This should be fun

[paulvallandigham]

You can get the adrenalin out with the blood when you soak the meat. The blood carries the adrenalin to the muscles, and it will still be in the blood when you process the meat. Unless you eat wild game daily, or slaughter your own meat, we all have become accustomed to eating meat bought in plastic wrap. Those animals slaughtered commercially are drained of blood before the body gets cold. The carcass is washed continually as it goes from one process to another down the line. There is no place for bacteria to stay that is not rinsed off several times. and then dried. The carcasses are cooled in huge coolers before being cut up and processed. Often, the carcasses are shipped whole to the grocer, where his own butchers cut up the meat, for packaging and sale. We eat, basically, bloodless meat, and that allows it to taste sweet, and not bloody like the liver you didn't like in grammar school. If you take the step of soaking the meat in vinegar or baking soda, or in salted water, and then rinse the vinegar, salt, or baking soda out in clean water after that, you will get pink, bloodless meat, that also has lost that adrenalin, and the lactic acids in the muscles that make it tough, and bitter. I also age my meat for one week before it is wrapped and frozen. That drains more blood, before it goes into the freezer, allows me to inspect, and rotate the meat twice daily, washing off, and pulling or picking off missed hairs, and other debris, and drying it before it goes back into the refrigerator in covered pots and bowls, and that tenderizes the meat, also. I not only don't get complaints about my wild game, I have people ask me what I did to make it taste so good, and tender?

If you are going to cook wild boar, after treating it as I have described, it can help improve and " sweeten " the flavor of the boar if you get some pork suet at the butcher shop, and wrap it around the meat before cooking. ( I am sure you have had meat cooked with bacon wrapped around it. Same deal. ) You can also marinate boar in wine, or apple juice or apple cider, which will help its taste, and break down tough sinew( You should have cut away in the first place).

 

[dlemaster]

Paul
Your thoughts on the care of game brought back a memory from a couple of years ago. My father and I weredeer hunting in Eastern Ohio and we both took very nice does. On the way home to Columbus it was pouring rain. We passed a big RV on the freeway, and tied across the front was a very nice buck. So here is this nice deer tied in front of the radiator, chest cavity up and all that road funk, oil, gas, and God knows what else is being dumped into the carcass. I'd be willing to bet his family doesn't like venison after that.
We always did a lot of our own butchering and one thing my dad insisted on was cleanliness. We always rinsed out our deer as soon as possible, get them to the checking station and back to get the hide off as soon as possible. He said you don't leave the hide on a beef or a hog and since the hair has all kinds of bacteria on it we get it away from the meat and don't let the hair side touch the meat if at all possible. The carcass gets a good rinse again then hang in the cooler for a couple of days to age just like beef or pork. We've never had a complaint about strong or gamey tasting venison.

Regards, Dave

 

[paulvallandigham]

Amen to that, Dave. I don't think hair touching the carcass is such a danger, but you certainly want to clean it off with water, then dry it with paper towels, or clean, dry, fresh cloth towels, And then consider wrapping it in Cheesecloth. I buy mine cheese cloth in the auto parts department of the discount department stores, where it is sold for polishing, or waxing cars. Its much cheaper than buying it in a cooking store. It comes woven in a stocking like tube, and You can stetch it open to completely engulf an entire carcass, or any part of one. The last time I bought it, I paid less than $2.00 for 7 yds, more than enough for 4 deer! Keep it clean, dry, and cold, which fight the three things needed to spoil meat: heat, moisture, and dirt. If you keep the meat below 38 degrees F., which is the temperature at which the water molecule is the most dense( actually 37.5, but who can read a thermometer that close?) you will inhibit spoilage as well as if the carcass is in any commercial cooler.

I see hunters taking their deer home with the hide on, strapped onto the top of their car, or truck, or on the trailer hauled behind the car, or truck, exposed to the fumes, road dust, heat, sun, etc. and can't imagine what they think venison is suppose to taste like. I doubt any of them would accept an invitation to my house for a beef cook out, if they knew I drove the steer carcass I was going to serve them cuts of beef from, home for 5-7 hours on the highway, exposed to all that, and not cooled. I suspect the same men would throw away any hamburger left on the kitchen counter for 5-7 hours in their own homes. Why then they treat venison that way is beyond my abilities to understand. I killed my first deer at 7 A.M. on day, and by the time I gutted it, hauled it out of the woods, took it to the check station, then got it back to camp where I removed the hide, the fat above the shoulders and rump was still warm to the touch, and the clock read 4 P.M. That tells you how well that hide insulates the carcass. You are absolutely correct to get that hide off as soon as possible, so you can cool all the carcass down. I remove the hind quarters, and put them in a plastic garbage bag, with a ten pound bag if ice inside with them, with the quarters wrapped in cheesecloth. The front legs are also wrapped and go into a separate bag with a 2 quart ziplock bag of ice( about 4 lbs.) in with them. The chest area goes into a third bag, with another ten lb. bag of ice inside the chest cavity, and wrapped in cheesecloth. I remove the legs below the knees, and the head which go into a separate bag. I cut out the tongue, heart, and liver, to save for eating, and they travel in their own bags in my cooler with ice. The legs and heads of does are thrown away as garbage, as I don't use those parts, yet. I may do so on my next hunt, however. The hide is folded on itself, and put in its own bag with ice to keep it from rotting. I have several hides done with the fur on, and several moe tanned with the hair removed, for clothing projects. Every season, I try to find something else I can use from a deer either as food, or a tool, so I throw out less and less.

But, first of all, I take care of the meat. I have had men who have eaten venison all their lives ask me what I do that makes it so tender, and taste so good. One friend filled 2 legal pages with my directions on processing the meat, so he could give to a friend who was also a deer hunter, and had eaten a loin roast I had given our mutual acquaintance. He had the hunter over for drinks, and barbecued venison, and the guy liked my venison so much, he insisted our friend call me the next day and find out in detail what I had done.

With my first wild boar, the plant that processed it left the meat full of dirt, bone chips, fat, sinew, gristle, etc. and I didn't expect that, so I just put the meat in my freezer, and found out when I took some out of the butcher paper. I did the best I could but much bacterial and enzymes had already been at work on the meat. It was tough, and not very pleasant to taste. The second boar I shot, I washed off all the meat before it was wrapped, I removed bone, fat, sinew, etc. before it was packaged, and it was much better tasting when we finally ate it. It also wasn't as tough. So, I do know the difference between badly processed boar, and properly processed boar. It does take more work to do it right, but it pays off with better tasting meat on the table.

 

[cptleo1]

I hope to have some more hog and deer pictures this weekend - We will see how it goes.

Early in the hunting game I discovered deer that I harvested with my bow tasted much better than deer we killed in front of our dogs.

I firmly believe that an animal calmly walking walking thru the woods browsing when it encounters a double lung shot is far superior table fair than one that has been running wide open for miles in front of a pack of walker hounds

I have killed 5 pigs over 400 lbs and they all ate just fine. The biggest bottomed out our scale (500 lbs). He caught a .270 mid-way between the eye and his ear. The front of his snout was the size of a coffee cup saucer. His hams were bigger than a lot of hogs we take.

We brought him out of the woods with a front end loader. Within 2 hrs he was skinned and packed on ice. My hunting buddies all told me I was wasting my time "CUZ A BIG BOAR HOG AIN'T NO GOOD TO EAT". Well it took the family a couple months to eat him but he ate just fine.

I don't know about that bacteria stuff but it makes sense to me. I was just raised that with fish,fowl or game the faster you get em on ice the better the meat is.

One other thing about meat quality that some one mentioned was bone dust from the meat saw will ruin a frozen piece of meat FOR SURE. For that matter freezing venison with the bone in seems to change the taste and not for the better.

No matter what I have tried with wild pigs of any size they, are not as tender as store bought but they are excellent table fare.

Kill em quick
Cool em quick
Cook em SLOW

Enjoy :thumbsup: