Planning to use Gutless method this year. I know a lot of people here put the meat in an ice chest tilted with the drain plug open and keep topping off the ice.

I've seen where people are very against that method l, saying that the meat shouldn't contact ice or water?

What say you? I don't have a meat locker...I do have a a few coolers

I built a platform in the bottom of my large coolers to keep the meat up out of the water, but I see zero issues with ice contacting the meat. I've been using the gutless method for a couple years now, and I routinely leave the meat iced down for 2 or 3 days until I have the time and energy to debone the quarters and bag it up for the butcher. He tells me all the time that I bring him the best, cleanest venison he sees all year.

I don't open the ice bags that helps some.

I've done about 30 deer with ice and drain open it works great with no problems

Underwater storage techniques preserved meat for early hunters

By Sally Pobojewski News and Information Services

By re-creating a way of life that vanished from the Great Lakes thousands of years ago, a U-M paleontologist has demonstrated how PaleoIndians living in the region at the end of the last Ice Age preserved meat from large animal kills by storing it underwater.

"Underwater caching turns out to be a simple and effective way to store meat for long periods. Fossils preserved at ancient cache sites suggest it was an important and common part of the winter-to-spring subsistence strategy of Ice Age hunters," says Daniel C. Fisher, professor of geological and biological sciences and curator of the Museum of Paleontology. Fisher presented results of his experiments at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Minneapolis last week.

Evidence of butchery and underwater meat caching by Ice Age hunters in North America was first discovered by Fisher in the late 1980s while he was excavating an 11,000-year-old mastodon found at the Heisler site in southern Michigan. Other examples of butchered mastodons were later discovered in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and New York.

Mastodons roamed the North American continent for millions of years until they suddenly died out approximately 10,000 years ago--soon after bands of PaleoIndians began moving across North America from Siberia via the Bering land bridge. This coincidental timing has led some paleontologists to believe that the animals were hunted to extinction, while others maintain climate change was responsible.

"In order to resolve the hunting-vs.-climate extinction debate, we needed to know more about PaleoIndian subsistence patterns," Fisher says. "We had many unanswered questions. Is it possible for small groups of hunters working with stone tools to quickly butcher a large animal and store the meat in a shallow pond? How long will the meat remain edible and what changes does it undergo?"

Fisher's experiments to test the viability of underwater meat preservation began in 1989 in the U-M's E.S. George Reserve near Hell, Mich. From autumn to mid-winter, Fisher anchored legs of lamb and venison on the bottom of a shallow, open-water pond and buried other meat sections in a nearby peat bog. Caches were left in place for up to two years and checked periodically for decomposition.

"The meat remained essentially fresh for most of the first winter," Fisher said. "By spring, progressive discoloration had developed on the outside, but interior tissue looked and smelled reasonably fresh."

The combination of cold water temperature and increased acidity in the meat produced by pond bacteria called lactobacilli, which can survive without oxygen, made the meat unpalatable to other bacteria that normally decompose dead tissue, according to Fisher. Laboratory analyses of meat retrieved from the pond and bog in April 1992 showed no significant pathogens and bacterial counts were comparable to levels found in control samples Fisher stored in his home freezer.

I had a very experienced butcher (meat processor) show me first-hand how to age my fresh deer meat in warm weather, without a walk-in cooler. Pack the meat in a large cooler with a good layer of ice on the bottom. Add a layer of meat, another layer of ice, etc, etc until full or done. Open the drain plug and allow to rain as ice slowly melts. Every day add layers of ice back, 5-7 days. Then cut into steaks, etc, etc, package and freeze. Ive been following his advice for 20 plus years and the venison turns out great. Even my non-wild game meat eating friends say its fantastic. Its aged perfectly and tender. YMMV.

Water on a warm cacrass is a bad thing. Water allows bacteria to grow on the surface of the meat and spread. That is on a warm carcass. Ice will chill it quickly to a safe temperature and the water is a non issue. I have friends that use the ice cooler method and it works one for them. No issue of food safety as long as adequate ice is used.

I just use frozen 1 gallon milk jugs. No leakage to deal with and cheaper than buying ice.

Btw those Coleman Extreme 150 quart coolers are as advertised..excellent. $64 bucks on sale at Wally World. No Yeti for this cat.

I've started doing it this way several years ago. my wife and daughter like the meat better done this way. my wife likes it since she is the one doing the butchering and packaging. this allows her to work at her own speed.

I ALSO potentially have the option of using an extra refrigerator in my basement. But the cooler method sounds easy and easy to clean up as well.

On another forum, there were people complaining about getting meat wet and turning it "Gray" etc.

one of my friends does it and he and his family almost exclusively eat wild game. ironically he is not a hunter and gets his venison from folks he knows who hunt

I myself keep my quarters in the bottom drawer of the fride (in plaatic bags) for 3 days, then cut up and freeze.

Frozen water in milk jugs, rotated back to freezer, as needed. Some half and some full gallon.

I have had it in water and ice for days,, works great

Seal the meat up in a couple of Contractor Trash Bags if you don't want water contact. If I Know I'm going to be out for a while I do that and then put ice cream salt on the ice. Believe me it'll stay plenty cold and you can add more ice and salt as needed.

JustSomeDude- Keep doing what your doing just put something in bottom higher than drain. I use an old timey freezer grate, some BBQ racks will work too-heck a cookie sheet with some rocks underneath-haha! I just throw a couple jugs of ice in there and switch them out each day or twice a day if needed. You can freeze water in 2 liter jugs if ya want-I use gallon jugs distilled water comes in as they are generally thicker. I keep 4-5 of them frozen out in the deep freeze anyway. ***** KEEP DRY!!!! do NOT put ice directly on meat as it initiates the growth of the "wrong type" of bacteria needed for the "controlled rot" you are wanting to replicate. Just keep meat 40F-45F degrees for a week or two depending on outside ambient temps and the rate of which your ice jugs are melting will help ya determine this. Get the meat off the bone!!! You can leave quartered up for a few days until ya get it home but then get that meat off there. Been doing this method for 30+ years and I fully process all my Game and have friends that are Docters that only eat venison from me as they know how I do it-lol. You can PM me when ya get your meat home and I will be glad to walk ya thru it if you like. Pat down the meat with clean towels-if you use paper towels use plain white ones so you can make sure you get all the blood off-wash the meat if ya have to as getting blood off is important and then get all the water off.

"Seal the meat up in a couple of Contractor Trash Bags"

Those plastic bags are not clean to a "food grade" standard from the factory. I suppose you could wash and dry them in preparation for use.

Do NOT seal the meat in nothing until you are ready to freeze it. Doing so will cause the meat to change in sporadic temps internally and create moisture/condensation "inside" the bags.

I have done it for years, cooler ice and water . Up to 3 days at a time on some. Best tasting meat ! But do what your comfortable doing. You will find there are all kinds of ways people will tell you to do or not to do . Good luck with how ever you decide to do it this year.

I have started doing the ice method and really like it. We seldom get enough cold weather for long enough to age venison. Using the cooler and ice, I can age it for a week to ten days if I want to go that long. The palatability of the meat is much improved over a hurry up processing because of warm weather. Having spent my entire career around meat packing plants and knowing the sanitation requirements, the deer processors here are a sorry excuse for a meat processing facility. It turns my stomach to see some of standard practices around some of those places.

Brad Lehmann +1 : ) that is exactly why I do my own! They don't even clean blades on anything from one deer to the next and lord knows what they have been exposed to prior to check-in.

Thanks guys....keep it coming. Little tips from people that have been doing this for a long time are very helpful.

TN has online checking. And where I'd like to hunt, you can't drag out so I have to get it right.

I think I have some roasting racks that might be good for the bottom of the cooler. I'll get that rigged up.

I have a set of game bags for packing out meat. And I'll line an old ALICE pack with a contractor bag for hauling. I'll keep coolers in my van with all of the processing gear and there's plenty of ice within a couple of miles of where I hunt.

It's opening weekend here in TN and it's highs in the upper 80's this week :( Temps are dropping next week

I've been doing the ice chest aging method for 25 years. I leave mine 4-5 day and have left it up to 7 days. Water on the meat is not even an issue. The drain being open solves it even if it were. Meat comes out nice and clean and chilled. I debone mine but have put quarters in on occasion. Adding salt to the ice the first day or two helps too.

""Seal the meat up in a couple of Contractor Trash Bags" Those plastic bags are not clean to a "food grade" standard from the factory. I suppose you could wash and dry them in preparation for use. "

Your just killed deer is not clean to food grade standards, and neither are your hands, knife or the ground that it is laying on. Not to mention if some keyboard allstar punctures the gut or bladder and drags hair all in the meat during field dressing. Maybe I should have said place in the bag rather than seal and setting off triggers, but they don't seal anyway. When some of you get done tripping over "seal", learn about the added chilling effect of salt on ice, which is used to depress the freezing point of the liquid surrounding your product which in this case is your freshly killed not food grade clean game carcass. However you would hopefully want to keep your swag separate from the brine and thus comes the bag which I guarantee is cleaner than your bloody meat quarter. Given that there is never shortage of expert advice here so you should have no trouble solving your potential issues.

What I'd drawn from all this discussion is that we humans have amazing immune systems. :D

yes you are right, there was a time when people ate deer with no ice,, just had to hang it up, they were hungry all year long,, not just in cooler weather,, I think cooking or smoking helped with that,, I lived in Tenn for 10 years, and if the deer ate your garden you could shoot them in the summer,,, lots of times my neighbor call me,, I would rinse the deer meat in cold well water first,, then ice it down till I cut it up for the freezer.,,,,keeping it cool the whole time is the key,, not so much if water touches it,, heck the meat has water in it anyway,, I think the wild meat is slower to spoil than other types of meat, anyway,, happy hunting and eating,,

John, pm sent.

Yep, history means nothing...even if it worked for folks before they had refrigerated containers or even coolers. It's ironic that people will still say don't have it in water when it is proven that it is not an issue at all. Temperature is the enemy...from 40 to 140, not water. Do some research on those who have done it successfully. Get the meat below 40 degrees as soon as possible and you will have time to keep it...water or not.

I have kept quartered venison in a cooler with ice tilted with the drain open LOTS of times...I'm still living to tell about it.

And when we were kids we drank from the garden hose in the summer...At 52 I still do, they say that's not good for you either....go figure

If you use a frozen water bottle add salt to the water before freezing and he will freeze and produce a much lower temperature. I've had it freeze foods that I kept in the cooler

Water and ice is like soaking the meat its ok especially in hot weather.

Humans have a pretty good immune system. Me drinking straight from the dog water bucket and 60 years later still alive, most things won't kill you, maybe get a good cleaning out now and then but overall we are pretty durable.

Hehe- truth be told we are no different than a bunch of Women at a pie contest! It's just wild game for us Men-folk.

wTk,

I just did a little research into adding salt to water to lower the freezing point. I calculate that you have to add at least one and three quarters cup of salt, to a gallon of water, to have it freeze at eighteen degrees F.

All beer freezes at 25degrees F. A few blocks of this colder than normal ice in a cooler.......

How fast do they thaw, relative to plain water? I plan on testing that and can report back.

Water reaches its maximum density at thirty-nine degrees. That's why the bottoms of most ponds do not freeze. That's why water in a jug expands as it gets colder.

David, Here is your tax dollar at work for you.

What Is Food Grade Plastic?

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requires that plastics used in food packaging be of greater purity than plastics used for non-food packaging. This is commonly referred to as food grade plastic. Plastics used to package pharmaceuticals are held to an even higher standard than food grade.

Food grade plastic does not contain dyes or recycled plastic deemed harmful to humans. However, this does not mean that food grade plastic cannot contain recycled plastic. The FDA has detailed regulations concerning recycled plastics in food packaging.

Another aspect of food grade plastic is matching the appropriate type of plastic to the food in question. Foods that are highly acidic or that contain alcohol or fats can leach plastic additives from the packaging or container into the food. As a result, you should only use plastic containers that are FDA approved for the particular type of food the plastic will come into contact with.

Finally, it should be noted that a plastic container can no longer be considered food grade if it has been used to store non-food items like chemicals, paint, or detergent.

http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/plastics.html

You worry about plastic a lot more than I do, what I would have gotten around to was that I put boned out meat into gallon freezer bags before in goes into a contractor bag for a further barrier against the brine. Sea water freezes at 28.8 degrees and is abot 35 grams of salt per litre, absolutely saturated salt water will not freeze until -21.1F. About a third of a box of rock salt with ice in a Yeti 65 will freeze a watermelon solid in short order. Salt makes the brine colder and depending upon the amount puts it below 32F. Ideal temp for keeping meat is 34-39 degrees F. About 2 good handfuls in a Yeti 65 will keep on the low side of that and keep your ice for about a week, your original ice. A body... Yours or a dead one of whatever species will lose heat 20 times faster in water as compared to the same air temp so obviously imersion will cool and keep meat faster and longer. Mileage may vary with different coolers, getting a thermometer and experimenting to find what is needed for desired results ahead of time would be smart.

I'm guessing that the clear plastic that bottled water is packaged in is food grade. You know, the ones they say not to let get hot or exposed to sunlight because contaminants will leach from the plastic into the water and cause cancer, probably especially in California.

I've been using the pack-it-in-ice method for about 10 years now (after 30 years of using other methods) and I prefer it to all others, as does my family.

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