Most all of my whitetail hunting in my youth was done at my families ranch outside of Brownwood, Texas. The temps there were not conducive to hanging deer so my father bought a walk in cooler from a butcher shop in Brady Texas.
I have to agree with most others here that the deer should be processed right away due to the temps being above 40 degrees F.
A more interesting question is coming to life here though that I think should be explored, that being hanging with the skin off or on. The reason I mentioned that walk in cooler above was to help discuss this issue.
We would never hang deer in the cooler with the skin on for more then a day. It was my fathers opinion that leaving the skin on only imparted more oils to the flavor of the meat and gave it a more "gamey" taste.
He talked to some butchers about this and they also said it was best to hang the meat without the skin. They pointed out that beef is never hung with the skin on, why should deer be any different.
I noted with interest the comment from Bob about the skin keeping the animal from drying out and spoiling and found that most interesting. I enjoy reading his posts and find he has a sound perspective on many issues so I am not quick to dismiss his point about keeping the skin on. In addition, Bob, I would love to know your technique for skinning the animal after it has hung for a while with the skin on.
As I have always removed the hide right away prior to hanging (as taught by my father) I have no experience with venison that has been aged with the skin on and would appreciate further input from those who go this route.
I agree with wabi that aging does seem to break down the tissue on an older animal and make it more tender. And I also agree that it is not needed on a younger animal. This has been my experience.
Hanging a deer with temperature fluctuations?
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We skin the same way hot or cold - it`s just a bit tougher when it`s been on longer. Interesting comment about the hide and the taste. We`ve left the hide on to help keep it clean until it`s ready to butcher as we have to hang it outside. Maybe the next one we`ll do right away and butcher immediately and see if we notice a difference.
Great thread!
Great thread!
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Sent from a mobile device - So spelling and grammar may be questionable!
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BOB VANDRISH
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Sure looks like we have a hot topic here!
Different strokes for different folks!
I want to add a few more comments-one is regarding the imparting of any off flavour to the meat by leaving the skin on-I find that how the meat tastes has more to do with what they have been eating than anything else.
Rural deer,that have access to soya or corn crops have a consistently milder taste compared to deer that have come from heavy woods.
I also find that freezing and then thawing the cut up meat will relax it considerably.
Freshly shot deer that have been running tend to be rubbery if they are cooked fresh before this freeze/thaw process. Again,IMHO!
As far as removing the hide anytime later,it is a technique that my buddy spotted in a hunting magazine many years ago,and we have been doing it ever since.
You cut off all four legs,make an incision up the inside of all four legs from the end of the leg to the cavity,then slit the skin outside the rib cage to just under the base of the skull,and then make a cut all the way around the neck,and peel that back far enough to be able to place a golf ball under the nape of the neck on the hair side.
You need a 6 foot length cable with loops on both ends to go to the next step.
From here there are variations as to what you do,but we place two cars far enough apart to place the deer on a clean poly sheet on the ground in between the two,then tie the head to one vehicle and with a looped cable gripping the golf ball through the skin,and tie the other looped end to the other vehicle,gradually pull the skin off like peeling a banana.
It takes you longer to make all the incisions,as peeling it just takes a couple of minutes.
I will add some comments later about fresh versus aged taste with the hide on,as my last deer had to be done the next day,as it had to be deboned in order to bring back to Ontario.
The MNR will not allow whole deer to be brought back due to the risk of CWD.
I will cook up some and pass judgement on the taste compared to deer taken from the same wooded area in the past.
Long winded,but enjoyable to share with all of you.
Different strokes for different folks!
I want to add a few more comments-one is regarding the imparting of any off flavour to the meat by leaving the skin on-I find that how the meat tastes has more to do with what they have been eating than anything else.
Rural deer,that have access to soya or corn crops have a consistently milder taste compared to deer that have come from heavy woods.
I also find that freezing and then thawing the cut up meat will relax it considerably.
Freshly shot deer that have been running tend to be rubbery if they are cooked fresh before this freeze/thaw process. Again,IMHO!
As far as removing the hide anytime later,it is a technique that my buddy spotted in a hunting magazine many years ago,and we have been doing it ever since.
You cut off all four legs,make an incision up the inside of all four legs from the end of the leg to the cavity,then slit the skin outside the rib cage to just under the base of the skull,and then make a cut all the way around the neck,and peel that back far enough to be able to place a golf ball under the nape of the neck on the hair side.
You need a 6 foot length cable with loops on both ends to go to the next step.
From here there are variations as to what you do,but we place two cars far enough apart to place the deer on a clean poly sheet on the ground in between the two,then tie the head to one vehicle and with a looped cable gripping the golf ball through the skin,and tie the other looped end to the other vehicle,gradually pull the skin off like peeling a banana.
It takes you longer to make all the incisions,as peeling it just takes a couple of minutes.
I will add some comments later about fresh versus aged taste with the hide on,as my last deer had to be done the next day,as it had to be deboned in order to bring back to Ontario.
The MNR will not allow whole deer to be brought back due to the risk of CWD.
I will cook up some and pass judgement on the taste compared to deer taken from the same wooded area in the past.
Long winded,but enjoyable to share with all of you.
Bob Vandrish.
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Pydpiper
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Snow is pretty much out of the question, I just brought a roll of freezer paper home and the wife is in the front lawn raking leaves with a t-shirt on.
I hustled around this morning to get everything I need to get this done and in the meantime decided to build a make shift cooler for the most outstanding animal I have ever laid eyes on..
He is maintaining a nice consistant 7 degrees.
I hustled around this morning to get everything I need to get this done and in the meantime decided to build a make shift cooler for the most outstanding animal I have ever laid eyes on..
He is maintaining a nice consistant 7 degrees.
If you are not willing to learn, nobody can help you, if you are willing, nobody can stop you.
A bowhunter with a passion for shooting firearms.
WMU 91
Boo string
A bowhunter with a passion for shooting firearms.
WMU 91
Boo string
hanging deer
Good post and very interesting to see all the different perspectives. I am in a somewhat similar position. I've had two deer hanging in my garage since Saturday morning, but the temperature has been 5 or less every day. They're in there because my butcher had no room for them at the time. I'm hoping he can take them later today or early tomorrow morning. His advice to me was not to remove the hide because as long as the night time low was near zero (it's been below most nights) the hide would insulate the deer. Consequently, even if the daytime high was 10 or 11, the deer would never reach that temperature, unless it stayed warm for a prolonged period. Instead, the temperature would start to cool off well before the deer's temperature hit the daytime high, and then would cool again at night.
I'm not suggesting this would apply in your case, as I have no idea what the nightime lows are, nor how long during the day the temperature is at or near 10.
To be safe, I'd carve it as soon as possible.
I'm not suggesting this would apply in your case, as I have no idea what the nightime lows are, nor how long during the day the temperature is at or near 10.
To be safe, I'd carve it as soon as possible.
I started to laugh when I read what Bob wrote above. It brought me back to Colorado in the mid seventies to an Elk hunt I was on with several friends. We were young and I was fresh out of the army and we were all invincible. We had survived the war and we were, shall we say, enjoying life to the fullest. Anyway, one of our party had some how managed to put an arrow into a cow elk (no small feat considering we had never hunted elk before) and we had her hanging in a tree at our camp. That night as we were sitting around the campfire telling lies, drinking and generally doing what young men without a care in the world are prone to do, just loving life. A discussion ensued regarding the processing of the cow elk and it was decided that we would skin her and quarter her and take her home in that manner. I had wanted to do this right away when we first got to her on the side of the mountain where my buddy shot her. But they didn’t buy that idea so it took like seven of us breaking our backs hauling her to a site where we could get one of the trucks and load her into the pick-up bed. When we got her back to the camp, one of the guys tied a loop around her neck and we pulled the truck under a tree, looped the rope over a branch, and hoisted her up as far as we were able and then drove the truck out from underneath the tree. And there she was, in all her glory, looking like a bad dream out of the old west, and hanging from that tree. And we did all this while we were still sober!BOB VANDRISH wrote: From here there are variations as to what you do,but we place two cars far enough apart to place the deer on a clean poly sheet on the ground in between the two,then tie the head to one vehicle and with a looped cable gripping the golf ball through the skin,and tie the other looped end to the other vehicle,gradually pull the skin off like peeling a banana
Anyway, back to the campfire. By now we are anything but sober and I told the group that we always skinned our whitetails right away back in Texas as we thought the meat was better that way. The group seemed to buy into the theory and it was decided that we would skin her right away and let her hang skinless through the night. One of the guys had read about skinning an animal much in the same way that Bob told us about in his post. We didn’t have a golf ball but one of the guys trimmed enough skin around the neck that he could ball it up and tie a rope around it. The rope was then played out and attached to the trailer ball on one of the four wheel drive pickup trucks. We selected the most sober amongst the group to get behind the wheel and slowly go forward in the truck until the skin had been pulled off the cow elk.
I stood back and grabbed another beer to watch the process and admire our handiwork as the poor gal lost her skin. The truck creped forward foot by foot but the skin was not being pulled away what-so-ever. The only thing that was happening was the branch of the tree kept bending further and further toward the truck and the cow elk’s neck just seemed to be getting longer and longer. And then there was a crack like a rifle shot and the rope attached to the trailer hitch broke. As I looked up I saw the poor cow elk being launched skyward as the branch rebounded and created a natural catapult. The whole picture in my beer influenced vision was just surreal. It looked like one of Santa’s reindeer on steroids climbing though the night illuminated by the light of our campfire. Later, we walked off the distance and she managed to go a little over forty feet!
It was one of those situations where everybody just looked at each other in total astonishment and then everyone just broke out laughing. It was the type of laughter that makes your sides hurt but you just can’t stop.
I still touch base with several of those guys around the holidays and without failure the flying elk will come up and we all laugh once again about what happened.
So Bob, you will forgive me if I don’t try your method of skinning the whitetail. I went down that road once and I don’t think I could survive another journey down that trail.
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BOB VANDRISH
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Mike,that sounds like you tried to take her coat off without undoing the zipper!!LOL!!
It sure is a crackerjack tale,if there ever was one!
Save it so you can pass it on to your grandkids!
So far,touch wood,we have never had the catapult trick like you had happen.
You need a few beers under your belt to appreciate a story like that!
It sure is a crackerjack tale,if there ever was one!
Save it so you can pass it on to your grandkids!
So far,touch wood,we have never had the catapult trick like you had happen.
You need a few beers under your belt to appreciate a story like that!
Bob Vandrish.
Mike, you sure have some good writings here. That one was right at the top. Thanks for my good laugh
Cheers
and still laughing...
Cheers
and still laughing...
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i C/P this from another site... i cut my deer up in 12hours from the time i killed it and it was fantastic all my deer will be done this way from now on
My qualifications to make these statements are as an MD and Coroner.
Adrenaline does only a few things: increasing heart hate and blood pressure, and permit sugar to enter muscle cells to burn for energy.
Adrenaline does not make meat taste like anything. It is a natural and continuously present substance in the blood steam of all mammals.
Lactic acid is produced in many organs when they try to metabolize glucose/sugar in the absence of oxygen. In physiological quantities-including death- it has no taste.
When a deer is running it might produce a tiny bit of lactic acid. Same as you do if you run very fast for a short distance.
When a mammal dies, it?s brain dies first. The muscle tissue can metabolize for many hours. Because it is at rest the brain sends no messages any more. The muscles slowly burn their glycogen/sugar stores. But there is no oxygen. So lactic acid quickly forms. This is a natural event at death. So the myth that a running deer with lactates is tough is just that! A myth!!! Lactate is part of death and running before death hardly adds anything extra to it. It is produced for many hours after an animal dies.
Eventually as the energy stores are burned away the muscle can no longer stay in their rested state. Calcium in the blood stream flows into the muscles. That causes muscle contraction. That is commonly called rigor mortis. It occurs many hours after brain death. I personally don?t think it makes a big differences is tenderness. I?ve cut meat before an after rigor mortis has set in and found no difference
Commercial meat is hung for 2-3 weeks. That definitely tenderizes it by cellular enzymes being released and degrading tissue toughening collagens. But if you try to hang animal shot nasty through the chest for that long you will get rotten meat because it is still not the clean kill of an abattoir.
The longer it takes for an animal to die from any violently inflicted wound, the more likely it is that pathogenic bacteria will disseminate through the blood stream from the original wound. These bacteria are the cause of gamey taste. They infect all tissues. As they replicate they produce waste products. At first you call it gamey. Eventually as it gets worse you call it rotten.
If you think death was not swift, get your deer cut up and frozen as quickly as possible. Then there will be no bad tastes.
My qualifications to make these statements are as an MD and Coroner.
Adrenaline does only a few things: increasing heart hate and blood pressure, and permit sugar to enter muscle cells to burn for energy.
Adrenaline does not make meat taste like anything. It is a natural and continuously present substance in the blood steam of all mammals.
Lactic acid is produced in many organs when they try to metabolize glucose/sugar in the absence of oxygen. In physiological quantities-including death- it has no taste.
When a deer is running it might produce a tiny bit of lactic acid. Same as you do if you run very fast for a short distance.
When a mammal dies, it?s brain dies first. The muscle tissue can metabolize for many hours. Because it is at rest the brain sends no messages any more. The muscles slowly burn their glycogen/sugar stores. But there is no oxygen. So lactic acid quickly forms. This is a natural event at death. So the myth that a running deer with lactates is tough is just that! A myth!!! Lactate is part of death and running before death hardly adds anything extra to it. It is produced for many hours after an animal dies.
Eventually as the energy stores are burned away the muscle can no longer stay in their rested state. Calcium in the blood stream flows into the muscles. That causes muscle contraction. That is commonly called rigor mortis. It occurs many hours after brain death. I personally don?t think it makes a big differences is tenderness. I?ve cut meat before an after rigor mortis has set in and found no difference
Commercial meat is hung for 2-3 weeks. That definitely tenderizes it by cellular enzymes being released and degrading tissue toughening collagens. But if you try to hang animal shot nasty through the chest for that long you will get rotten meat because it is still not the clean kill of an abattoir.
The longer it takes for an animal to die from any violently inflicted wound, the more likely it is that pathogenic bacteria will disseminate through the blood stream from the original wound. These bacteria are the cause of gamey taste. They infect all tissues. As they replicate they produce waste products. At first you call it gamey. Eventually as it gets worse you call it rotten.
If you think death was not swift, get your deer cut up and frozen as quickly as possible. Then there will be no bad tastes.
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BOB VANDRISH
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Check the video on "10 Minute Deer Skinner"
This is basically the way we do the deer,except that we will make all the preparatory cuts on a hanging deer,and then put it on a tarp.
This is a commercial unit you can buy to skin a deer with two cables and a ball with a cover that prevents accidental slippage.
Watch the video to see how easy it is.
This is basically the way we do the deer,except that we will make all the preparatory cuts on a hanging deer,and then put it on a tarp.
This is a commercial unit you can buy to skin a deer with two cables and a ball with a cover that prevents accidental slippage.
Watch the video to see how easy it is.
Bob Vandrish.
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Grizzly Adam
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- Location: Decatur County, Indiana
Seems to me like the only advantage of that "peeling" method would be if the deer was cold and stiff. Otherwise, it would be slower and a whole lot more trouble than ripping a hide off by hand, which doesn't take nearly 10 minutes if the deer is fresh and warm ... doesn't take a golf ball, a cable, a tarp, a tractor, car or winch ... or other people, either. 
I will say that those who like to leave some old buck hanging for days to age probably need a tractor to get the hide off!
Different strokes for different folks is right!
I will say that those who like to leave some old buck hanging for days to age probably need a tractor to get the hide off!
Different strokes for different folks is right!
Grizz
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Pydpiper
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The hide came off easy, used the quad/winch golf ball technique and it worked great. Had to do a bit of fancy knife work around the arrow holes but the hide went from on to off in about 45 seconds.
I had myself set up to be disgusted by the whole process, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself, got a chance to see what is what in the world of different cuts of meat.. My wife's brother has a bit of a history in processing animals and walked me through it all in my shop.
I will get into it more later, but I was impressed and relieved at how much help hunters give other hunters when something needs to be done.
I had myself set up to be disgusted by the whole process, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself, got a chance to see what is what in the world of different cuts of meat.. My wife's brother has a bit of a history in processing animals and walked me through it all in my shop.
I will get into it more later, but I was impressed and relieved at how much help hunters give other hunters when something needs to be done.
If you are not willing to learn, nobody can help you, if you are willing, nobody can stop you.
A bowhunter with a passion for shooting firearms.
WMU 91
Boo string
A bowhunter with a passion for shooting firearms.
WMU 91
Boo string