Cooling carcasses in the car.

[buckup]

I hope this hasn't been covered before, here goes.

My brother has just brought a big box of freezer kits. (Designed for relief of sports injuries). They are a plastic bag with crystals in them, which when needed can be mixed i.e. shaken. This causes a chemical reaction inside the sealed bag and causes the contents to freeze down to an advertised -8C. It occurs to me that placed inside the cavity of an animal it would help greatly in lowering the temperature of the meat while in transit from stalking permission to home.

They retail at a few quid each, but if brought in a decent number come out at a pound each.

Mark

 

[Costas]

pre frozen 1lt Coke bottle 2/3rd full of water works really well and it cost next to nothing. lasts about 4-8 hours. longer if kept in a salmon chiller box. good if you have to pack carcase home during the day. liver and kidneys in a freezer bag with frozen 250ml coke bottle means they stay fresh on the trip to

 

[buckup]

Good tip if you are only on a one day trip. The bonus with the crystal ones is they don't freeze till you need them.
Mark

 

[Dan Gliballs]

If im brutally honest, I dont see the point, its not like you are travelling for days.

As long as your gralloching and cleaning skills are good enough the meat will be fine.

 

[sauer]

i was always taught that you had to let the carcass come down to ambient temperature on its own.

i dunnoe why ....

i also appreciate if stuck in a roe sack or motor for the day wouldnt be helping


so is there any reason why it "has" to be ambient temp first before it goes into chiller etc???


just wondering

sauer / paul

 

[Costas]

Good tip if you are only on a one day trip. The bonus with the crystal ones is they don't freeze till you need them.
Mark

Mark

I don't think that anything other than proper chiller access would solve the problems of a multi day trip.

I know some people take chiller vans when groups go on hunting trips. This means the cost is low when split between a few friends.

 

[Costas]

i was always taught that you had to let the carcass come down to ambient temperature on its own.

i dunnoe why ....

i also appreciate if stuck in a roe sack or motor for the day wouldnt be helping


so is there any reason why it "has" to be ambient temp first before it goes into chiller etc???


just wondering

sauer / paul

Allowing the carcase to ambient cool means the chiller works more efficiently. Not much of a problem when you have just 1 or 2 roe or muntjac. It gets a bit bigger issue when you start putting fallow or red in. You also get less moisture build up.

All fish, meat vegetable produce starts to degrade once picked or caught or killed. The sooner you can reduce the temp of the product the slower the degrading. You can only slow the process you cant stop it. A deer shot on a early morning summer stalk can get pretty ripe if not dealt with properly.

 

[buckup]

I had this experience once Costa. Shot a nice fallow buck in early October on a very warm day. I got the animal into a larder (not a chilled fridge) within twenty four hours, after a long drive home without air con in my vehicle. Twenty four hours later i.e. 48 hours after it was shot it was green as grass and high as a kite. Only good as dog meat as far as I was concerned, and only then after being very well cooked.

I'm not flogging the freezer bags, just the idea sounds a good one. I haven't even used them myself. the logic just sounds right.

Mark

 

[ParkDeerKeeper]

Mark

I don't think that anything other than proper chiller access would solve the problems of a multi day trip.

I know some people take chiller vans when groups go on hunting trips. This means the cost is low when split between a few friends.

When myself and friends have done culls, either wild or park, we have as you suggested hired a Merc chiller van and it was a blessing in disguse, or your only other options is to do a full gralloch and use a local dealer.

 

[mudman]

On our way home from D&G back to East Yorkshire if we have been successful we pop into Tesco's in Dumfries and buy three or four bags of ice at a pound a bag. Put one in the chest cavity and any spare in the carcasse tray, the tray itself is covered in a blanket. This will keep the carcasses cold for the 4 hour journey home and about 24 hours afterwards.

 

[flyingfisherman]

Theres someone we supply with deer and they request that their carcasses are left to cool naturally (hung in a cool larder) before being chilled. They believe it produces better meat and theyre obviously butchers so theres maybe some truth in cooling things naturally..

I was on the way back from Kent once with a box full of cod fillet which i had caught when the car broke down.. we got towed to a service station by the AA and while there i went into burger king and asked for some ice, he looked unsure and asked why so i said my mate had trapped his hand in the door.. got a massive bag of ice to keep the fillets cool while we got home!

Im lucky enough to have access to a chiller while away stalking otherwise it would be a major pain in the backside.. In winter its obviously no snags, especially this year when stalking in -8 conditions.

 

[limulus]

i was always taught that you had to let the carcass come down to ambient temperature on its own.

i dunnoe why ....

i also appreciate if stuck in a roe sack or motor for the day wouldnt be helping





so is there any reason why it "has" to be ambient temp first before it goes into chiller etc???




just wondering

sauer / paul

It might be wise to allow a carcass to cool to ambient temperature naturally prior to placing in a cooler to prevent any bacterial contamination producing spores prior to cooling. Some bacteria (generally the real nasty little shites) will produce spores if the the live bacteria detects sudden changes in its environment which might prevent it reproducing by the normal mechanisms. These spores are resistant to the harshest of conditions and could potentially survive the cooking process it the meat was cooked rare for instance.

 

[Dan Gliballs]

It might be wise to allow a carcass to cool to ambient temperature naturally prior to placing in a cooler to prevent any bacterial contamination producing spores prior to cooling. Some bacteria (generally the real nasty little shites) will produce spores if the the live bacteria detects sudden changes in its environment which might prevent it reproducing by the normal mechanisms. These spores are resistant to the harshest of conditions and could potentially survive the cooking process it the meat was cooked rare for instance.

But when our larder processing room is -10 in winter and the chiller is 3-5 degrees throwing it in the chiller would be the way to go, why would it be any different when the processing room is +10.

Playing devils advocate by the way

 

[hummel]

The reason for not cooling down a carcasse too quick is because of an issue called cold shortening. If you put a warm carcasse into a cold chiller the muscles contract and stay contracted, I suppose you could say it is similar to cramp. This I have been told leaves the meat tougher than it would otherwise have been.
I personally leave my beasts hanging for about 6-12 hrs before putting them in the chiller.
Never heard of anyone getting food poisining from venison in this neck of the woods.

 

[snapper5]

Electrocute the carcass to tenderise

Haven't posted/looked on here for ages so hope you're all well.

Having just read about the cold shortening effect, I'd thought I'd Google it to learn a bit more. My search up with this interesting page, mostly relating to beef, but I think it is relevant to deer.

One of the processes used to tenderise beef is to run high voltage through the carcass for a minute. I'm not recommending anyone tries this for obvious reasons, (might be your sparking carcass there too!) but the article states: Electrical stimulation speeds up the post-mortem conversion of muscle to meat and thus reduces the incidence of "cold shortening". Never heard of this before.

Quite a lot of other useful information in the article too about aging, hanging, freezing, etc.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/DJ0856.html

 

[old_realtree]

pop into Tesco's and buy three or four bags of ice at a pound a bag.

Now that really is a top tip, always a Tesco on the way home!!

John