WET AGING VENISON
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- čas přidán 26. 11. 2017
- #101: Information on wet aging venison, what we believe are the benefits, and how we do it. In other words, our contribution to the ongoing debate about aging venison. +AMDG
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#venison
#wetagingvenison
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Great video with a lot of information. Merry Christmas and God Bless...
Thank you - we appreciate the feedback. Merry Christmas and blessings to you and yours!
I think I missed the part about how do you actually do it?
Enroll Bambi in kindergarten
Bruce Truman piece of shit obviously you didn’t pay attention
No shit........ me to, that's why I clicked on this video......... what a joke 😂
This is guy absolutely right. I learned the value of aging by accident. I've always processed my own deer, and being in the South I can't rely on hanging outdoors. Our temps can swing into the 70s overnight in December. So I use an old refrigerator outside. Once I put the quarters of a 3.5 yr old rutting buck in the fridge, intending to let it age a little longer. However, I forgot about it for a full 3-4 weeks! When I opened the fridge door I was hit by a massive "offensive" smell and my heart sank. I'd ruined a whole deer!! (minus the straps). I pulled out the quarters and desperately washed them in the kitchen sink hoping I could save some small portion. After washing I noticed the offensive smell was gone, but *some* smell I couldn't identify remained. It wasn't a *bad* smell, just something I'd not detected on venison before. I decided to be the guinnea pig and cut a few small pieces off the hindquarter and cook quickly in a skillet. As it cooked it smelled great. The appearance was fine, too, after removing a thin layer of "crust" from the edges. Friends....let me tell you that was THE BEST venison I've ever put in my mouth, and I've been eating it for 45+ years! It was PERFECT. No, it wasn't wet aging, but I'm making the point that done right - even way past what we think is right - aging venison is absolutely critical in making it as good as it can be.
Just stumbled upon this video, October 2021. In order to be open and transparent, I spent 8 years as a meat cutter. Our store policy was that no beef would be allowed to be received unless it had a date stamp of at least 14 days. I always had two long loins set aside to hang for 21 to 28 days. These were for my "special" customers.
I am also a deer hunter. I hang my venison for at least 20 days. I judge it ready to cut when there is a film of white mold growing in the cavity. The mold is similar to the mold that grows on cheese. It is not poisonous. I leave the hide on the deer and only skin it just prior to butchering. I live in Ontario Canada where the temperature can get cold, and upon saying that my venison is hung in a garage with no heat or refrigeration.
***Important***The most important part for hanging the animal is to get rid of the body heat as soon as possible. If it is a warm day I stuff the cavity with bags of ice in order to draw out the body heat. Body heat cannot come out of an animal through the hide. If you do not get rid of the body heat the meat will get a sour odor. It is still edible though the smell is present until cooked. Once the body has cooled I then hang it and leave it for the 20 plus days. I have been doing this for over 40 years and have never lost a deer by spoiling. I have though enjoyed the best venison.
Thanks for taking the time to share that.
I have been researching aging of venison, and since I don't have a walk in cooler and really don't want to waste a bunch of meat, I will be giving this a try.
Great info and stories!
God Bless!
Well, your videos are always my favorite on youtube. Glad you had your "safety glasses" on with the chick on your shoulder! That was a hoot. And good to learn about the aging processes of meat. Thank you.
Wow - thank you for the kind words and continued support. We do appreciate it. Yeah, I was a bit concerned she might peck at ME, but she is a sweet bird. A crazy bird, but sweet. Later that afternoon I was out with them again, my wife texted, I was replying, and that hen jumped up ON my phone! She's like a cat!
Love the info, you made make sense for me
Thanks for sharing very interesting
You're welcome!
Great video and I completely agree. I have the good fortune of having a few different hunting buddies that have built walk-in coolers on their farms. We ALWAYS age our venison for a minimum of 1 week and will go to two weeks no problem. Everyone I've fed says it is the best venison they have ever had. 👍
in the UK hanging the deer in a chiller with its skin on for 5 to 14 days is std practice then Skin, butcher & Process as normal.
the skin protects the meat and prevents drying out. Lucky most of our species are fairly small compared to the USA so a Drinks Chiller with shelves out and a rail fitted do 1 to 2 at a time for home use .
So 34-36deg.. great interesting video, But do you store in salt water? Do you add vinegar? For how long exactly do you age and do you rinse and put in fresh bags every other day for smell ?? Either I missed it all or it's not a how to video and just a video praising wet aging.. I enjoyed the science behind it and presentation so giving a thumbs up and subscribing looking forward to future videos going into more details...
Yea I missed it too. I think he just calls it wet aging because he rinses it before and after? I dunno.
Awesome video. Very informative.
Thanks!
Do you tie up the trash bags before putting them in the fridge? Or are the bags left open?
Does the blood not pool at the bottom of the bag?
I have just washed the meat off and put it into 2 big stainless bowls and put into the fridge and every few hours I drain the fluid from the bowl. Is this still fine? The first deer set 2 days in fridge this second one 4 days. I read where some guy said if it doesn't hang and drip it can spoil setting in its juices. I dont see how this is true though. Also, do you ever let your deer meat soak in icy salt water before doing this to draw blood out? A lot of old timers around here soak in icy l/cold salt water overnight. Great video thanks!
I have been wet aging mine in milk for 10 days and taking it out every other day to rinse and clean to add new milk keeping the temp at 34 degrees. Is this not a good thing to do i dont want to cook it and get sick from it? Its my first time doing anything with venison I've only ate it one time and it did not taste good at all, this was bc the person didn't process it right and cooked it the same day it was ran.
I heard you could do this in a big cooler packed with ice and you leave the drain open as the ice melts it leaks out the blood and you just replace it with more ice is this possible
Great Video! Exactly the process I am researching. I just paid about 100 dollars for a butcher to process a doe I just harvested. After watching several videos, I am confident I can process it myself. I removed the shelves from an old frig and fabricated a way to hang the entire quarters (when and if I harvest another deer). My question is I would like to age the entire quarter instead of cutting it up first. My question is in your opinion can I maybe wrap the quarters in saran wrap or similar product or double bag as you showed or is there a problem with aging the entire quarter at once? The only problem I can possibly think of is the glands hidden in the quarters may filter a strong taste into the meats.
Great video and stories but what is wet aging?
Great Job and thank-you! ~Blessings +JMJ+
Sacred Wonders Thank you!
Hey bud, I have been wet aging my deer meat this year. The first one I did about 2 days. This past deer was in the fridge for about 4 days. I drained the blood off the meat a few times. I noticed when I was cleaning it up tonight before vac sealing and freezing that some of it had dried on the outside almost to a leather look. What caused this? Was it the draining of the blood? I trimmed those dry areas off and the meat was beautiful just under it. Thanks a lot
Apologies for the delay in reply. That tough/dry part is the what you get with dry aging meat. Fine beef is dry aged, but there is a lot more meat on a cow than a whitetail, so trimming off the leathery parts doesn't seem as wasteful.
I use ziploc bags and make sure to push out as much air as possible i go 7- 21 days depending on what the end product is going to be and my schedule..
Appreciate this video! I have been aging venison for several years. But I have done basically a dry age method. Either letting the deer hang without the skin for several days (if the temperature is right) or quartering the deer and aging it in the refrigerator. I wanted to find a new method because I feel like we lose meat (and time) in cutting away the dried meat on the outside. In a lot of cases that is silver skin but sometimes it isn't. So is the big difference here that you just cover it all in garbage bags? Do you put the whole quarters in the garbage bags and wrap them up tight? Any specific type of bag that is food safe? Thanks!
Tony, we also tried dry aging venison (quartered in the refrigerator) and agree that we felt we lost too much meat (although what remained was delicious). I suppose this isn't as big of an issue with beef, because there is simply so much of it. As to how we wet age, I realized after making the video that I should have been a bit more specific about the part you ask. We quarter out the deer and get as much other meat as possible. We rinse in cold water trying to remove blood and anything else that might have gotten on the meat while butchering. Then we dry it before placing it into heavy duty contractor bags (don't know that food safe is an issue, at least not for us given the short time venison is in them). We try to squeeze as much air out as possible before going into the refrigerator, but don't worry about it being airtight. Once we take the meat out, we rinse it again before processing down to final cuts, wrapping in freezer paper, and then freezer bags before going into the freezer. Hope this help, and thanks for the feedback and comment.
Super helpful! Thank you. Just finished a deer, but excited to try this option next time!
Don't take the skin off and it won't dry out skin after ageing if a whole carcass
So I tried the dry aging in the fridge with a quartered older buck. I rinsed and dried the meat and places on clean white towels at 37 degrees for 14 days. The one mistake I made was leaving grind parts inside metal bowls like neck meat and rib bone meat that I usually grind. I checked the fridge at about 10 days and it had a funk smell. At 14 days I pulled the meat and rinse thoroughly with cold water. I did not use bags or anything just let it sit in the 37 degree fridge the whole time. It had a sticky almost milky residue on the outside of the hams and shoulders. Once rinsed and washed real good the smell was gone. I was still leery about it.
I trimmed all the meat very clean getting all fat and white tendon material out along with normal discard material. After cutting and grinding once chili grind, them mixing with ground beef fat I ground again on a fine grind. The meat looked like store bought 80/20 burger. The tender loin is the best steaks from a deer I have ever eaten. Melt in your mouth tender. That being said the smell still has me gun shy about the burger. It was rank. Almost sour smelling. I am curious to try the bag wet aging method he described.
Great video.
The Morel of this Lesson is to take care of your venison from harvest to table. Nice.
Great video! Can I wet age in ziplock bags? Assuming the meat has already been quartered and cut up into cuts?
Absolutely. Most folks go a step further and shrink wrap the meat if that is how they plan to freeze it. We just do it this way, because after hunting, dressing out, and quartering the deer, we're usually done for the day. But yes, absolutely you could go ahead and put it in bags.
St. Isidore's Farm j
I quarter the deer and wrap each part with plastic wrap, I would refrain from using a garbage bag for it would not be considered a food grade wrap. The plastic wrap also eliminates air pockets because it is tight to the meat and therefore prevents the meat from drying out. 7-14 days in the fridge at 34-40 degrees. Works great, i have done it this way for years
Just curious if you wrap it in plastic wrap how does it leak out the blood
The past few years I started ice chest wet aging and butchering my own venison and its been the best venison we've had. Will never take it to a butcher again. This year I will have a spare refrigerator specifically for butchering and I'm hoping to do some dry aging in it.
Happy hunting and enjoy - one additional thought several people have mentioned is adding salt to the process. Checking out Samin Nosrat's book "Salt Fat Acid Heat" for more about the importance of salt in great tasting meat.
Hail from Raleigh bro! My old company took everybody to the angus barn as a work function it was grest
Memories. Went to the Angus Barn in the early 1970"s. Huge GREAT steaks.
So how do you wet age your venison? Are you just saying wrap it in plastic? Or, are you adding a brine? And, how long are you aging it before you freeze it?
Yes, rinse the meat, wrap it in plastic, stick it in the fridge and maintain 34 degrees for up to two weeks. Then process into cuts and freeze. That's how we do it. Pretty simple, not very complicated.
@@mcnewlane The video was not titled "HOW TO..." We wanted to explain how and why it works, not necessarily how to do it. Wet aging is not very complicated to do. Keep the meat at 34 degrees for up to two weeks (some people suggest you can go longer) before freezing. Seems that would have been a pretty short video.
@Gary W Why would you want to get rid of the gamey taste?
Totally agree with aging one way or another. After killing my first dear and butchering it that evening (almost 30 years ago) I decided to cook a steak the very next day. Bad idea. Almost gave up deer hunting until I found out about aging it for at least a few days (a few weeks are better) Great video.
Thanks. Aging really does make a huge difference with meat - even chickens. We helped friends process birds years back and decided to eat one that night. It was a cornish cross, so it should have been tender, but was really tough. Obviously in retrospect - it was still in rigor mortis.
Wondering if same result as your wet aging, we soak quartered venison in salted ice water in a large ice chest for one day, then replace ice water without salt for up to 5 days. Never bothered to check water temperature, but its probably stays very close to 34f.
The result is good flavored venison.
Do you think the ice water soak enables the enzymes to keep working?
Yes, seems to me the key is just not freezing the meat immediately. You're the second (actually the first) to mention brining as part of this. I learned a lot more about salt and meat this past year and how it dramatically improves flavor.
Will be trying your "wet aging" just back-straps in a plastic bag in refrigerator this year and compare to water curing with brine. Will update.@@StIsidoresFarm
Do you take it out of bags every day or so and change to a new bag to get blood off of meat?
No, we don't take the venison out of the bags until it is done aging. The idea with wet aging is that the meat ages in its own juices, so to speak. We wrap it up in the bags, put it in the fridge at 34 degrees and don't touch it for at least 14 days (we have even gone up to 21 days). Then we rinse and do final cuts before putting the venison into the freezer. This is a link to a high end butcher in NY that does a good job of succinctly explaining from the perspective of professionals.
St. Isidore's Farm what are your suggestions for ice chest aging? I put mine in cooler with a bed of ice then meat then ice. Leave cooler plug out to drain liquid out. I let it go for a week or so. Sound good to you?
Sounds really good. This is the way most folks have done wet aging for years in the absence of an extra refrigerator with space. Keep it on ice and make sure it drains.
Why did you cut the fat off of the back straps? Necessity or preference?
Appreciate the informative video.
Great question! Mostly what I removed off the backstrap was the silver skin (very little fat on a backstrap). We do remove what little fat is on the venison, but this is a preference not a necessity. I suppose I could do another video entirely about deer fat, but Hank Shaw over at Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook already did a fine job discussing the subject (and putting to rest the myth that all deer fat tastes bad) on his blog: honest-food.net/cooking-deer-fat/
remove most fat... Leaving the fat will give the meat a gamey taste. Trim it off where you can, some remaining is fine .
Think there are some great points but it's choppy and leaves out key points..You needed to explain how you put it in the bags ( best type of bags too) and for how long at the desired temp, then move onto the final details as straight forward as possible it would have been a great vid..I read in the comments about salt and you have been upgrading your method..Consider putting together a new well thought out vid of your method, it would get a lot of traffic and good comments....
Just cause you open the fridge doesn’t make the water change temp in that amount of time
Great video and info. Really well put together. Can't mess up the backstrap unless you overcook it. :) I have not wet aged but I am going to set aside some cuts next year and do a side by side. comparison.
Thanks! That would be really interesting to see the side by side results, even between different lengths of aging. What's fun is to read hunters debating this on forums and how wildly opposed they can be about it.
Serious Eats / the food lab has some info on dry aging without a walk in fridge if you're interested. From what I remember he used a mini fridge with a small computer fan for circulation.
We've tried dry aging venison, but felt we lost too much meat. With beef there is simply a LOT more meat, so losing some on the surface isn't as big of a deal. It does produce amazing quality and flavored meat - that is the real upside to dry aging.
St. Isidore's Farm True. I've never actually tried aging anything, just spouting off stuff I've read online haha
Well, the cool thing is that you're reading things like this!
As an educated cook (Culinary Institute) and 30 + years of dear hunting, I brine all my meat for 7 days as primals, 2 days for backstraps. I use coolers cleaned with bleach, 50% ice 50% water 3/4 cup of salt per gallon. After trying every method over the years I found brining to give the best, most consistent results.
Thank you for adding this information. Sadly (for me) I have only really learning about salt and how it improves meat in the past year. I can only imagine the benefits to brining as additional piece of "wet" aging. Hoping to try it this year!
+St. Isidore's Farm You're very welcome, good luck to you this season as well.
Mine is wrapped in trash bags on ice. 5 days, and flip, or change bags once.
You spoke for 12:30 and didn’t say one single word about what wet aging is or how it’s done. A complete waste of my time.
@@arthurrapson8183 what the fuck is wrong with you
@@Damarcus123 whats wrong with him is he is free from the consequences of saying some bombastic shit like "someone should kill you" in person by saying it from behind the safety and anonymity of his internet connection.. Its gone viral like a disease.
100%!!!
But FDA says not to wash meat due to the exposure to bacteria from water this include tap water
You know what else make meat tender ? A cuber . On a 130 lbs dressed whitetail there will be 35 lbs max of boned out meat . 20 lbs of grind , 15 of steak . All that is required before processing is that it cool off . Usually within 48 hours a deer can be cut up . You can let them hang or put it in a garbage bag in the fridge , but it’s not at all necessary . Only a venison snob would think otherwise . I like fresh meat , not partially rotted meat .
Best way to wet age? Place all meat in ice chest with ice. Drain bloody water off daily as the ice melts, add ice as needed. When the water runs out clean your done! Then process! This method has never fails me.
Buddy of mine suggested same thing. Thanks for confirming it. Gonna try it ( hopefully tomorrow)
That's how I do it
You don’t loose flavor in the meat when doing that?
shawn2x45 no!
That's how we do it.
Third coast craftman
when it's freezing and i shoot a deer i will leave it in the skin all winter hanging until spring or until it warms up and the deer defrosts.
dana mennerich u
Thank God you are not a food scientist. I have been a fan of science (and science fiction)
Sound quality is poor
If you come to my house for venison whether it's roast, steaks, stew or whatever, you will rave about it. It has nothing to do with aging. I've dry aged venison up to four weeks and now prefer to cut mine up in two to three days. If there was a difference, I'd know it because I am extremely fussy and take great pride in my venison. I grew up learning from my Dad (who was also very fussy) that it HAD to be aged and most of my life I had been aging my deer at least a week. After butchering some early archery deer years back the very next day, I found there to be no difference in taste and/or tenderness, so now, I butcher them as soon as I have a chance. Tip: it's all in taking great care from the field to cleaning and cooling the carcass and HOW YOU PREPARE IT!!!
I agree, I have not noticed a difference in the taste of my venison in all the things that I've tried except taking care of it properly (in field) and trimming the fat and silver skin off.
Use a mic or have a better audio equipment
Yeah, sorry about that, working on it - thanks.
Never even explained how to wet age........
Dude I hunted whitetails for 25 years, venison taste like shit, I would only eat it for survival purposes
Waste of time.
The video or wet aging venison?
Waste of time. Dialogue only
Omg get to the point
I learned nothing
We're sorry. Hope you have a good and blessed day.