Elk Meat Questions

[WapitiBob]

You can easily manage an Elk yourself. Two 120qt coolers with ice, adding ice as needed will keep your Elk. 11 days is a bit long for me so under those conditions I would look at one of the 5cf freezers at Home Depot. The GE model has temp control and is about $170. You could easily work up an elk in camp, separating all the muscles and keep them in the freezer till you got home. Soft thaw and cut/grind once there.

It's worth saying again, if your processor is mixing meat for burger or sausage, find a new one. Mine cleans the machine after every batch and for sausage, I have to provide the minimum burger myself.

 

[TRS_Montana]

Thanks, I had never heard of this, but way to not provide a link . http://www.beefresearch.ca/factsheet.cfm/dark-cutting-beef-116

Thanks for the link. I have always been on the fence as to whether stress makes a difference in the quality of meat you get from an animal. It seems the only evidence I have ever been provided is hearsay or an attempt to gauge the level of stress the animal I am eating was at when killed. I wonder just how many times this occurs in game animals...

 

[JLS]

Thanks, I had never heard of this, but way to not provide a link . http://www.beefresearch.ca/factsheet.cfm/dark-cutting-beef-116

My bad. I'll write 100 sentences for my transgression.

 

[JLS]

Thanks for the link. I have always been on the fence as to whether stress makes a difference in the quality of meat you get from an animal. It seems the only evidence I have ever been provided is hearsay or an attempt to gauge the level of stress the animal I am eating was at when killed. I wonder just how many times this occurs in game animals...

My guess is not very often. Think an opening day scenario where an animal is running with its tongue hanging out on a hot day. Or, possibly really tough winter conditions.

 

[sbhooper]

You can easily manage an Elk yourself. Two 120qt coolers with ice, adding ice as needed will keep your Elk. 11 days is a bit long for me so under those conditions I would look at one of the 5cf freezers at Home Depot. The GE model has temp control and is about $170. You could easily work up an elk in camp, separating all the muscles and keep them in the freezer till you got home. Soft thaw and cut/grind once there.

It's worth saying again, if your processor is mixing meat for burger or sausage, find a new one. Mine cleans the machine after every batch and for sausage, I have to provide the minimum burger myself.

This is right and just to add to that, no decent processor is going to cut up tainted meat. It is not hard to tell bad meat, when your nose gets close. Commercial processors piss me off.

All that I ever use is coolers and ice. We brought back two moose from Newfoundland a few years ago with coolers. We just kept draining water and replacing ice. The weather was warm coming back, but we had zero issues in three days of travel.

 

[MNElkNut]

We always add beef tallow before we grind instead of using deer/elk fat. Seems to reduce the gamey taste. If they did that, they might have had some tainted tallow that is the reason and you did nothing wrong.