Wild Meat: You need to cool it down fast

OUTDOORS IN MAINE
By V. Paul Reynolds

Whether it’s hunting deer, bear, moose or elk, a meat hunter I have always been. And I have learned over the years that, once an animal is down, taking proper care of the meat pays off at the dinner table.

Early and proper cooling of wild meat is the key. Depending on the critter and the air temperature, the spoilage time really varies.

One of the saddest, most exasperating outcomes of a big game hunt that I have ever experienced happened to me a few years ago during a Colorado elk hunt. I shot a cow elk. It scattered with some others into an aspen grove and, despite a half-day search, the elk was nowhere to be found. There was no blood or hair, but it was an easy shot and a miss seemed improbable to me. By late afternoon a mountain snow storm moved in and kept us hunkered down at camp all the next day.

On day three, after the snow subsided, my elusive elk was located.

No dice

The 350-pound animal is upside down wedged between the cribwork of dead aspens piled upon each other. I am heartsick. The elk’s hindquarters are gone, presumably eaten by a wolf. The viscera stinks. In a futile, desperate act, I skin back the hide and hack out a backstrap. Rolling the backstrap in cleansing snow, I give it the sniff test. No dice. The meat is sour, gone bad.

I leave it all to the wolves and who-knows-what critters, and walk away. Glancing back, I realize with a shake of my head that I had walked within a few feet of my elk on the first search. It had departed in the opposite direction of the other fleeing elk. I never saw it go, so fixated was I on the other elk. Except for a protruding rear hoof and a few inches of rear leg, the animal was all but invisible.

Short window

By rights the elk should not have spoiled. The mountains remained snow covered with a low cloud cover. Elk, however – like a bear or moose – have thick hides that just don’t dissipate body heat well after the kill. This, coupled with the fact that my elk carcass was jammed down in between two large aspen deadfalls, conspired to prevent natural cooling that would have taken place if air had been able to circulate around the meat.

Lesson learned. Get the hide off as soon as you can and, at the very least, get large volumes of ice into the critter’s field-dressed body cavity as soon as it is practical. The idea, again, is to get the air moving around the meat, even if you think it is too cool to worry about.

If you are going to be transporting large cuts of deboned wild meat in a cooler, here are some tips you may not have considered. They are excerpted from a useful article titled “Science of Cool” by Bugle Magazine’s hunting editor, PJ Delhomme. “Most people don’t realize that you have to start with a cool cooler.” That is to say for best, long-lasting cool downs of your wild meat, pre-cool the cooler, no matter how good a cooler it is. If you can ice down or pre-cool the meat before placing it in a pre-cooled cooler, that’s even better.

For extended periods of time don’t overlook the advantages of combining a layer of dry ice with your conventional blocks of ice. As conventional ice melts the dry ice tends to refreeze it!

Because of the warmer weather during Maine’s bear and moose season, it’s common knowledge that wild meat spoilage is highest during these seasons. So while you make plans to sight in your rifle and do some advance scouting you might also want to have a critter cool-down plan. It can make all the difference when you put the meat on the table.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has three books. Online purchase information is available at www.maineoutdoorpublications.com.