest thing with some pigs and it worked but sometimes you have to process it right away. I shot an Antelope in Montana last Saturday at 3:30 in the afternoon and it was cut and wrapped and in my mother's freezer by 9:00 that night. I shot a deer last Tuesday and put the boneless meat in the fridge overnight and cut and wrapped it on Wednesday and both animals were in coolers riding back to Texas with me in nice white frozen packages on Thursday.

I've heard all kinds of old wive's tales about hanging, aging, etc. but generally I think the final taste is going to be more affected by what the animal has been eating and how much it has been moving around before you shoot it than anything you can do after it has been shot.

wis_bow_huntr

Its usually never too cold up here opening day so Its nothing to let one hang a day or two, if its really cold i like to age mine, we have let deer hanf till january-feb with no spoilage.

lethalconnection

Its not much work for us to butcher animals cause there are 6 of us that hunt together and we all split the meat, charges, butchering, work so it works out great and you get to b/s and drink beer with the boys while cuttin the game up. It also helps that we have a walk in cooler built onto our garage so we can keep the meat nice a cool untill a day we are all free and able to cut the animals up. Here are some photos of our setup. I actually dont have pics surprisingly but we also have a big 4x8 table that we setup and put a butchers block on and we can fit all of us around it and we will have a deer done in 20mins and we all have our own lil jobs and cuts we do. Me and another guy take care of the steaks and tenders, my dad and uncle take care of the roasts, and the other two take care of the the meat that will go to sausage, hamburger and such, and scraps from the prime cuts. If one of us finishes early we just hop in and usually help with the scraps since that usually takes longer to clean and prep.