Dealing with pooling blood on meat

[TimeOnTarget]

My gutless method and the OP gutless method must be very different if his had hide on it yet......

 

[sbhooper]

Incorrect.

I don't put a knife to any animal that is still alive, it is obviously dead, however done right there is still a lot of blood to be drained from a harvested animal in the field immediately after it has died. A lot comes out of the muscles, veins and arteries.

Gerald the school of thought with lung and heart shooting animal is valid one to drain blood and i know guys that happily do those shots for this reason, only thing to consider is there is a certain level of stress associated with putting a bullet in that animal and have it run off 80-150 yards before falling over. From a personal perspective i prefer to put them down straight away if possible, the ones for the table.

In the meat works i worked in as a young teenager after school the aim was to immobilise the animal with an electric stun gun, then slit its throat straight away and hang to drain blood. Obviously this can't be replicated in the field with wild animals, but i do prefer to create as less stress as possible.

That stunned animal was still kicking and its heart was still beating after the blood letting started-right? That makes all the difference.

 

[TheJason]

My gutless method and the OP gutless method must be very different if his had hide on it yet......

I've done both ways, there really isn't that much difference in the methodology of hide on vs. hide off. The hide on is much faster once you know where to make the cuts.

 

[nuevo_eph]

I've done both ways, there really isn't that much difference in the methodology of hide on vs. hide off. The hide on is much faster once you know where to make the cuts.

OP here: Right, I've done it both ways now. IMO, gutless means not gutting and leaves you the option of how you want to deal with the hide. Are you caping? Are you leaving it on? That's a fork later down the road after you already went the gutless path.

The question was asked whether the butcher knew soon or later that the meat was bad. Since it wasn't my cow and I didn't pick it up, I wasn't there to ask questions and a couple of weeks went by before I found out. I'll try to reach him soon but I doubt he remembers much from a butchering from mid-December. He's a busy guy, which is why I also doubt he stole any meat. He would have ample opportunity to skim off many customers vs. grabbing many pounds from one. Nor do I think he is a thief - he's a good guy from what I can tell.

I am guessing the meat lost was from the scrap bag, but that's at most just an educated assumption. It was the meat with lots of the rib trimmings, brisket areas, neck meat, and other scraps. It was also the bag with the pieces that had most of the blood on and therefore had a lot of the pieces that could have harbored bacteria, due to the multiple cuts and multiple surfaces.

LESSONS LEARNED FOR ME:

1) Ask around about that butcher. Just confirm my good assumptions.

2) Get that hide off in the field! (I'll look into whether to remove hide from quarters before getting off, I've only taken hide off quarters after in the one time I've done this. That was due to the number of helpers so that we divided the labor.)

3) Let everything cool as much as possible and make sure blood is scraped off.

4) Try to keep pieces as big as possible - as in as few cuts as needed.

5) Maybe next time I'll open myself up completely and record the process - if I'm lucky enough to help take care of one in the field. That would provide for one hell of a critique!

Thanks.

 

[schmalts]

Bleeding is not needed. Go ahead and bleed them if you want but plenty of hard core back country hunters here bleed them only through a bullet hole and don't lose the meat. Get the hide off and cool it before bagging it and the rest is history.